Cowboys' Brown dies in crash; former Illini teammate charged

RAW: Irving PD's Cowboys Josh Brent Press Conference (Posted Dec. 8th, 2012)

Dallas Cowboys defensive tackle Josh Brent was arrested for drunk driving and charged with manslaughter on Saturday after a car he was driving crashed and killed teammate Jerry Brown Jr, in the second tragedy involving NFL players in a week.

Police in the Dallas suburb of Irving said that Brent, 24, was driving at high speed on a state highway at 2:21 a.m. when the car slammed into an "outside curb, causing the vehicle to flip at least one time before coming to rest in the middle of the service road."

Brown, who had been in the passenger seat, was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital a short time later. Brent suffered "minor scrapes" and was booked into the Irving jail, where he remained on Saturday awaiting arraignment, police said.

"Officers at the scene believed alcohol was a contributing factor in the crash," police said, adding that Brent was given a sobriety test. "Based on the results and the officer's observations and conversations with Price-Brent, he was arrested for driving while intoxicated," Irving police spokesman John Argumaniz said at a news conference.

“I am devastated and filled with grief,” Brent said in a statement released by his agent Saturday night. “Filled with grief for the loss of my close friend and teammate, Jerry Brown. I am also grief-stricken for his family, friends and all who were blessed enough to have known him.

"I will live with this horrific and tragic loss every day for the rest of my life. My prayers are with his family, our teammates and his friends at this time."

Brown, 25, was a linebacker on the professional team's practice squad but had not played any games with the Cowboys. He had played in one NFL game for the Indianapolis Colts this season before joining the Cowboys.

Brown also played for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League in 2011 and for two Arena Football League team, the Jacksonville Sharks in 2011 and the San Antonio Talons in 2012. Arena football is played indoors on a smaller field than NFL or Canadian outdoor football.

Brent, 24, has started in five games for the Cowboys and played 12 this season since regular starting defensive lineman Jay Ratliff was sidelined with injuries.

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones issued a statement expressing his condolences to Brown's family.

"We are deeply saddened by the news of this accident and the passing of Jerry Brown. Our hearts and prayers and deepest sympathies are with the members of Jerry's family and all of those who knew him and loved him."

Brent remained in jail on Saturday and his bond will be set at his Sunday morning arraignment, police said. The drunk driving charge was upgraded to intoxication manslaughter, a second degree felony which is punishable in Texas by two to 20 years in prison and a fine up to $10,000.

When police arrived on the scene of the accident after several 911 calls, part of the car was on fire. The 2007 Mercedes sedan was resting on its roof in the middle of the road, and Brent was dragging Brown out of the burning car, said Irving police spokesman John Argumaniz at a news conference.

Police believe, based on gouge marks and other physical evidence at the scene, that Brown was driving faster than the posted 45 miles per hour speed limit.

Argumaniz said the Texas police are still looking for witnesses to the crash, which did not appear to involve any other vehicles.

"There were people on scene," he said. "However, it's our understanding that no one saw what took place. They drove up after the accident."

Brent has been arrested for drunk driving before. While he was on the University of Illinois football team, he was arrested February 23, 2009, on a drunk driving charge, according to Champaign, Illinois, county records. He spent time in the county jail and was suspended from the team, according to local media reports. He eventually left school and was drafted by the Cowboys.

Brent and Brown were teammates at Illinois from 2007-09 under then-coach Ron Zook. Brent was suspended in 2009 after a DUI arrest.

An Illinois spokesman issued this statement: "This is a tragic story. Our thoughts and condolences go out to the Brown family."

Illinois coach Tim Beckman tweeted: "Sad News for the illini family today. Jerry Brown, former illini and current NFL player has passed away. Keep him in your prayers."

Former teammate Arrelious Benn tweeted: "Prayers go out to the family of my former classmate, teammate Former Illini Jerry Brown. RIP. #Illini" 

Tribune reporter Shannon Ryan contributed

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7 Apps You Don’t Want To Miss

Twitterific

Twitter client Twitterific released version 5 of its iOS app this week. Overhauled and redesigned, the updated app has a new customizable user interface, gesture support, and the ability to sync timeline positions between several different devices.

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: Google Now Updated With Boarding Passes, Improved Voice Search]

It can be tough to keep up with all the new apps released every week. But you’re in luck — we take care of that for you, creating a roundup each weekend of our favorite new and updated apps.

This week a popular mobile photo editing app for iOS finally made its way to Android, and a hot email app for iOS saw a huge update.

[More from Mashable: Chihuly App Brings Glassblowing To The iPhone]

We found an app that lets you create virtual glass art projects with your iPhone, and an app for Android that lets you find and purchase art projects that others have created.

Check out the gallery above for a look at this week’s app highlights.

If you’re still looking for more, check out last week’s Apps You Don’t Want To Miss.

Think we left a great new app off the list? Let us know in the comments below.

Photo courtesy iStockphoto, scanrail

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Orlando Bloom’s Legolas returns to Middle Earth in 2014′s “There and Back Again”

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Legolas was a fan favorite in Peter Jackson‘s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, but J.R.R. Tolkien enthusiasts won’t see the warrior Elf return to Middle Earth until 2014 when “The Hobbit: There and Back Again” hits theaters.

Entertainment Weekly published the first image of Orlando Bloom reprising his role and he looks pretty much the same, with the exception of his very blue eyes (weren’t they brown before?).

It’s true that the character is not featured in the book this trilogy is being adapted from, but luckily for Bloom’s bank account, his father is.

“He’s Thranduil’s son, and Thranduil is one of the characters in ‘The Hobbit,’” Jackson explained. “And because elves are immortal it makes sense Legolas would be part of the sequence in the Woodland Realm.”

If you don’t recognize the man standing next to Legolas, it’s because he’s a new face in the franchise. Bard the Bowman – played by Luke Evans – is a heroic human Laketown warrior who (if you couldn’t tell by his name) is also quite the marksman. He’ll come into the picture when “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” lands in theaters on December 13, 2013.

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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New Taxes to Take Effect to Fund Health Care Law

WASHINGTON — For more than a year, politicians have been fighting over whether to raise taxes on high-income people. They rarely mention that affluent Americans will soon be hit with new taxes adopted as part of the 2010 health care law.

The new levies, which take effect in January, include an increase in the payroll tax on wages and a tax on investment income, including interest, dividends and capital gains. The Obama administration proposed rules to enforce both last week.

Affluent people are much more likely than low-income people to have health insurance, and now they will, in effect, help pay for coverage for many lower-income families. Among the most affluent fifth of households, those affected will see tax increases averaging $6,000 next year, economists estimate.

To help finance Medicare, employees and employers each now pay a hospital insurance tax equal to 1.45 percent on all wages. Starting in January, the health care law will require workers to pay an additional tax equal to 0.9 percent of any wages over $200,000 for single taxpayers and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly.

The new taxes on wages and investment income are expected to raise $318 billion over 10 years, or about half of all the new revenue collected under the health care law.

Ruth M. Wimer, a tax lawyer at McDermott Will & Emery, said the taxes came with “a shockingly inequitable marriage penalty.” If a single man and a single woman each earn $200,000, she said, neither would owe any additional Medicare payroll tax. But, she said, if they are married, they would owe $1,350. The extra tax is 0.9 percent of their earnings over the $250,000 threshold.

Since the creation of Social Security in the 1930s, payroll taxes have been levied on the wages of each worker as an individual. The new Medicare payroll is different. It will be imposed on the combined earnings of a married couple.

Employers are required to withhold Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes from wages paid to employees. But employers do not necessarily know how much a worker’s spouse earns and may not withhold enough to cover a couple’s Medicare tax liability. Indeed, the new rules say employers may disregard a spouse’s earnings in calculating how much to withhold.

Workers may thus owe more than the amounts withheld by their employers and may have to make up the difference when they file tax returns in April 2014. If they expect to owe additional tax, the government says, they should make estimated tax payments, starting in April 2013, or ask their employers to increase the amount withheld from each paycheck.

In the Affordable Care Act, the new tax on investment income is called an “unearned income Medicare contribution.” However, the law does not provide for the money to be deposited in a specific trust fund. It is added to the government’s general tax revenues and can be used for education, law enforcement, farm subsidies or other purposes.

Donald B. Marron Jr., the director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, said the burden of this tax would be borne by the most affluent taxpayers, with about 85 percent of the revenue coming from 1 percent of taxpayers. By contrast, the biggest potential beneficiaries of the law include people with modest incomes who will receive Medicaid coverage or federal subsidies to buy private insurance.

Wealthy people and their tax advisers are already looking for ways to minimize the impact of the investment tax — for example, by selling stocks and bonds this year to avoid the higher tax rates in 2013.

The new 3.8 percent tax applies to the net investment income of certain high-income taxpayers, those with modified adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 for single taxpayers and $250,000 for couples filing jointly.

David J. Kautter, the director of the Kogod Tax Center at American University, offered this example. In 2013, John earns $160,000, and his wife, Jane, earns $200,000. They have some investments, earn $5,000 in dividends and sell some long-held stock for a gain of $40,000, so their investment income is $45,000. They owe 3.8 percent of that amount, or $1,710, in the new investment tax. And they owe $990 in additional payroll tax.

The new tax on unearned income would come on top of other tax increases that might occur automatically next year if President Obama and Congress cannot reach an agreement in talks on the federal deficit and debt. If Congress does nothing, the tax rate on long-term capital gains, now 15 percent, will rise to 20 percent in January. Dividends will be treated as ordinary income and taxed at a maximum rate of 39.6 percent, up from the current 15 percent rate for most dividends.

Under another provision of the health care law, consumers may find it more difficult to obtain a tax break for medical expenses.

Taxpayers now can take an itemized deduction for unreimbursed medical expenses, to the extent that they exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income. The health care law will increase the threshold for most taxpayers to 10 percent next year. The increase is delayed to 2017 for people 65 and older.

In addition, workers face a new $2,500 limit on the amount they can contribute to flexible spending accounts used to pay medical expenses. Such accounts can benefit workers by allowing them to pay out-of-pocket expenses with pretax money.

Taken together, this provision and the change in the medical expense deduction are expected to raise more than $40 billion of revenue over 10 years.

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WGN America may be channel of change for Tribune Co.

On Sunday night, WGN-Ch. 9 will air "Bozo's Circus: The Lost Tape," a 1971 episode that an alert archivist discovered after four decades of gathering dust.

At the same time, WGN America, the station's national cable counterpart, will beam reruns of the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" to its 75 million subscribers across the country.

Part of Tribune Co.'s future may rest with programming decisions like that.

Poised to emerge from its lengthy bankruptcy, the Chicago-based media company is expected to enter the new year with its holdings intact, a clean balance sheet and a plan to sell everything eventually.

The expected decision to name television executive Peter Liguori as Tribune Co.'s chief executive — he was the architect of basic cable powerhouse FX's first-run success — points to unlocking the value of the 34-year-old superstation as integral to a profitable exit strategy for the new owners of Tribune Co.

A source close to the situation told the Tribune that Liguori sees WGN America as an undervalued cable network with tremendous potential, if it gets the programming investment required. Developing the channel will "absolutely be a focus" after Liguori joins the company, which could happen within weeks.

"I'm sure that's the plan," said Derek Baine, a senior media analyst with SNL Kagan. "It all comes down to how much money you're investing in programming to get the viewers."

The new owners, senior creditors Oaktree Capital Management, Angelo, Gordon & Co. and JPMorgan Chase, have made it clear that monetizing Tribune Co.'s publishing, broadcasting and other holdings after a four-year slog through Chapter 11 is a matter of time. The process will likely challenge the maxim that the whole of Tribune Co. — estimated to be worth $4.5 billion post-emergence — is more than the sum of its parts. That's especially true when one of those parts is national cable channel WGN America, a low-rated repository of Cubs games and reruns, whose upside potential may dwarf all of the other assets combined.

Broadcasting assets, including 23 television stations, WGN-AM 720, CLTV and WGN America, represent the core profit center and account for $2.85 billion of Tribune Co.'s value, according to financial adviser Lazard. Tribune's eight daily newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, are worth $623 million, and other strategic assets, such as stakes in CareerBuilder and Food Network, are valued at $2.26 billion, according to a 2012 report by Lazard.

The value of the TV stations, including KTLA-TV in Los Angeles and WPIX-TV in New York, should benefit from an improving appetite for acquisitions, according to analysts. But WGN America, with the help of a few hit shows and some rebranding, could be the sleeping giant on the books. Turner Broadcasting's TBS, for example, has five times the audience and seven times the cash flow of WGN America and carries a distinct brand. It is worth more than twice that of the entire Tribune Co.

Liguori's success at FX Networks could well be the blueprint. After joining what was a small basic cable channel in 1998, Liguori was elevated to CEO in 2001 and transformed the network by offering original programming such as "The Shield," "Nip/Tuck" and "Rescue Me," building ratings and revenues in the process.

"You just need a couple of hit shows and then you can start building a schedule around them," Baine said. "A lot of these cable networks, you take one hit show and get people hooked on it and then you can stick another one in the time slot right behind it and start building on that."

Last year, FX had a cash flow of nearly $553 million on net revenue of more than $1 billion, making the network worth nearly $8 billion, Baine said.

WGN America is often compared with TBS to illustrate the upside, and the divergent paths the two original superstations have taken as the cable network model — a dual revenue stream of affiliate fees and advertising dollars — has evolved over the last two decades.

Both WGN and WTBS were uploaded to satellite in the late '70s, filling the programming void for distant cable systems with local baseball and "Andy Griffith" reruns. TBS became a division of Time Warner in 1996 and transformed into a full-fledged cable network, shelving old reruns for off-network sitcoms, benching the Atlanta Braves for national MLB coverage and rolling out first-run programming featuring everything from Tyler Perry to Conan O'Brien. The network dropped "superstation" and rebranded itself with slogans such as "very funny."

One advantage FX, which is part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., and TBS have enjoyed is the connection to a media empire with programming prowess and deep pockets.

Meanwhile, WGN has clung to the vestiges of its lower-cost superstation model, meaning cable and satellite systems can't insert local commercials and must pay copyright fees for the programming to the government. Content shifts between local and national, with Cubs baseball and Chicago news still broadcast across the country. There is a dearth of first-run programming, and the schedule is dotted with such fillers as "In the Heat of the Night" and "Walker: Texas Ranger." Even Andy Griffith remains in the mix with "Matlock," part of a block of programming to cover the "WGN Morning News," which is not broadcast nationally.

Not surprisingly, WGN America lags TBS and FX in ratings, revenue and distribution.

TBS is ranked 11th, FX is 13th and WGN America 40th in average viewership among cable networks through November, according to Nielsen.

Of the more than 114 million homes receiving cable in the U.S., TBS reaches 99.7 million, FX 97.9 million and WGN America 75 million, according to Nielsen. One of the biggest holes in WGN's coverage area is New York City, where the station has never quite found its way into the cable lineup. Nationally, TBS and FX are included in the basic packages for Dish Network and DirecTV, while WGN America is relegated to the second or third tier.

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Career night for Noah

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — To Ben Wallace, Joakim Noah always will be the bag-carrying and doughnut-fetching rookie he was when the two were teammates for part of the 2007-08 season.

So after Noah put up a game for the ages Friday night to lead the Bulls to a 108-104 comeback victory over the Pistons, the recently-retired Wallace rose from his baseline seat at the Palace of Auburn Hills and put Noah in a headlock.

"He said I should've had more rebounds and more points," Noah said, smiling. "But he's a hater. That's why I love him. I'm a hater too."

Noah's career-high 30 points, career-high 23 rebounds and six assists were enough to rally the Bulls from 17 points down to their 16th straight victory in this series.

Noah joined Charles Barkley, Dirk Nowitzki and Kevin Garnett as the only players in the last 25 seasons to post at least 30 points, 23 rebounds and six assists in a game. It's the first time a Bull reached those levels since Charles Oakley had 35 points, 26 rebounds and seven assists on March 15, 1986.

Noah also became the first Bull to post a 30-point, 20-rebound game since Marcus Fizer did so against the Magic on April 12, 2004.

"It's crazy to have numbers like that," Noah said. "It feels great to play well and win. But we have another one (Saturday), so we just have to move on."

Noah paused and smiled.

"Unfortunately," he said.

The Bulls' defense was unfortunate early as the Pistons shot 54.1 percent in the first half to build a 17-point lead.

"The second quarter was an abomination," coach Tom Thibodeau said.

But the Bulls closed the first half with a 14-2 run to pull within 55-50.

"That was critical," Thibodeau said.

Fittingly, Noah nudged the Bulls ahead for good with an offensive rebound, putback and three-point play to snap an 82-82 tie with 8 minutes, 7 seconds remaining. Noah's offensive rebound and dish to Carlos Boozer, who scored 24 points as all five starters reached double figures, produced a left-handed dunk and seven-point lead with 3:18 left.

"He's playing with that kind of effort every night," Kirk Hinrich said. "He goes to the board every time. It's amazing to watch that intensity."

Noah posted 20 points and 17 rebounds his last game here. He also once had a 21-point, 20-rebound effort during the 2010 playoffs against the Cavaliers.

But this was special.

"He was everywhere," Thibodeau said.

And now the schedule turns. Saturday's Knicks game begins a stretch of eight straight against teams in playoff position entering Friday night. The Knicks lead the Eastern Conference.

"They're flying high," Noah said. "They played very well against Miami the other day. They're going to be rested. They're playing probably the best basketball in the NBA right now. It's on us to come in ready."

You know Noah will be.

kcjohnson@tribune.com

Twitter @kcjhoop

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New Sony online store offers remote downloads to PlayStation and mobile devices

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Australia’s Gillard in spoof: Mayans were right, world is ending

CANBERRA (Reuters) – According to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, the Mayans were right and the apocalypse is near.

In a spoof 50-second video appearance promoting a local radio station‘s breakfast show, Gillard provided hair-raising details that she said would come when the world ends this month, as the ancient Mayans calendar predicted.

With the straight face she often uses in a normal press conference, and surrounded by Australian national flags, Gillard addressed viewers as “My dear remaining fellow Australians.”

“The end of world is coming. It wasn’t Y2K, it wasn’t even the carbon price,” said Gillard firmly. “It turns out that the Mayan calendar is true.”

Y2K was the computer glitch feared globally just before the year 2000, while the carbon tax refers to a major controversial policy put forward by her Labour government in 2012.

She went into terrifying details about the end of the world such as “flesh-eating zombies” and “demonic hell beasts”, but then wooed her constituents with promises.

“If you know one thing about me it is this: I will always fight for you to the very end,” she said, but noted that there is also a bright spot.

“At least this means I won’t have to do Q&A again,” she said, referring to an Australian TV show where politicians usually have to face tough questions from the audience.

A spokesman for Gillard said the video, which was uploaded by radio station Triple J on Thursday and has already been viewed more than 232,000 times on YouTube, was simply a spoof.

“It’s just bit of fun,” he told Reuters. “It’s just a bit of humor for the end of the year. Nothing else.”

The video comes out in the wake of a phone hoax in which two Australian presenters from another local radio station called the hospital which is treating Prince William’s wife Kate and posed as Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles to ask questions about her condition.

(Reporting By Maggie Lu Yueyang, editing by Elaine Lies)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Justices to Take Up Generic Drug Case

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said on Friday that it would decide whether a pharmaceutical company should be allowed to pay a competitor millions of dollars to keep a generic copy of a best-selling drug off the market.

Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

Ralph Neas, head of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, said the case would alter the marketing of new generics.

The case could settle a decade-long battle between federal regulators, who say the deals violate antitrust law, and the pharmaceutical industry, which contends that they are really just settlements of disputes over patents that protect the billions of dollars they pour into research and development.

Three separate federal circuit courts of appeal have ruled over the last decade that the deals were allowable. But in July a federal appeals court in Philadelphia — which covers the territory where many big drug makers are based — said the arrangements were anticompetitive.

Both sides in the case supported the petition for the Supreme Court to decide the case, each arguing that the conflicting appeals court decisions would inject uncertainty into their operations.

By keeping lower-priced generic drugs off the market, drug companies are able to charge higher prices than they otherwise could. Last year, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that a Senate bill to outlaw those payments would lower drug costs in the United States by $11 billion and would save the federal government $4.8 billion over 10 years.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican who co-sponsored the Senate bill, which never came to the floor for a vote, praised the decision.

The Federal Trade Commission first filed the suit in question in 2009. Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the F.T.C., said, “These pay-for-delay deals are win-win for the drug companies, but big losers for U.S. consumers and taxpayers.”

Generic drug makers say that the payments preserve a system that has saved American consumers hundreds of billions of dollars.

“This case could determine how an entire industry does business because it would dramatically affect the economics of each decision to introduce a new generic drug,” Ralph G. Neas, president of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, said in a statement. “The current industry paradigm of challenging patents on branded drugs in order to bring new generics to market as soon as possible has produced $1.06 trillion in savings over the past 10 years.”

The case will review a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta, which in the spring ruled in favor of the drug makers, Watson Pharmaceuticals and Solvay Pharmaceuticals. Watson had applied for federal approval to sell a generic version of AndroGel, a testosterone replacement drug made by Solvay.

While courts have long held that paying a competitor to stay off the market creates unfair competition, the pharmaceuticals case is different because it involves patents, whose essential purpose is to prevent competition.

When a generic manufacturer seeks approval to market a copy of a brand-name drug, it also often files a lawsuit challenging a patent that the drug’s originator says prevents competition.

Last year, for the third time since 2003, the 11th Circuit upheld the agreements as long as the allegedly anticompetitive behavior that results — in this case, keeping the generic drug off the market — is the same thing that would take place if the brand-name company’s patent were upheld.

Two other federal circuit courts, the Second Circuit and the Federal Circuit, have ruled similarly. But in July, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals said that those arrangements were anticompetitive on their face and violated antitrust law.

The agreements are also affected by a peculiar condition in the law that legalized generic competition for prescription drugs. That law, known as the Hatch-Waxman Act, gives a 180-day period of exclusivity to the first generic drug maker to file for approval of a generic copy and to file a lawsuit challenging the brand-name drug’s patent.

Brand-name drug companies have taken advantage of that law, finding that they can settle the patent suit by getting the generic company to agree to stay out of the market for a period of time. Because that generic company also has exclusivity rights, no other generic companies can enter the market.

Michael A. Carrier, a professor at Rutgers School of Law-Camden, said that while there were provisions in the law under which a generic company could forfeit that exclusivity, “they really are toothless in practice.”

One wild card could still prevent the Supreme Court from definitively settling the question. In granting the petition to hear the case, the Supreme Court said that Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. recused himself, taking no part in the consideration or decision.

That opens the possibility that a 4-4 decision could result, upholding the lower court case that went against the F.T.C. and in favor of the drug makers. But it would leave the broader question for another day.

The case is Federal Trade Commission v. Watson Pharmaceuticals et al, No. 12-416.

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Integrys Energy Services tapped to supply Chicago's electricity

The same company that heats homes in Chicago has been picked to provide the electricity that powers them.

Integrys Energy Services, a sister company to Peoples Gas, on Friday was named the city's choice to supply electricity to about 1 million Chicagoans. It's the largest such deal negotiated by a city on behalf of its residents.

The City Council is to vote on the contract Wednesday after a Monday public hearing.

Chicagoans should see discounts of 20 to 25 percent from March through June. Afterward, savings are expected to drop. Overall, the average household is expected to save $130 to $150 through May 2015, when the contract ends, according to the mayor's office.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Friday the deal "will put money back into the pockets of Chicago families and small businesses."

The contract calls for the elimination of power produced from coal, the largest source of greenhouse gases. About 40 percent of Chicago's electricity is from coal.

"That's a giant step toward healthier air and clean, renewable energy that supports good paying jobs in the technologies of tomorrow," said Jack Darin, executive director of the Sierra Club's Illinois chapter and a member of the advisory committee that worked on the deal.

However, the no-coal provision is largely symbolic since there is no way to know the precise origin of electricity flowing into Chicago homes.

Integrys Energy Services, a subsidiary of Chicago-based Integrys Energy Group, was chosen from eight bidders and was the only company other than Exelon-owned Constellation NewEnergy that made it to the final round.

Integrys Energy Group's board includes William Brodsky, head of the Chicago Board Options Exchange and a member of World Business Chicago, which Emanuel chairs.

The Integrys unit won the electrical aggregation contract despite Emanuel's connection to Constellation through its parent company, Exelon, which also owns Commonwealth Edison. While working at investment banking firm Wasserstein Perella & Co. after leaving the Clinton White House in 1998, Emanuel helped set up the merger that created Exelon.

Price was the determining factor, the mayor's office said.

Bidding documents, including pricing and how the contract would be structured, were not made public Friday.

In picking a price, Integrys must account for a large number of customers that will come and go. If electricity prices rise, Integrys risks losing money. Still, Integrys stands to become a dominant player in the retail electricity business and gain about $300 million in yearly revenue.

"Scale is important in this business," said Travis Miller, a utilities analyst with Chicago-based Morningstar. "The winner is immediately going to gain a huge scale advantage within the retail market."

ComEd still will be responsible for delivering electricity and fixing outages. ComEd makes its money delivering electricity, not supplying it. Customers' new bills will look like the old bills, except that the portion titled "electricity supply services" will have a new rate and include the new supplier's name.

Chicagoans can opt out and stick with ComEd or choose their own supplier like thousands of people already have.

Tribune reporter John Byrne contributed.

jwernau@tribune.com

Twitter @littlewern

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