Storm begins to coat Chicago area with snow

CAPTIONS

Tears
A tear drops from the eye of DePaul University student Sam Henning as she is hit by a stiff breeze on West Wacker Drive. Tears protest eyes from drying out in cold, windy weather. (John J. Kim, Chicago Tribune /February 19, 2013)

Staff report

12:51 a.m. CST, February 22, 2013

Between and inch-and-a-half and two-and-a-half inches of snow has fallen across much of the Chicago region, though the snow is expected to turn to freezing drizzle in the next couple hours.

Meteorologists have scaled back their predictions on snow fall totals from the storm, though.

Illinois State Police described conditions as "horrible" and have responded to about 15 crashes already.

State Police are in a "snow plan" and aren't responding to accidents without injuries - those are supposed to be reported later.

"It will be tapering off from the south in the next couple hours, possibly some freezing drizzle across whole area," said Mark Ratzer, meteorologist for the National Weather Service. "We may end up coming in a little less."

The city of Chicago has sent 199 plows to work clearing main thoroughfares, according to the streets and sanitation department.

Check back for more information.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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Governors Fall Away in G.O.P. Fight Against More Medicaid

Under pressure from the health care industry and consumer advocates, seven Republican governors are cautiously moving to expand Medicaid, giving an unexpected boost to President Obama’s plan to insure some 30 million more Americans.

The Supreme Court ruled last year that expanding Medicaid to include many more low-income people was an option under the new federal health care law, not a requirement, tossing the decision to the states and touching off battles in many capitols.

The federal government will pay the entire cost of covering newly eligible beneficiaries from 2014 to 2016, and 90 percent or more later. But many Republican governors and lawmakers immediately questioned whether that commitment would last, and whether increased spending on Medicaid makes sense, given the size of the federal budget deficit. Some flatly declared they would not consider it.

In Florida, where Gov. Rick Scott reversed his position and on Wednesday announced his support for expanding Medicaid, proponents say that doing so will not only save lives, but also create jobs and stimulate the economy. Similar arguments have swayed the Republican governors of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota and Ohio, who in recent months have announced their intention to expand Medicaid.

The shift has delighted supporters of the law.

“I think this means the dominoes are falling,” said Ronald F. Pollack, the executive director of Families USA, a consumer group. “The message is, ‘Even though I may not have supported and even strongly opposed the Affordable Care Act, it would be harmful to the citizens of my state if I didn’t opt into taking these very substantial federal dollars to help people who truly need it.’ ”

 Nationwide, Medicaid covers 60 million people, most of them low-income or disabled. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that 17 million more people could be enrolled if all states took the expansion option. So far, 22 states have said they will expand the program, 17 have opted against it, and 11 have not yet decided, according to Avalere Health, a consulting firm.

Some Republican governors remain firmly opposed to the expansion of Medicaid. In her State of the State address, Gov. Nikki R. Haley said, “As long as I am governor, South Carolina will not implement the public policy disaster that is Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.”

Gov. Rick Perry affirmed that “Texas will not expand Medicaid” and said he was proud that Texas did not follow other states “scrambling to grab every tax dollar they can.”

The change of heart for some Republican governors has come after vigorous lobbying by health industry players, particularly hospitals. Hospital associations around the country signed off on Medicaid cuts under the health care law on the assumption that their losses would be more than offset by new paying customers, including many insured by Medicaid.

Politics could also be a factor in states where Republican governors have decided to expand Medicaid. Mr. Obama won all of those states except Arizona and North Dakota in last year’s election, a fact that may have influenced several of the governors’ decisions. Some of the seven are also up for re-election next year.

Religious leaders have added a moral dimension to the campaign in some states. The Roman Catholic bishops of Salt Lake City and Little Rock, Ark., for example, have urged state officials to expand Medicaid.

The Obama administration has tried to win over skeptical state officials by offering new flexibility to manage Medicaid as they like. On the same day that he agreed to expand Medicaid in Florida, Mr. Scott got federal permission to move more Medicaid beneficiaries into private managed care plans.

Mr. Scott’s support for expanding Medicaid is particularly significant — Florida is the fourth most populous state — and surprising. A onetime hospital executive, he has been among the most strident critics of the health care law, and his opposition to it was a cornerstone of his 2010 campaign for governor.

The battle is not over, however. In Florida, as in many other states, expansion is subject to approval by the Legislature, whose Republican leaders have expressed misgivings. The legislative session begins next month, and advocates say they plan to press ahead with a lobbying campaign.

Leah Barber-Heinz, a spokeswoman for Florida Chain, a health advocacy group, said it was trying to inform lawmakers and the public about who would benefit from an expansion of Medicaid. More than one-fifth of Florida residents, roughly 4 million of 19 million people, lack health insurance.

“There are so many misperceptions about the uninsured,” Ms. Barber-Heinz said. “So we’re trying to show faces of who would be impacted: people who have been hit by the recession, people who have been laid off, educated people, people who own homes.”

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United takes Dreamliner off schedule until June

The All Nippon Airways Dreamliner 787 arrives at Mineta San Jose International Airport. (Gary Reyes/San Jose Mercury News/MCT / January 22, 2013)

Staff and wire report

1:35 p.m. CST, February 21, 2013

The parent company of United Airlines says it is taking the Boeing 787 off its schedule through June 5 for all but one of its routes.

United Continental Holdings Inc. said it still plans to use the 787 on its flights between Denver and Tokyo's Narita airport starting May 12. It had aimed to start that route on March 31.

United, currently world's largest airline and the only U.S. customer for the 787, said the timing of that reinstatement will depend on resolution of the Dreamliner's current issues.

The 50 Dreamliners in commercial service were grounded worldwide last month after a series of battery-related incidents including a fire on board a parked plane in the United States and an in-flight problem on another jet in Japan. United had only been flying the plance since November.

Sources told Reuters earlier this week that Boeing Co. has found a way to fix the battery problems that involves increasing the space between the lithium ion battery cells.

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Tribune exclusive: 'We were just regular parents who were slapped in the face'

The parents of slain teen Hadiya Pendleton talk about her life and death and the issues raised after she died. (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune)

11:57 p.m. CST, February 20, 2013

Hadiya Pendleton’s parents haven’t had much time to reminisce about their daughter’s life and death before Wednesday, when they sat down for an exclusive interview with the Tribune.

Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton recalled getting the phone call on Jan. 29 that her 15-year-old daughter had been shot, and rushing to the hospital only to find out it was too late, her daughter was dead.

A whirlwind of activity followed as Hadiya became a national symbol of gun violence and her parents traveled to Washington for President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech.

“I’m not going to be extremely political, but if I can help someone else not go through what we’ve gone through, then I have to do what I can,” Cowley-Pendleton said. “These are the cards we have been dealt. If these are the shoes I need to walk in, I don’t mind walking in them.”

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In Reversal, Florida to Take Health Law’s Medicaid Expansion

MIAMI — Gov. Rick Scott of Florida reversed himself on Wednesday and announced that he would expand his state’s Medicaid program to cover the poor, becoming the latest — and, perhaps, most prominent — Republican critic of President Obama’s health care law to decide to put it into effect.

It was an about-face for Mr. Scott, a former businessman who entered politics as a critic of Mr. Obama’s health care proposals. Florida was one of the states that sued to try to block the law. After the Supreme Court ruled last year that though the law was constitutional, states could choose not to expand their Medicaid programs to cover the poor, Mr. Scott said that Florida would not expand its programs.

Mr. Scott said Wednesday that he now supported a three-year expansion of Medicaid, through the period that the federal government has agreed to pay the full cost of the expansion, and before some of the costs are shifted to the states.

“While the federal government is committed to paying 100 percent of the cost, I cannot in good conscience deny Floridians that needed access to health care,” Mr. Scott said at a news conference. “We will support a three-year expansion of the Medicaid program under the new health care law as long as the federal government meets their commitment to pay 100 percent of the cost during that time.”

He said there were “no perfect options” when it came to the Medicaid expansion. “To be clear: our options are either having Floridians pay to fund this program in other states while denying health care to our citizens,” he said, “or using federal funding to help some of the poorest in our state with the Medicaid program as we explore other health care reforms.”

Mr. Scott said the state would not create its own insurance exchange to comply with another provision of the law.

His reversal sent ripples through the nation, especially given the change in tone and substance since the summer, when he said he would not create an exchange or expand Medicaid.

“Floridians are interested in jobs and economic growth, a quality education for their children, and keeping the cost of living low,” Mr. Scott said in a statement at the time. “Neither of these major provisions in Obamacare will achieve those goals, and since Florida is legally allowed to opt out, that’s the right decision for our citizens.”

Mr. Scott now joins the Republican governors of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota and Ohio, who have decided to join the Medicaid expansion. Some, like Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, were also staunch opponents of Mr. Obama’s overall health care law.

Shortly before his announcement, the governor received word from the federal government that it planned to grant Florida the final waiver needed to privatize Medicaid, a process the state initially undertook as a pilot project. Mr. Scott, who is running for re-election next year, has heavily lobbied for the waiver, arguing that Florida could not expand Medicaid without it.

Mr. Scott’s support of Medicaid expansion is significant, but is far from the last word. The program requires approval from Florida’s Republican-dominated Legislature, which has been averse to expanding Medicaid under the health care law. The Legislature’s two top Republican leaders said that before making a decision they would consider recommendations from a select committee, which has been asked to review the state’s options.

“The Florida Legislature will make the ultimate decision,” Will Weatherford, the state House speaker, said. “I am personally skeptical that this inflexible law will improve the quality of health care in our state and ensure our long-term financial stability.”

Medicaid, which covers three million people in Florida, costs the state $21 billion a year. The expansion would extend coverage to one million more people.

Mr. Scott’s reversal is sure to anger his original conservative supporters.

The governor “was elected because of his principled conservative leadership against Obamacare’s overreach,” said Slade O’Brien, state director for Americans for Prosperity, an influential conservative advocacy organization. “Hopefully our legislative leaders will not follow in Governor Scott’s footsteps, and will reject expansion.”

During his announcement on Wednesday, Mr. Scott said his mother’s recent death and her lifetime struggle to raise five children “with very little money” played a role in his decision.

“Losing someone so close to you puts everything in a new perspective, especially the big decisions,” he said.

Michael Cooper contributed reporting from New York.

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OfficeMax, Office Depot agree to merger

Office Depot to buy Office Max as an attempt to compete with Staples.

Office Depot Inc. and Naperville-based OfficeMax Inc. confirmed Wednesday that they're planning to merge but left some key questions about the deal unanswered.

The all-stock deal calls for Office Depot to issue 2.69 new shares of common stock for each outstanding common share of OfficeMax. But officials declined to say where the newly merged company would be headquartered, who would sit in the CEO seat or even what it would be called.

OfficeMax CEO Ravi Saligram and Office Depot CEO Neil Austrian presented a united front during a Wednesday conference call with analysts, taking turns to explain the specifics of the deal.

"It takes two to tango," Saligram said. "Lo and behold, Neil and I have decided to tango."

The announcement of a merger, which Saligram said would "create a stronger, more global, more efficient competitor," put to rest years of speculation about a deal. The merger would unite the No. 2 company in the stationery and office supplies industry, Boca Raton, Fla.-based Office Depot, with the No. 3 company, OfficeMax, headquartered off Interstate 88.

A merger between the two chains "has made sense for years," Credit Suisse analyst Gary Balter wrote in a note this week.

Market leader Staples also would benefit from a merger, BB&T Capital Markets analyst Anthony Chukumba said.

"Clearly, you can't make this deal work unless you close a bunch of stores," he said. "Store rationalization is long overdue, and Staples will clearly benefit from just having fewer stores to compete with."

OfficeMax, with about 29,000 employees, operates 978 stores, including 10 in the Chicago area. Office Depot has about 39,000 employees and operates 1,675 stores, including seven in the Chicago area.

The two CEOs wouldn't say how many stores would be closed, but Balter has predicted about 600.

If the merger is completed, the company's board would have an equal number of directors chosen by Office Depot and OfficeMax. Based on Wednesday's stock closing price, the deal's value is about $976 million.

The combined company would have $18 billion in sales and achieve $400 million to $600 million in savings over three years, according to company officials.

Office Depot shareholders would own about 54 percent of the company and OfficeMax shareholders 46 percent.

It was not clear, though, whether those stockholders would be satisfied with the deal. One of OfficeMax's largest shareholders, Neuberger Berman, said this week that it would support a deal, depending on the terms.

The deal also is subject to approval by regulatory agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission.

Officials declined to say who would lead the combined business or where it would be located once the "merger of equals" is completed, likely by the end of the year.

"During the appropriate times ... our board will make the right decision," OfficeMax's Saligram said. "Now, we're independent companies, and we've got to go through lots of processes."

Saligram and Austrian will be considered to lead the company, but until a leader is chosen, they will remain in their positions.

"From the time we started talking, Ravi and I have grown very fond of each other. It's very clear we can work well together," Austrian said.

Their proposed partnership didn't begin well. The announcement of the planned merger was buried in an earnings release posted prematurely on the Office Depot website early in the morning, then quickly removed. The companies recovered, and about 8:30 a.m., they issued a joint statement announcing the proposed merger.

The mishap will likely be investigated by stock exchanges and regulatory organizations, according to a Chicago financial attorney.

"I am highly confident that the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the Securities and Exchange Commission will be looking very closely at who pulled the trigger, who knew about this, and was this in good faith?" James McGurk said.

McGurk said he was not suggesting wrongdoing.

"When you think about it, you have two boards, lots of investment advisers, lawyers, and deals break down at the last minute. Are there lots of ways it could happen? Sure," he said.

OfficeMax shares closed Wednesday down 91 cents, or 7 percent, at $12.09. Shares of Office Depot closed down 84 cents, or nearly 17 percent, at $4.18.

Reuters contributed.

crshropshire@tribune.com

Twitter @corilyns

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Cops shoot suspect they say is wanted in string of heists

By Peter Nickeas




Tribune reporter

3:13 a.m. CST, February 20, 2013

Chicago police officers shot a man near a busy Bucktown neighborhood intersection after a pursuit that stemmed from an armed robbery at a Subway restaurant on the Near North Side, police said.

Police said the suspect is the same man wanted in more than a dozen robberies of North Side convenience stores and restaurants.

Police said the man shot tonight, about 11:50 p.m., fled from a Subway at 816 N. State Street and the pursuit ended when his SUV crashed into a car outside a Walgreens at 1601 N. Milwaukee Ave.

Police said the suspect did not respond to commands and made suspicious movements inside the vehicle before he was shot.

The other robberies police are investigating happened most often between 11:30 p.m. and 2:15 a.m.

Among the pair: two within hours of each other at 2200 N. Lincoln Avenue and 300 W. Chicago Avenue early in the morning of Feb. 6. 

It’s unclear if the man was shot inside or outside the vehicle and his condition is not known. He was taken to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County and is expected to survive, police said. 

Police from a number of nearby districts responded to the scene after officers called "10-1," a radio term used to signal an officer, firefighter or paramedic in distress. Detectives from two of the three city detective areas also responded to the scene.

Detectives approached people inside and out of the numerous bars that line the intersection asking if anyone saw anything. 

Traffic in the area, including CTA buses, is being rerouted through the neighboring side streets.

Hours after the shooting, as the bars wrapped up for the night, people stood outside smoking and exchanging stories of the cop cars they saw speeding toward the scene.

Check back for updates.

pnickeas@tribune.com
Twitter: @peternickeas

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AMPAS drops “85th Academy Awards” – now it’s just “The Oscars”

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – The upcoming Academy Awards show is the 85th, a significant anniversary that in past years might have brought a reunion of past winners, special film clips or some sort of recognition on the Oscar show.

But this year, the number 85 has been quietly retired, and so has the phrase “Academy Awards.”

Both disappeared from official AMPAS materials about three weeks ago. “We’re rebranding it,” Oscar show co-producer Neil Meron told TheWrap on Monday. “We’re not calling it ‘the 85th annual Academy Awards,’ which keeps it mired somewhat in a musty way. It’s called ‘The Oscars.’”

During TheWrap’s interview with Meron and his partner Craig Zadan, Meron said they were under the impression that the new approach would continue in the future.

Academy spokeswoman Teni Melidonian confirmed that the change has happened for the upcoming show, but described it as the kind of typical adjustment in the ad campaign and overall message that takes place every year in consultation with the show’s producers and the network, ABC.

“It is right for this show, but we could easily go back to using ‘Academy Awards’ next year,” she said.

The majority of the show’s posters and advertising materials focus on host Seth MacFarlane and the phrase “The Oscars,” with no mention of how long the Academy has been hosting this shindig and no use of the phrase “Academy Awards.”

And Academy press releases dealing with the upcoming show, which used to routinely mention the number, stopped doing so around the beginning of February. The last such AMPAS release appears to have come on January 29; since then, every release has found ways to avoid the phrase “85th Academy Awards.”

When initial voting began, for example, the Academy’s December 14 release began, “Nominations voting for the 85th Academy Awards will open at 8 a.m. PT, Monday, December 17 … “

But when final voting began seven weeks later, its release said this: “Final voting for the Oscars will officially open on Friday, February 8th at 8 a.m. … “

The phrase “The 85th Academy Awards,” which used to begin the last paragraph of most Oscar-related press releases from the Academy, has been replaced with “Oscars for outstanding film achievements of 2012.”

It’s hard to say that the Academy is completely turning its back on its history, given that this year’s show includes a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the James Bond movies and a tribute to movie musicals of the past decade. But it is consciously (if quietly) looking not to use a big round number when trying to woo viewers closer to the age of Quvenzhane Wallis (9) than Emmanuelle Riva (85), and trying to get less formal by making the show’s nickname its official name.

“It’ll be like the Grammys,” said Meron. “The Grammys don’t get a number, and neither will the Oscars.”

He’s not exactly right: The top of the Recording Academy’s Grammy page (right) is headed, “The 55th Grammys,” and the number appears in the first sentence of most NARAS press releases.

The Oscar.com page, on the other hand, just says “The Oscars.”

For this year, at least.

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Well: No Consensus on Plantar Fasciitis

Phys Ed

Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

There are more charismatic-sounding sports injuries than plantar fasciitis, like tennis elbow, runner’s knee and turf toe. But there aren’t many that are more common. The condition, characterized by stabbing pain in the heel or arch, sidelines up to 10 percent of all runners, as well as countless soccer, baseball, football and basketball players, golfers, walkers and others from both the recreational and professional ranks. The Lakers star Kobe Bryant, the quarterback Eli Manning, the Olympic marathon runner Ryan Hall and the presidential candidate Mitt Romney all have been stricken.

But while plantar fasciitis is democratic in its epidemiology, its underlying cause remains surprisingly enigmatic. In fact, the mysteries of plantar fasciitis underscore how little is understood, medically, about overuse sports injuries in general and why, as a result, they remain so insidiously difficult to treat.

Experts do agree that plantar fasciitis is, essentially, an irritation of the plantar fascia, a long, skinny rope of tissue that runs along the bottom of the foot, attaching the heel bone to the toes and forming your foot’s arch. When that tissue becomes irritated, you develop pain deep within the heel. The pain is usually most pronounced first thing in the morning, since the fascia tightens while you sleep.

But scientific agreement about the condition and its causes ends about there.

For many years, “most of us who treat plantar fasciitis believed that it involved chronic inflammation” of the fascia, said Dr. Terrence M. Philbin, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon at the Orthopedic Foot and Ankle Center in Westerville, Ohio, who specializes in plantar fasciitis.

It was thought that by running or otherwise repetitively pounding their heels against the ground, people strained the plantar fascia, and the body responded with a complex cascade of inflammatory biochemical processes that resulted in extra blood and fluids flowing to the injury site, as well as enhanced pain sensitivity.

But instead of lasting only a few days and then fading, as acute inflammation usually does, the process can become chronic and create its own problems, causing tissue damage and continuing pain.

This progression is also what experts believed was happening when people developed chronic Achilles tendon pain, tennis elbow or other lingering, overuse injuries.

But when scientists actually biopsied fascia tissue from people with chronic plantar fasciitis, “they did not find much if any inflammation,” Dr. Philbin said. There were virtually none of the cellular markers that characterize that condition.

“Plantar fasciitis does not involve inflammatory cells,” said Dr. Karim Khan, a professor of family practice medicine at the University of British Columbia and editor of The British Journal of Sports Medicine, who has written extensively about overuse sports injuries.

Instead, plantar fasciitis more likely is caused by degeneration or weakening of the tissue. This process probably begins with small tears that occur during activity and that, in normal circumstances, the body simply repairs, strengthening the tissue as it does. That is the point of exercise training.

But sometimes, for unknown reasons, this ongoing tissue damage overwhelms the body’s capacity to respond. The small tears don’t heal. They accumulate. The tissue begins subtly to degenerate, even to shred. It hurts.

By and large, most sports medicine experts now believe that this is how we develop other overuse injuries, like tennis elbow or Achilles tendinopathy, which used to be called tendinitis. The suffix “itis” means inflammation. But since the injury isn’t thought to involve chronic inflammation, its name has changed.

This has not yet happened with plantar fasciitis, and may not, given what a mouthful fasciopathy would be.

The evolving medical opinions about plantar fasciitis matter, beyond nomenclature, though, because treatments depend on causes. At the moment, many physicians rely on injections of cortisone, a steroid that is both a pain reliever and anti-inflammatory, to treat plantar fasciitis. And cortisone shots do reduce the soreness. In a study published last year in BMJ, patients who received cortisone injections reported less heel pain after four months than those whose shots had contained a placebo saline solution.

But whether those benefits will last is unknown, especially if plantar fasciitis is, indeed, degenerative. In studies with people suffering from tennis elbow, another injury that is now considered degenerative, cortisone shots actually slowed tissue healing.

We need similar studies in people with plantar fasciitis, Dr. Khan said. “They have not been done.”

Thankfully, most people who develop plantar fasciitis will recover within a few months without injections or other invasive treatments, Dr. Philbin said, if they simply back off their running mileage somewhat or otherwise rest the foot and stretch the affected tissues. Stretching the plantar fascia, as well as the Achilles tendon, which also attaches to the heel bone, and the hamstring muscles seems to result in less strain on the fascia during activity, meaning less ongoing trauma and, eventually, time for the body to catch up with repairs.

To ensure that you are stretching correctly, Dr. Philbin suggests consulting a physical therapist, after, of course, visiting a sports medicine doctor for a diagnosis. Not all heel or arch pain is plantar fasciitis. And comfort yourself if you do have the condition with the knowledge that Kobe Bryant, Eli Manning and Ryan Hall have all returned to competition and Mr. Romney still runs.

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OfficeMax, Office Depot shares soar on merger talk

Shares of OfficeMax Inc. skyrocketed 21 percent Tuesday on speculation that the Naperville-based office supply retailer is in talks to merge with rival Office Depot Inc.

In the first day of trading after news of a potential deal was reported, OfficeMax shares closed up $2.25, at $13, while Boca Raton, Fla.-based Office Depot stock gained more than 9 percent, closing at $5.02. Archrival and market leader Staples' shares picked up more than 13 percent, closing at $14.65.

Neither OfficeMax nor Office Depot representatives are talking, but observers predict a deal as early as this week.

A marriage between the two is seen a natural progression in a crowded industry facing increased competition from forces such as Internet giant Amazon.com and the likes of big discounters such as Wal-Mart and Costco.

Not long ago, bets were that Staples might link up with OfficeMax. More recently, there was speculation that Office Depot and OfficeMax would team up to compete against Staples.

A merger would initially bump the combined companies ahead of Staples in store count. Together, OfficeMax and Office Depot operate about 2,653 stores, although analysts predict that at least 600 would be shuttered. Staples, which is based in Framingham, Mass., operates about 2,300.

Analysts say that Office Depot and OfficeMax have long lists of good customers and when put together could improve operating efficiencies and, therefore, profit.

"The basic challenge that both companies face is that they play in such a competitive space that they are forever locked in a battle to gain market share," said Tim Calkins, clinical professor of marketing at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. "The truth is, when you have that much competition, it's very hard to maintain good margins; there's just relentless pressure."

Both chains have been working to reduce costs, closing underperforming stores and moving into smaller locations, but even if they team up, some analysts still give Staples the edge.

"We think there are a lot of things that Staples is doing better, that even after (Office Depot and OfficeMax) combine, they might not be able to match Staples immediately and maybe not ever," said Morningstar analyst Liang Feng.

OfficeMax is a little more than a year into a major turnaround plan led by CEO Ravi Saligram, an engineer by training who worked at Leo Burnett and was a top executive at Aramark International before he was tapped to lead OfficeMax in 2010. Saligram is largely credited with leading the company's improved performance last year, with its stock price climbing 99.6 percent, from a low of $4.89 to a high of $9.76, though sales in stores open at least a year remained flat.

Like many retailers faced with competition from the Internet, OfficeMax has aimed to shrink and become more nimble.

"We're beginning to gain some momentum," Saligram told the Tribune in a December interview. "It's a journey, but we'll do it very deliberately."

Industry analysts agree that Saligram's strategy is gaining traction. Credit Suisse analyst Gary Balter predicted Saligram likely would be tapped to lead the combined business.

Saligram said the company has focused on a "three-pronged" approach that began in late 2011 and included turning around the company's core business and continuing to boost its online business and shrink store size.

That included plans to cut 5 million square feet of space, expand product offerings to include janitorial and sanitation supplies, and court the small-business customer in its bricks-and-mortar stores.

"We are obsessed with the small-business customer," Saligram said. "That's our core."

The problem with that approach, according to Feng, is that while small-business customers are most profitable for office suppliers, they are also the most fickle.

That strategy also isn't far from Staples'.

For consumers, little would change after a merger, analysts say. Competition is so fierce for the office supply industry that the threat of higher prices is next to nothing.

But a marriage would help in one regard: Consumers likely struggle to distinguish between the two suppliers, Calkins said.

"The brands are so similar, it's hard for anyone to keep them straight," he said.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the two companies were in advanced merger talks.

OfficeMax reports fourth-quarter earnings Thursday.

Wall Street is expecting sales to decline to $1.75 billion and adjusted earnings per share to drop to 27 cents per share.

crshropshire@tribune.com

Twitter @corilyns

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