2 teens die in Antioch crash: 'I just saw headlights spin'

Two teenagers were killed when their SUV crashed into a tree in Antioch in heavy rain, authorities said.

Joel Wittkamp, 16, and Ashley Seay, 17, were traveling west when their Chevrolet Trailblazer left the road in the 27000 block of Wilmot Road around 7 p.m. Monday, according to the Lake County sheriff's office. The SUV went through a yard before hitting the tree, the office said.

Both teens died on the scene. Joel, who was driving, was from Antioch and Ashley was from Lindenhurst, according to the Lake County coroner's office.

Authorities said they believe weather contributed to the crash. A man who lives where the crash occurred said it was raining hard when the accident occurred.

"It was pouring," said Tim Staples.

Staples said he was home when "I just saw the headlights spin ... We ran out and you could see the car was in the tree, the tree was on the car ... a mangled car I couldn't recognize."

"We checked the scene," he said. "We had flashlights and we looked inside. It didn't look promising, it looked really bad."

He said firefighters reached the scene in 7 or 8 minutes. "It took them an hour to get them out. They had to take the top of the car off."

Staples said the car hit a tree he had planted on his property 30 years ago.

Joel attended Antioch High School, officials said.

"We have counselors who are available," said Principal John Whitehurst. "Someone is following the young man’s schedule. If there were kids close to him, we are identifying who they are."

Whitehurst noted an earlier tragedy last November, when freshman Nicole Parfitt, 14, and her father were killed in a plane crash. "I know this is going to bring back some really unfortunate memories with kids intimately familiar with the incident," he said.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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Burger King takes down Twitter account after hack attack

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hackers breached the Twitter account of fast-food chain Burger King, posting the online equivalent of graffiti and sometimes making little sense.

Burger King Worldwide Inc suspended its Twitter account about an hour after it learned of the attack at 12:24 p.m. EST on Monday, company spokesman Bryson Thornton said in an email.

"It has come to our attention that the Twitter account of the BURGER KING® brand has been hacked," the company said in a statement. "We have worked directly with administrators to suspend the account until we are able to re-establish our legitimate site and authentic postings."

Several tweets carried the logo of Burger King's larger rival McDonald's, but spelled the latter company's name incorrectly. Others sought to tarnish Burger King, the third-largest U.S. hamburger chain, and its employees.

"Just got sold to McDonalds," one tweet said, adding "FREDOM IS FAILURE".

(Reporting by Ilaina Jonas; Editing by Dale Hudson)

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Pistorius says no intentions to kill girlfriend

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Oscar Pistorius told a packed courtroom Tuesday that he shot his girlfriend to death by mistake, thinking she was a robber. The prosecutor called it premeditated murder.

The double amputee said in an affidavit read by his lawyer at his bail hearing that he felt vulnerable because he did not have on his prosthetic legs when he pumped bullets into the locked bathroom door. Then, Pistorius said in the sworn statement, he realized that model Reeva Steenkamp was not in his bed.

"It filled me with horror and fear," he said.

He put on his prosthetic legs, tried to kick down the door, then bashed it in with a cricket bat to find Steenkamp, 29, shot inside. He said he ran downstairs with her, but "She died in my arms."

Prosecutor Gerrie Nel on Tuesday charged the 26-year-old athlete and Olympian with premeditated murder, alleging he took the time to put on his legs and walk some seven meters (yards) from the bed to the bathroom door before opening fire. A conviction of premeditated murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in jail.

The Valentine's Day shooting death has shocked South Africans and many around the world who idolized Pistorius for overcoming adversity to become a sports champion, competing in the London Olympics last year in track besides being a Paralympian. Steenkamp was a model and law graduate who made her debut on a South African reality TV program that was broadcast on Saturday, two days after her death.

The magistrate ruled that Pistorius faces the harshest bail requirements available in South African law.

Nel told the court that Pistorius fired into the door of a small bathroom where Steenkamp was cowering after a shouting match. He fired four times and three bullets hit Steenkamp, the prosecutor said.

"She couldn't go anywhere. You can run nowhere," prosecutor Nel argued. "It must have been horrific."

Pistorius sobbed softly as his lawyer, Barry Roux, insisted the shooting was an accident and that there was no evidence to substantiate a murder charge.

"Was it to kill her, or was it to get her out?" he asked about the broken-down door. "We submit it is not even murder. There is no concession this is a murder."

He said the state had provided no evidence that the couple quarreled nor offered a motive.

Nel rebutted: "The motive is 'I want to kill.'"

There were affadavits from friends of Pistorius and Steenkamp read out by defense lawyer Roux in the bail hearing.

The statements described a charming, happy couple. The night before the killing, they said, Pistorius and Steenkamp had canceled separate plans to spend the night before Valentine's Day together at his home.

As details emerged at the dramatic court hearing in the capital, Steenkamp's body was being cremated Tuesday at a memorial service in the south-coast port city of Port Elizabeth. The family said members had arrived from around the world. Six pallbearers carried her coffin, draped with a white cloth and covered in white flowers, into the church for the private service.

June Steenkamp, the mother, said the family wants answers.

"Why? Why my little girl? Why did this happen? Why did he do this?" she said in an interview published Monday in The Times newspaper.

Outside the court, several dozen singing women protested against domestic violence and waved placards urging Pistorius be refused bail. "Pistorius must rot in jail," one placard said.

South Africa has some of the world's worst rates of violence against females and the highest rate in the world of women killed by an intimate partner, according to a study by the Medical Research Council. Another council study estimates a child or woman is raped every four minutes. While homicide rates have dropped, the number of women killed by current or former partners has increased, said the council's Professor Rachel Jewkes. At least three women are killed by a partner every day in the country of 50 million, she said.

Steenkamp campaigned actively against domestic violence and had tweeted on Twitter that she planned to join a "Black Friday" protest by wearing black in honor of a 17-year-old girl who was gang-raped and mutilated two weeks ago.

What "she stood for, and the abuse against women, unfortunately it's gone right around and I think the Lord knows that statement is more powerful now," her uncle and the family spokesman Mike Steenkamp said after her memorial.

He said the family had planned a big get-together at Christmas but that had not been possible. "But we are here today as a family and the only one who's missing is Reeva," he said, breaking down and weeping.

Pistorius was born without fibula bones and had them amputated when he was 11 months.

The man known as the Blade Runner because of his running prostheses has lost several valuable sponsorships estimated to be worth more than $1 million a year.

On Tuesday, the athlete was ousted from a pro-gay campaign being launched in Cape Town, organizers said. In a video axed from the campaign, Pistorius says "You don't have to worry. You don't have to change. Take a deep breath and remember, 'It will get better.'"

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Associated Press writer Michelle Faul contributed from Johannesburg and AP photographer Schalk van Zuydam from Port Elizabeth.

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Hip implants a bit more likely to fail in women

CHICAGO (AP) — Hip replacements are slightly more likely to fail in women than in men, according to one of the largest studies of its kind in U.S. patients. The risk of the implants failing is low, but women were 29 percent more likely than men to need a repeat surgery within the first three years.

The message for women considering hip replacement surgery remains unclear. It's not known which models of hip implants perform best in women, even though women make up the majority of the more than 400,000 Americans who have full or partial hip replacements each year to ease the pain and loss of mobility caused by arthritis or injuries.

"This is the first step in what has to be a much longer-term research strategy to figure out why women have worse experiences," said Diana Zuckerman, president of the nonprofit National Research Center for Women & Families. "Research in this area could save billions of dollars" and prevent patients from experiencing the pain and inconvenience of surgeries to fix hip implants that go wrong.

Researchers looked at more than 35,000 surgeries at 46 hospitals in the Kaiser Permanente health system. The research, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, was funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

After an average of three years, 2.3 percent of the women and 1.9 percent of the men had undergone revision surgery to fix a problem with the original hip replacement. Problems included instability, infection, broken bones and loosening.

"There is an increased risk of failure in women compared to men," said lead author Maria Inacio, an epidemiologist at Southern California Permanente Medical Group in San Diego. "This is still a very small number of failures."

Women tend to have smaller joints and bones than men, and so they tend to need smaller artificial hips. Devices with smaller femoral heads — the ball-shaped part of the ball-and-socket joint in an artificial hip — are more likely to dislocate and require a surgical repair.

That explained some, but not all, of the difference between women and men in the study. It's not clear what else may have contributed to the gap. Co-author Dr. Monti Khatod, an orthopedic surgeon in Los Angeles, speculated that one factor may be a greater loss of bone density in women.

The failure of metal-on-metal hips was almost twice as high for women than in men. The once-popular models were promoted by manufacturers as being more durable than standard plastic or ceramic joints, but several high-profile recalls have led to a decrease in their use in recent years.

"Don't be fooled by hype about a new hip product," said Zuckerman, who wrote an accompanying commentary in the medical journal. "I would not choose the latest, greatest hip implant if I were a woman patient. ... At least if it's been for sale for a few years, there's more evidence for how well it's working."

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Online:

Journal: http://www.jamainternalmed.com

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McCready's death renews questions for Dr. Drew

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The criticism of Dr. Drew Pinsky spread on the Internet almost as quickly as news of Mindy McCready's death.

The country singer with the tumultuous personal life became the fifth cast member of his "Celebrity Rehab" series to die since appearing on the show and the third from Season 3. The previous deaths stirred up rumors of a curse and a debate about the show's helpfulness. McCready's apparent suicide upped the pitch of the reaction, however.

Singer Richard Marx on Twitter compared Pinsky to Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the so-called suicide doctor: "Same results."

Marx backed off later Monday, saying the crack went too far. But he restated his thoughts in a way that summed up much of the reaction in the first 24 hours since the 37-year-old McCready's death Sunday afternoon in Heber Springs, Ark.

"It is, however, my opinion that what Dr. D does is exploitation and his TV track record is not good," Marx wrote.

VH1's "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew" is not currently on the air. Pinsky switched his focus to non-celebrities in Season 6 last fall and changed the title to "Rehab." The show spawned two spinoffs, "Sober House" and "Sex Rehab."

Season 3, shot in 2009, featured McCready, former NBA star Dennis Rodman, actors Tom Sizemore and Mackenzie Phillips, former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss and a handful of lesser known celebrity types.

McCready was a sympathetic character on the show and appeared to be far less damaged than her fellow cast members, some of whom experienced fairly graphic symptoms of opiate withdrawal in front of the cameras. McCready suffered a seizure while on the show, further endearing her to Pinsky and the others.

She said in a 2010 interview with The Associated Press that she initially turned Pinsky down.

"But Dr. Drew said something to me that just mowed me over literally, just floored me," she said. "He said, 'You've been being treated for the symptoms of what's wrong with you, not the problem. And you're going to have to put your family aside for a moment, put their feelings aside for a moment and worry about you because if you don't get better, it doesn't matter what your family thinks. You're not going to be there anymore.'"

Pinsky diagnosed her with "love addiction" during the series' run and called her an "angel" in the finale. In an interview with The Associated Press several months later, he said McCready had a good shot at recovery if she remained in treatment.

"Like with anybody I treat, it's really up to them," Pinsky said. "I never know. If they do the work they're supposed to do, yes (there can be success). If she does the work it will be great. It's up to her how much of that she does, how much she feels she needs to do. It seems like she's doing rather well right now so I hope she continues to do so."

Three years later, she's dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot to the head. McCready walked away from treatment several days ago after her father asked a judge to intervene. Her body was found on the front porch of a home she shared with David Wilson, the longtime boyfriend and father of her youngest son who appears to have killed himself in the same spot last month.

Pinsky wasn't available for comment, his publicist said, but he issued a statement Sunday night that noted he'd spoken with McCready recently.

"She is a lovely woman who will be missed by many," the statement said. "Although I have not treated her for a few years, I had reached out to her recently upon hearing about the apparent suicide of her boyfriend and father of her younger (child). She was devastated. Although she was fearful of stigma and ridicule she agreed with me that she needed to make her health and safety a priority. Unfortunately it seems that Mindy did not sustain her treatment."

A lack of continued treatment also appears to have led to the deaths of McCready's Season 3 castmates Mike Starr, bassist for Alice in Chains, and Joey Kovar, a "Real World" participant. Los Angeles riots spark Rodney King and actor Jeff Conaway also have passed away. Starr and Kovar overdosed and King was found dead in his pool with alcohol and marijuana in his system. Conaway was initially thought to have overdosed, but died of pneumonia and an infection.

Bob Forrest, a chemical dependency counselor who appeared on Season 3 of "Celebrity Rehab" and continues to work with Pinsky, said a discussion about mental health and substance abuse issues is important. But attacking Pinsky has only distracted from the real issues.

"Regardless of your feelings about how we do it with the TV show, calling Dr. Drew 'Dr. Kevorkian,' what kind of dialogue is that?" he said. "It's a good headline. We're going through a growth spurt in regards to who we are as a country. I really feel there's something going on in America beyond Mindy McCready's death."

The most recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show there were 38,364 suicides in the U.S. in 2010 — an average of 105 a day. Thirty-three percent of suicides tested positive for alcohol in 2009 and 20 percent for opiates, including heroin and prescription painkillers.

There were no immediate numbers available for suicides or overdoses post-rehab, but a patient with substance abuse problems is a higher risk for an attempt.

Dr. Sharon Hirsch, an associate professor in the University of Chicago's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, says patients can get trapped in the yin and yang of addiction. She was not familiar with McCready's case, but noted people abusing alcohol or drugs have a lower impulse control. And their lows when they're off drugs become more difficult to overcome, also lowering their resolve.

Dealing with loss, as McCready was, also increases risk, especially around anniversaries.

Hirsch said mental health and addiction issues have to be taken as seriously as a heart attack.

"Depression and substance dependence are all very malignant disorders and I think people forget that," Hirsch said. "They think of cancer, strokes and heart attacks killing people, but depression, substance abuse and eating disorders, too, all kill people. There are very, very high rates of deaths in those illnesses."

Pinsky's shows drew attention to the struggle. But did they help patients? Pinsky has taken an interest in cast members after the shows end and referred them to continuing treatment. But ultimately Hirsch wonders who was on call the last time McCready pondered killing herself.

"One of the key components of any treatment is to talk confidentially with your treatment provider about every aspect of what is going on with you, to be able to get the best care you can," she said. "I just don't know how that could occur in the context of an internationally televised show. And so it would be difficult for me to envision it as a complete treatment program. ... It just really strikes me as entertainment and not as treatment."

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Follow AP Music Writer Chris Talbott: http://twitter.com/Chris_Talbott.

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2nd major hotel for McCormick Place

The agency that owns McCormick Place announced Tuesday it will build a second hotel near the convention center complex, with plans calling for a 1,200-room facility that can serve as a headquarters for trade shows and conventions.

The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, also known as McPier, said it is acquiring land for the $400 million project, which will be located between Indiana and Michigan, along the south side of Cermak.

The announcement was made jointly with Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Gov. Pat Quinn. McPier has made it known for some time that it was drawing up plans to add to hotel and entertainment offerings in the area to better compete with rival cities such as Orlando and Las Vegas.

The hotel will operate in cooperation with McPier's existing hotel on the convention campus, the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, which is undergoing a major expansion.

kbergen@tribune.com | Twitter@kathy_bergen

 

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Country singer Mindy McCready dead in apparent suicide: officials

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas -- Troubled country music star Mindy McCready, whose platinum singing career was shadowed by substance abuse and suicide attempts, was found dead on Sunday of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, an Arkansas sheriff said. She was 37.

McCready's body was found on the porch of a house in Heber Springs, Arkansas, on Sunday afternoon. She was pronounced dead at the scene "from what appears to be a single self-inflicted gunshot wound," the Cleburne County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

Deputies had been dispatched to the area following reports of "shots fired," the sheriff's office said.

McCready, whose albums include "Ten Thousand Angels" and "If I Don't Stay the Night," had a complicated personal life, marked by a history of substance abuse, suicide attempts, family disputes and tragedy

In January, the singer’s boyfriend, David Wilson, was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. But questions surrounding the circumstances of the shooting led authorities to keep his death under investigation.  

In an interview with "Dateline" in late January, McCready denied any involvement in her live-in boyfriend's death after Canning asked her whether she had shot him.

"Oh my God, no. Oh my God, no," she responded. "He was my life. We were each other's life. There's no way to tell where one of us began and the other ended. We slept together every night holding hands."

Some fellow musicians paid tribute to McCready on Twitter as news of her death spread.

"My thoughts and prayers go out to Mindy McCready and her family today," country singer Tracy Lawrence tweeted.

Country star Carrie Underwood wrote, "I grew up listening to Mindy McCready... so sad for her family tonight. Many prayers are going out to them."

Born in Fort Myers, Florida, McCready learned to sing as a child at her local Pentecostal church. She moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to break into the country music business at the age of 18, according to allmusic.com.

She achieved early success with her 1996 debut album, "Ten Thousands Angels," which sold 2 million copies. Four other studio albums followed.

While successful in her career, McCready's personal life had begun to unravel in recent years.

In 2004 she was convicted of prescription drug fraud and placed on parole. Three years later she spent time in jail for violating her parole terms.

She had two young sons. Her first, Zander, was born in 2006. As her personal problems deepened, she became embroiled in a legal dispute over custody.

In November 2011, she left Florida with Zander and fled to Arkansas. McCready's mother, who had custody of the child, filed a missing person report against her daughter, and regained custody.

Her son with Wilson, Zayne, was born last year.

McCready appeared on the television show "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew."

According to the biography posted on VH1's website as part of her appearance on the show, McCready said that she believed her only true addiction was to violent relationships.

In 2011 McCready appeared on HBO's show "Celebrity Close Calls" about life and death situations. That same year she also appeared on the network's "Celebrity Ghost Stories."

Her fifth album, "I'm Still Here," was released to acclaim in 2010.

The sheriff's office said McCready's body would be taken to the Arkansas State Crime Lab for an autopsy, adding that "the matter will be fully investigated."

Reuters and the Los Angeles Times contributed

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Sony cuts price of Vita handheld games console in Japan

TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp on Monday slashed the price of its struggling Vita handheld games console in Japan in a bid to spur sales of the device as gamers switch to free or cheap games played on tablet computers and smartphones.

The maker of Playstation consoles trimmed the price of its 3G Wifi version by 10,000 yen ($110) to 19,980 yen, with all other models also reduced, it said in a statement.

Tablets and smartphones are encroaching on the gaming market, with handheld consoles in particular suffering. Sony this month trimmed its forecast for handheld sales, including the Vita and older PSP, to 7 million machines in the year ending March 31 compared with an estimate of 16 million at the start of the business term.

The Vita price comes ahead of a rare Playstation gathering in New York on February 20, when Sony is expected to reveal the successor to its Playstation 3 home console.

(Reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

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West beats East 143-138 in NBA All-Star Game

HOUSTON (AP) — The NBA's career scoring leader in the All-Star game, Kobe Bryant has never been just about offense.

"I'm known for my defense," Bryant said. "I can defend. I'm pretty smart with my defense."

Pretty good, too. Ask LeBron James.

Bryant blocked James' jumper, turning it into a dunk by Kevin Durant that helped the Western Conference put away the East 143-138 on Sunday.

Bryant may not leap like Blake Griffin, but he can still get up when he needs to, especially when the defenseless part of the All-Star game is over and it's time to stop somebody — even the league's best player.

On Michael Jordan's 50th birthday, the players most often compared to him turned the final minutes into a 1-on-1 duel, and it went to Bryant — the guy Jordan said he'd pick between the two based on his five championship rings. That's one less than MJ and four more than King James.

"It was a great block," Durant said. "I haven't really seen any MVP get a jumper blocked like that. It was a really great play."

Chris Paul had 20 points, 15 assists and won MVP honors, and Durant scored 30 points. Griffin finished with 19, joining his Clippers teammate, Paul, in creating Lob City deep in the heart of Texas.

"You just want to play fast. I like to throw the lob. I like to see guys hit 3s," Paul said. "When we're out on the court with all that firepower, why wouldn't you want to make passes? You've got KD filling one of the lanes, you've got Blake, Kobe on the wing. There's nothing like it."

Bryant added a second late block of James, the MVP of the 2006 game here after leading a big East comeback. This time, he scored 19 points but shot only 7 of 18 after making 60 percent of his shots in six straight games before the break.

Carmelo Anthony led the East with 26 points and 12 rebounds.

"I think we played really good defense at the end of the game as a team," Durant said. "Kobe was really going with the ball. It's tough to stop LeBron, but he did his best. He was able to block a few of his shots. But CP did a really good job of keeping us in the game."

The first dunk of the game came 16 seconds in, Paul throwing a pass to Griffin as part of the West's 7-0 start. The West led after each of the first three quarters, though was never ahead by more than eight points through three periods.

They finally pushed it into double figures early in the fourth fueled by former Oklahoma City teammates Russell Westbrook and James Harden, but couldn't put it away until a late run behind the guys from the city of Los Angeles — who along with Lakers center Dwight Howard gave Los Angeles all but one of the West's starting spots.

Paul hit two 3-pointers, Bryant made a layup, and his block of James led to Durant's dunk that made it 136-126. Griffin had one last forceful dunk to help close it out, throwing a pass to himself off the backboard and climbing high in his neon green sneakers to slam it home and make it 142-134.

Harden had 15 points in his home arena, where the sights of the game were on the floor and the sounds were at the rim — which shook repeatedly after thunderous dunks for most of the game before, as usual, players tried to make some stops down the stretch.

Players' sneakers were a variety of pastels and fluorescent colors that looked like they came right from Easter Sunday church, many clashing so badly with their multi-colored socks that they may as well have been created by spilling out random paint buckets.

James and Dwyane Wade wore purple, and Griffin's neon look was also sported by the usually not-so-loud Tim Duncan and Brook Lopez.

But the NBA's high-flyers sure could leap in them.

Durant slammed one down so hard at one point that he stumbled backward after landing, appearing woozy. He came in as the career leader in points per game with 28.3 and may have won a second straight MVP award if not for Paul's big finish.

But the Kobe-LeBron matchup down the stretch showed that even in an All-Star game, when it's time to determine a winner, the 34-year-old Bryant is all business.

"It was all in good spirit, man. It was just two guys that love to compete, love to go at it. So I had a lot of fun," said James, who at 28 has plenty of time to catch up to Jordan and Bryant in when it comes to NBA championships.

Bryant finished with only nine points, but had eight assists. Griffin shot 9 of 11 from the field and didn't miss until trying to violently throw one down from a few feet away from the basket.

Indiana's Paul George scored 17 and Kyrie Irving had 15 for the East.

Not everybody had it so easy. Chris Bosh shot two airballs in the first quarter and was booed, tossed up another in the second, and had Tony Parker dribble the ball through his legs on defense. He was even pulled down the stretch by his own coach, Erik Spoelstra, right after Bryant blew right by him for a layup.

Bosh finished 3 of 9. Wade had 21 points on 10-of-13 shooting, the best performance of the three Heat players in the starting lineup. He and James helped the East pull out a two-point win in the 2006 game here, but the West didn't play Bryant-level defense back then.

"Second time in Houston, it was great," Wade said. "We didn't get the win, but we are all winners, because all 24 of us are All-Stars. So it was great."

There were plenty of laughs, players performing comedic skits and poking fun at each other on the Toyota Center's massive overhead scoreboard. Even the celebrities that surrounded the court — Westbrook almost crashed into Beyonce and Jay-Z while trying for a first-half steal — seemed entertained.

Two of Houston's biggest basketball stars, Hakeem Olajuwon and Yao Ming, who was honored after the first quarter, and Olympic gold medalists Usain Bolt and Gabby Douglas were among the athletes who weren't in the game.

Players wore warmup jackets with patches commemorating their individual and team career accolades during a lengthy pregame that included a performance by Ne-Yo. They actually warmed up twice, needing to get loose again after watching and being introduced during the elaborate show.

The game capped a weekend of change in Texas, where David Stern presided over his final All-Star game as commissioner and players' association executive director Billy Hunter was voted out of office — a result he seems likely to contest.

Boston's Kevin Garnett said before coming to Houston he thought his 15th All-Star selection would be his last, and turned it over to the young guys early. He played only 6 minutes of the first half before calling it a night.

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Follow Brian Mahoney on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Briancmahoney

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Study: Better TV might improve kids' behavior

SEATTLE (AP) — Teaching parents to switch channels from violent shows to educational TV can improve preschoolers' behavior, even without getting them to watch less, a study found.

The results were modest and faded over time, but may hold promise for finding ways to help young children avoid aggressive, violent behavior, the study authors and other doctors said.

"It's not just about turning off the television. It's about changing the channel. What children watch is as important as how much they watch," said lead author Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician and researcher at Seattle Children's Research Institute.

The research was to be published online Monday by the journal Pediatrics.

The study involved 565 Seattle parents, who periodically filled out TV-watching diaries and questionnaires measuring their child's behavior.

Half were coached for six months on getting their 3-to-5-year-old kids to watch shows like "Sesame Street" and "Dora the Explorer" rather than more violent programs like "Power Rangers." The results were compared with kids whose parents who got advice on healthy eating instead.

At six months, children in both groups showed improved behavior, but there was a little bit more improvement in the group that was coached on their TV watching.

By one year, there was no meaningful difference between the two groups overall. Low-income boys appeared to get the most short-term benefit.

"That's important because they are at the greatest risk, both for being perpetrators of aggression in real life, but also being victims of aggression," Christakis said.

The study has some flaws. The parents weren't told the purpose of the study, but the authors concede they probably figured it out and that might have affected the results.

Before the study, the children averaged about 1½ hours of TV, video and computer game watching a day, with violent content making up about a quarter of that time. By the end of the study, that increased by up to 10 minutes. Those in the TV coaching group increased their time with positive shows; the healthy eating group watched more violent TV.

Nancy Jensen, who took part with her now 6-year-old daughter, said the study was a wake-up call.

"I didn't realize how much Elizabeth was watching and how much she was watching on her own," she said.

Jensen said her daughter's behavior improved after making changes, and she continues to control what Elizabeth and her 2-year-old brother, Joe, watch. She also decided to replace most of Elizabeth's TV time with games, art and outdoor fun.

During a recent visit to their Seattle home, the children seemed more interested in playing with blocks and running around outside than watching TV.

Another researcher who was not involved in this study but also focuses his work on kids and television commended Christakis for taking a look at the influence of positive TV programs, instead of focusing on the impact of violent TV.

"I think it's fabulous that people are looking on the positive side. Because no one's going to stop watching TV, we have to have viable alternatives for kids," said Dr. Michael Rich, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital Boston.

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Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

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Contact AP Writer Donna Blankinship through Twitter (at)dgblankinship

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