U.S. to sell GM stake in 15 months

The Treasury plans to sell its remaining stake in General Motors over the next 15 months, allowing the automaker to shed the stigma of being partly owned by the U.S. government.

GM said Wednesday it will spend $5.5 billion to buy back 200 million shares of its stock from the Treasury by the end of this year. The government, in turn, plans to sell its remaining stake of 300 million shares on the open market over the next 12 to 15 months.

GM will pay $27.50 for each share, about an 8 percent premium over Tuesday's closing price of $25.49. The shares shot up more than 8 percent in premarket trading to $27.57.

The deal almost certainly means that the government will lose billions on a $49.5 billion bailout that saved GM from being auctioned off in pieces during the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. GM's buyback will cut the Treasury's stake to 19 percent from 26.5 percent. For it to break even, Treasury would have to sell the remaining 300 million shares for average of about $70.

For GM, getting the government out of its business removes a major business obstacle. GM Chief Financial Officer Dan Ammann told reporters that GM has market research showing that government ownership has held down sales of the company's cars and trucks.

"This is fundamentally good for the business," he said at a hastily called news conference Wednesday morning.

The government got its stake as part of the bailout of GM that began nearly four years ago.

The Treasury Department said in a statement that it would sell the remaining 19 percent stake "in an orderly fashion" within the next 12 to 15 months, subject to market conditions.

Treasury said it will have recovered more than $28.7 billion of its investment through repayments of loans, sales of stock, dividends, interest and other income after GM buys back the 200 million shares. But that leaves Treasury about $21 billion short of recouping its investment.

In 2008 and 2009, the U.S. Treasury bailed out GM to help stabilize and restructure the company at the trough of the financial crisis. The bailouts of GM and Chrysler were part of the $700 billion Trouble Asset Relief Program created by Congress during the financial crisis in the fall of 2008.

"The auto industry rescue helped save more than a million jobs during a severe economic crisis," said Timothy Massad, Treasury's assistant secretary for financial stability. "The government should not be in the business of owning stakes in private companies for an indefinite period of time."

Massad said that exiting the GM investment "is consistent with our dual goals of winding down TARP as soon as practicable and protecting taxpayer interests."

Although GM is paying a premium for the government shares, Ammann said it's still a good deal for GM shareholders. The number of shares on the market will reduced about 11 percent, which should increase the value of the remaining shares.

The move was approved by the GM board on Tuesday evening after the company got opinions from its management and financial advisers, GM said.

Government-ordered pay restrictions will remain in effect. But a ban on corporate jet ownership and requirements on manufacturing a certain percentage of GM cars and trucks in the U.S. will be lifted. GM says it already has exceeded the manufacturing requirements and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

The company said it has no immediate plans to buy or lease corporate jets.

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Manhunt: Authorities seeking 2 escapees from Chicago prison

Chicago Tribune reporter Rosemary Regina Sobol has the latest details of two convicted bank robbers who escaped from the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago early this morning. (Posted on: Dec. 18, 2012.)

SWAT teams forced their way into a Tinley Park house as authorities searched for two convicted bank robbers who escaped this morning from the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in the Loop.

No one was found in the house in the 6600 block of 175th Street, where a relative of one of the escapees, Mark Conley, is believed to live. But FBI officials said they believe Conley and the other inmate, Joseph "Jose" Banks, were there hours earlier.

FBI agents, joined by Tinley Park and Cook County sheriff's deputies, had gathered in a church parking next to the house as officers closed off local streets around 11 a.m. SWAT teams arrived soon afterward and officers, armed with assault rifles, entered the two-story wood frame house.

Canine units could be seen going in and out of the house as a crowd of plainclothes officers stood outside during the search. The home  is a block off Oak Park Avenue, a main street in Tinley's historic downtown.

The SWAT officers left the home and walked down the street with dogs as neighbors followed, taking pictures with their phones. About two blocks down, the officers searched the Metra stop.

Conley and Banks, known as the Second-Hand Bandit who was convicted just last week, were discovered missing from their cell at the federal jail at 71 W. Van Buren St. around  8:45 a.m., according to Central District Police Sgt. Michael Lazzaro. The inmates were last checked at 5 a.m., he said.

A rope could be seen dangling from about 15 stories up along the south side of the MCC, but police would not say whether it was involved in the escape. The rope appeared to be pieces tied together.

The two were reportedly last seen in the Tinley Park area, according to the FBI. It said they should be considered armed and dangerous.

Police cars also raced to the Greyhound station and checked passengers against photos of the inmates, officials said. No arrests were reported there.

Banks was described as black, 37, 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing 160 pounds. Conley is white, 38, 6 feet and 185 pounds.

Banks, known as the Second-Hand Bandit, was convicted last week of two bank robberies and two attempted holdups. He made off with a nearly $600,000 in the heists, and authorities say $500,000 is still unaccounted for.

Banks was an aspiring clothing designer who claimed to be a "sovereign citizen" who could not be tried in a federal court. He acted as his own attorney and had to be restrained during his trial.

During closing arguments, Banks repeatedly interrupted Assistant U.S. Attorney Renato Mariotti, commenting on the evidence and suggesting photo lineups were rigged. Mariotti raised his voice over the interruptions to remind the jury of the evidence at trial, including $40,000 found in Banks' safe deposit box as well as a fake beard he wore in the robberies.

Security footage played for jurors showed Banks jumping bank counters and wielding a handgun as he ordered employees to open vaults and ATMs at the banks. In one video, a bank worker was shown hyperventilating on the floor of a cash room, clutching his chest and neck.

The other suspect was identified as Ken Conley, who pleaded guilty last October to robbing nearly $4,000 from a Homewood bank last year. He had lived in Tinley Park.

Conley robbed the MB Financial Bank branch at 2345 W. 184rd St. in Homewood on May 13, 2011. A floor host at a Chicago Heights strip club, he went back to work hours later to repay $500 he owed another club employee, authorities said. He was flashing a large amount of cash and was wearing the same black suit and white tie the bank robber wore, according to the criminal complaint.

Conley was caught by Chicago Heights police when he pointed a gun at someone while driving a gold Land Rover. Officers noticed he resembled the surveillance photos of the man who robbed the Homewood bank. Although the bank teller identified him and he was interviewed by authorities, he fled to California and was arrested there in September 2011.

A woman who answered at the home of a relative of Conley said it was "very upsetting for everyone" and declined further comment.

The last escape at the MCC was in 1985 when two convicted murderers enlarged a sixth-floor window and climbed down a 75-foot electrical cord attached to a floor buffer.

Bernard Welch and Hugh Colomb used a bar from exercise weights to knock out concrete and used hacksaw blades to cut metal away, enlarging a 3-inch window slit. The blade had been smuggled into the jail, authorities said.

Welch was serving a 143-year sentence for the 1980 murder of Dr. Michael Halberstam, a Washington, D.C. cardiologist and brother of Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Halberstam.

Colomb was convicted of killing an inmate and assaulting a guard in the federal penitentiary in Marion.

Both men were apprehended months later.

rsobol@tribune.com

Twitter: @RosemarySobol1

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Merry Christmas, America-Haters?

When TNT was preparing its annual special “Christmas in Washington” with the president of the United States, you’d think the last star musician they would consider to join the official caroling would be Psy, the South Korean rapper. What on Earth is Christmasy about this man’s invisible-horse-riding dance to his dorky disco-rap hit “Gangnam Style”? It’s not exactly the natural flip-side to “O Holy Night.” But TNT couldn’t resist this year’s YouTube sensation.

This inane publicity stunt backfired when the website Mediaite reported on Dec. 7 that Psy (real name: Park Jae-sang) had participated in a 2002 protest in which he crushed a model of an American tank with a microphone stand. But that’s nothing compared to the footage of a 2004 performance after a Korean missionary was slaughtered by Islamists in Iraq. These lyrics cannot be misunderstood.

“Kill those f—-ing Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives … Kill those f—-ing Yankees who ordered them to torture … Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law and fathers … Kill them all slowly and painfully.”

This isn’t just anti-American. It’s anti-human.

Guess where this story first surfaced in the American media? CNN, from the same corporate family tree as TNT. It was posted back on Oct. 6 on CNN’s iReport, an open-source online news feature that allows users to submit stories for CNN consideration.

The Korean one-hit wonder put out the usual abject careerist apology, but he weirdly said, “I’m deeply sorry for how these lyrics could be interpreted.” Those darn lyrics and those darn people who misinterpret lyrics about killing Yankees’ mothers. It is like Barack Obama expressing regret for the awful things said about Susan Rice, ignoring the awful things said by Susan Rice.

Psy is now a millionaire. As Jim Treacher wrote at the Daily Caller: “So far he’s made over $ 8 million from the song, about $ 3 million of it from the people he once wanted to kill.” Brad Schaeffer at Big Hollywood noted his own father fought for South Korea’s independence in the Korean War: “Had it not been for ‘f——-g Yankees’ like my Dad, this now-wealthy South Korean wouldn’t be ‘Oppan Gangnam Style’ so much as ‘Starving Pyongyang Style.’” (Gangnam is a posh district in the South Korean capital of Seoul.)

Despite the controversy, neither the Obama White House nor the TNT brass felt it was necessary to send Psy packing before the Dec. 9 taping. On Saturday, ABC reporter Muhammad Lila merely repeated, “the White House says the concert will go on and that President Obama will attend, saying that they have no control over who performs at that concert.”

What moral cowardice. On Monday morning, another pliant publicist, NBC correspondent Peter Alexander, calmly relayed that the White House did take control on the Psy front — on its own “We The People” website, where the people may post petitions to the president for their fellow citizens to sign. A petition asking Obama to dump Psy from the Christmas concert was itself dumped. Alexander explained: “But that petition was removed because the rules say the petitions only apply to federal actions. And, of course, the President had no say over who the private charity chose to invite.”

This is double baloney. The White House hasn’t removed silly “federal action” petitions like the one asking to “Nationalize the Twinkie Industry,” or one to “Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016.” They removed one that they didn’t want people to sign.

As for Obama having “no say over” who appeared on the TNT show, the president could easily declare he wasn’t going to share a stage with this America-hater. Or he could have obviously placed one phone call to Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes (an Obama donor), and expressed the dismay of the President of the United States.

Instead, the Obamas came and honored Psy. Yes, the president honored a man who despised America enough to want its citizens slaughtered.

John Eggerton of Broadcasting and Cable magazine observed, “At the end of the taping, when the First Family customarily shakes hands and talks briefly with the performers, the First Lady gave Psy a hug, followed by a handshake from the President, who engaged Psy in a short, animated discussion — at one point Psy appeared to rock back with laughter — and patted the singer on the shoulder.”

I never thought I’d ever view a Christmas special featuring a hideous hater of America celebrated by the President of the United States.

L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. To find out more about Brent Bozell III, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM

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HBO making “Game of Thrones”-themed beer

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Winter is coming – and so is a new line of beers based on HBO‘s fantasy drama “Game of Thrones.” Presumably, all will boast a full, robust head, perhaps resting on top of a spike.

HBO is teaming with Cooperstown, N.Y. brewery Ommegang for a line of brews centered around the series, the New York Times reports. The first beer, Iron Throne Blonde Ale, is slated to go on sale in March, in time for the March 31 premiere of the show’s third season.

It sounds like the perfect libation for watching the premiere from the comfort of your $ 30,000 Iron Throne replica.

A second “GoT”-themed beer will go on sale in fall 2013, with two more varieties expected to go on sale in conjunction with new seasons of the series.

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McDonald's urging franchisees to open on Christmas

McDonald's Corp. is urging U.S. restaurant owners to take the unusual step of opening on Christmas Day to deliver the world's biggest hamburger chain with the gift of higher December sales, AdvertisingAge reported Monday.

The request -- which comes as McDonald's tangles with resurgent rivals such as Wendy's, Burger King and Yum Brands' Taco Bell chain -- would be a break from company tradition of closing on major holidays.

"Starting with Thanksgiving, ensure your restaurants are open throughout the holidays," Jim Johannesen, chief operations officer for McDonald's USA, wrote in a Nov. 8 memo to franchisees -- one of two obtained by AdvertisingAge.

"Our largest holiday opportunity as a system is Christmas Day. Last year, (company-operated) restaurants that opened on Christmas averaged $5,500 in sales," Johannesen said.

"The decision to open our restaurants on Christmas is in the hands of our owner/operators," McDonald's spokeswoman Heather Oldani told Reuters.

Don Thompson took over as chief executive at McDonald's in July and has the difficult task of growing sales from last year's strong results in a significantly more competitive environment.

McDonald's monthly global sales at established restaurants fell for the first time in nine years in October, but unexpectedly rebounded in November.

The November surprise was partly due to a 2.5 percent rise in sales at U.S. restaurants open at least 13 months.

"Our November results were driven, in part, by our Thanksgiving Day performance," Johannesen wrote in a Dec. 12 memo to franchisees.

Oldani said 1,200 more McDonald's restaurants were open on Thanksgiving this year versus last year -- not 6,000 more as AdvertisingAge reported.

Still, the company has a high hurdle when it comes to posting an increase in restaurant sales this month because its U.S. same-restaurant sales jumped 9.8 percent in December 2011.

"It's an act of desperation. The franchisees are not happy," said Richard Adams, a former McDonald's franchisee who now advises the chain's owner/operators.

The push to open on the holidays goes against McDonald's cultural history, said Adams. In his first published operations manual, McDonald's Corp. founder Ray Kroc said the company would close on Thanksgiving and Christmas to give employees time with their families, Adams said.

"We opened for breakfast on Thanksgiving the last couple years I was a franchisee. It was easy to get kids to work on Thanksgiving because they want to get away from their family, but not on Christmas," Adams said.

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Emanuel: Time for 'an assault weapons ban'

Mayor Emanuel attended the ribbon-cutting for a new police station today but his thoughts were on the tragedy in Connecticut.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel today called for an assault weapons ban at the state and national levels and said it was time for a "vote of conscience" in Congress following the deadly assault on schoolchildren in Connecticut.

Speaking at a Chicago Police Department graduation and promotion ceremony this morning, the mayor did not address the political difficulty of the task. Congress allowed an assault-weapon ban to expire in 2004 and state efforts at gun control legislation have regularly failed in Springfield.

But he noted he worked in the Clinton White House when Bill Clinton signed an assault weapons ban.

"As somebody who stood by President Clinton's side to make sure we had a ban on assault weapons, I do not want to see more weapons on the street, more guns on the street. They make your job all that more difficult," Emanuel said.

"It's time that we as a city have an assault weapons ban, it's time that we as a state have an assault weapons ban, it's time that we as a country have an assault weapons ban," Emanuel said. "And I would hope the leadership in Congress now will have a vote of conscience. It is time to have that vote."

After the ceremony, police Superintendent Garry McCarthy backed the mayor's call for an assault weapons ban, saying large ammunition clips should be banned at the same time.

"If you ban the assault weapons and don't ban the high-capacity magazines, you’re only putting a Band-Aid on top of it," McCarthy said. "You're not fixing it."

McCarthy also said state Attorney General Lisa Madigan should appeal a federal appellate court ruling that struck down the state's ban on carrying handguns in public.

"The answer to firearms is not more firearms," McCarthy said. "Whether it's conceal-carry, whether it's extended magazines, whether it's assault weapons, it's all part of the same bigger picture."

"She should appeal it, absolutely," he added."“Just because 49 states did it doesn't make it right. Does anybody think it's right, the amount of gun violence that exists in this country? What we're doing isn't working."

Earlier this year, McCarthy said he backed a state law that would require people to report when their guns were lost, stolen or transferred. Now, he added, might be the time for action on gun controls.

"People hide behind the 2^nd Amendment, and as a result, people are afraid to make those changes," McCarthy said. "So we talk about it all the time. It would be nice if we see some action this time, and it would probably at least be some sort of way to try to make sense of a tragedy moving forward."

On Sunday, home-state President Barack Obama signaled he was open to a gun-control debate in his remarks to grieving parents and residents in Newtown, Conn., where 20 children and eight adults were killed in Friday’s attack by a man who police said was armed with a rifle and two handguns. U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois also called for a discussion on gun control.

The tragedy is expected to influence the coming gun-control debate at the state Capitol. Last week, a federal appeals court gave the state until June to come up with a new measure permitting the public possession of guns, as it threw out a half-century-old law that banned the practice.

Any issue involving guns in Illinois has been problematic -- one of the few topics symbolizing the state's urban-rural geographic divide. Top city politicians have pressed for strict gun control measures, facing push-back from the rural culture that holds people should have greater access to weapons.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling already had come against a backdrop of heightened anxiety about gun violence in Chicago, ranging from concerns about crime on tony Michigan Avenue to the city surpassing last year's total of 435 homicides by the end of October.

Madigan is mulling whether to appeal the decision and try to preserve Illinois' status as the last state in the nation to have a comprehensive prohibition on possessing a loaded firearm outside the home.

hdardick@tribune.com

Twitter: @ReporterHal

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RIM begins BlackBerry 10 tests with business, government clients

TORONTO (Reuters) – Research In Motion Ltd said on Monday that it had begun a “beta testing” program that allows 120 companies and government departments to try out its new BlackBerry 10 smartphones before their global launch on January 30.

The Canadian company, which is trying to reverse a sharp decline in market share for the BlackBerry, said the program would enable so-called enterprise customers in business and government to size up the BB10.

Features of the BB10 include the ability to separate personal and business information so that the user can store both without compromising security.

RIM has struggled in recent years to hold on to its base of enterprise customers, which typically pay a higher subscription fee than consumers, as their employees push to use devices such as Apple Inc’s iPhone for business as well as personal communications.

“This is a crucial step for us in getting our large enterprise customers ready to support BlackBerry 10 at the point of launch date, as opposed to post-launch date,” Bryan Lee, senior director for enterprise accounts, said in a phone interview.

RIM is providing the software and handsets at no charge, and the companies do not have to buy anything once the trial is finished.

The company plans to release its quarterly results on Thursday, and analysts expect it to report its third straight loss as it struggles to sell its older devices.

RIM made its name selling mobile email devices to bankers, lawyers and other professionals before expanding to sell phones to consumers.

The company said the BB10 testers were from financial, insurance, healthcare, manufacturing, media, and distribution industries and include 64 Fortune 500 companies, as well as government departments.

Lee would not identify any of the entities, beyond Integris Health and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which have both said they are testing the new devices.

The customers have installed test versions of RIM’s new server software, which manages iPhones and devices using Google Inc’s Android software as well as BlackBerrys, and will each receive two preproduction BlackBerry 10 handsets later this week.

RIM shares were down 2.1 percent at C$ 13.59 in morning Toronto Stock Exchange trading.

The stock has rallied from September’s multiyear lows around C$ 6.50 on a wave of optimism over the new devices, but the share price is still far below mid-2008 highs of around C$ 150.

(Reporting by Alastair Sharp; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

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Beck looks for new connection with ‘Song Reader’

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Beck Hansen wants you to think about the way music has changed over the last century and what that means about how human beings engage each other these days.

Laboring over the intricate and ornate details of his new “Song Reader” sheet music project, he was struck by how social music used to be — something we’ve lost in the age of ear buds.

“You watch an old film and see how people would dance together in the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s. You’d go out and people would switch partners and it was a way of social interaction,” Hansen said. “It’s something that was part of what brought people together. Playing music in the home is another aspect of that that’s been lost. Again, I’m not on a campaign to get people to take up songs and play music in their home or anything. But it is interesting to me, the loss of that, what it means.”

Beck hopes the “Song Reader” inspires some of us to pick up instruments and limber our vocal cords. It includes 20 songs annotated on sheet music that’s been decorated in the style popular in the early 20th century when the songwriting industry was a thriving enterprise with billions of songs sold.

The 42-year-old singer notes in the book’s preface that Bing Crosby’s “Sweet Leilani” sold an estimated 54 million copies in 1937, meaning about 40 percent or more of the U.S. population was engaged in learning how to play that song. They were touching it directly, speeding it up, slowing it down, changing the lyrics and creating something new.

“There’s popular bands now that people know the words to their songs and can sing along, but there’s something about playing a song for yourself or for your friends and family that allows you to inhabit the song and by some sort of osmosis it becomes part of who you are in a way,” he said. “So when I think of my great-grandparents’ generations, music defined their lives in a different way than it does now.”

Beck proposed the idea to McSweeney’s Dave Eggers in 2004 and it soon blossomed into something more ambitious as the artist wrapped his mind around the challenge of not just writing a song, but presenting it in a classic way that also engages fans who might not be able to read music or play their own instruments.

They quickly agreed it would make no money, but it seemed like an idea worth exploring.

“And it seemed like only Beck would have thought of it,” Eggers said in an email to the Associated Press. “It’s a very generous project, in that he wrote a bunch of songs and just gives them to the world to interpret. That’s a very expansive kind of generosity and inclusiveness that we’re happy to be part of. On a formal level, we love projects like this, that are unprecedented, and that result in a beautiful object full of great art and great writing. And it all started with Beck. It’s a testament to his groundbreaking approach to everything he does.”

Beck hopes fans will record their own versions and upload them to the Internet so those songs grow into something more universal.

As for his own recorded music, that’s a little more complicated.

Beck’s not sure where he’s headed at the moment. He recorded an album in 2008, but set it aside to work with Charlotte Gainsbourg on “IRM,” which he wrote and produced. He’s also been writing songs for soundtracks and special projects and producing artists like Thurston Moore, Stephen Malkmus and Dwight Yoakam. All that has left him feeling creatively satisfied, but he does acknowledge it’s been a while since he released 2008′s Danger Mouse-produced “Modern Guilt.”

He says in many ways he’s reached a crossroads he’s not yet sure how to navigate.

“This last year I’ve been thinking about whether I’d finish those songs (from 2008), whether they’re relevant or worthy of releasing. I know that doesn’t sound very definitive,” he said, laughing, “but that’s the kind of place I’m in — in this kind of limbo — and, um, yeah.”

The “Song Reader” spurred Beck to think about his own work in a new light as well. Spending six months finishing off the project after working on it sporadically over the years, he was struck by how much craft went into the creation of each song and how quickly music can come into existence today.

“There is so much music out there, to me,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s just where I am in my own music making or if it’s a product of the amount of music out there, but I feel like a piece of music does have to have a certain validity to be put out there and to ask people to listen. … I feel like it’s impossible for everyone to keep up, you know, so I guess I’ve been feeling like maybe there’s something to picking what you’re going to put out, about being more particular about what you put out.”

___

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___

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Reyes goes craft with Windy City deal

Independent breweries are still a niche category in the marketplace, but interest in them continues to grow.

Reyes Beverage Group, a division of global food and beer distributor Reyes Holdings of Rosemont, said Sunday it has reached an agreement to purchase Windy City Distribution, a well-regarded distributor of craft beers.

Brothers Jim and Jason Ebel founded Windy City in 1999. The firm operates as a distributor across eight northern Illinois counties for more than 40 craft breweries, such as Tyranena, Lagunitas and Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales. The Ebels also are the brewers behind Warrenville-based Two Brothers beer.

The deal, which is expected to close by the end of the year, is yet another sign of the coming-of-age of the craft beer scene, which is now much more part of the mainstream beer industry. In 2012, 442 craft breweries opened, according to the Beer Institute. The Brewers Association, a trade association, said sales of craft brews increased 14 percent in the first half of 2012 and volume jumped 12 percent.

While the beer industry overall has shown limited growth, the explosive interest in craft beer is enticing giants such as Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Budweiser, and MillerCoors, both of which have struggled to enter the craft market on their own. Since acquiring Chicago's Goose Island in 2011, Anheuser-Busch has aggressively expanded that well-known label. Earlier this year, it revealed plans to increase Goose Island's distribution to all 50 states, making it one of the few craft brands with a true national footprint.

Reyes' Chicago Beverage Systems and Windy City will not integrate their operations. Windy City's president, Bob Collins, and his management team will join Reyes. Chicago Beverage Systems distributes Miller, Coors and Heineken brands, among others.

"Windy City Distributing will be a new entity in our network focused solely on the craft beer market," said Ray Guerin, chief operating officer of Reyes Beverage Group. "I look forward to working with Windy City to learn more about servicing the craft beer industry while providing Reyes Beverage Group's expertise to help Windy City expand."

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Both companies are privately held.

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2nd quarter: Bears 7, Packers 0

Ignoring recent trends has been the message from Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith this past week, but reality arrived at Soldier Field on Sunday in the green-and-gold uniforms of the Green Bay Packers.

In a hard-fought first half, the Packers tied the game 7-7 with 4:19 left before intermission on a 29-yard touchdown pass from Aaron Rodgers to James Jones, who beat Kelvin Hayden. The scoring drive covered 89 yards.

Brandon Marshall, who expressed his distaste for the Packers during the week, got the Bears on the scoreboard first on a 15-yard touchdown pass from Jay Cutler with 8:03 to play before halftime. It capped a six-play, 67-yard drive and put the Bears up 7-0.

The Packers' Mason Crosby missed a 43-yard field goal attempt wide right with 11:22 left in the second period. The first quarter was dominated by the defenses.

It was difficult to forget that the Bears had lost five straight to their NFC North rivals. Entering with an 8-5 record, the Bears also had lost four of their last five after an auspicious 7-1 start.

Behind coach Mike McCarthy, Green Bay positioned itself to possibly clinch the NFC North with a victory Sunday.

"A rivalry game, I don't have to say an awful lot more than that," Smith said of the division-leading Packers. "I know they're excited about coming down here. It has just been too long. Right now, as I continue to say, unfortunately we haven't held up our end of the deal with the rivalry. You've got to win some football games to really get that done. We know what's at stake."

Injuries could not be an excuse for the Bears, as the Packers had significant losses to injuries, as well.

Inactives for the Bears were Josh McCown, Tim Jennings, Geno Hayes, Henry Melton, Earl Bennett, Shea McClellin and Urlacher.

Green Bay inactives: Charles Woodson, James Starks, Terrell Manning, Donald Driver, D.J. Williams, Jordy Nelson and C.J. Wilson.

Rodgers came in with an 8-2 record against the Bears as a starter, with a passer rating of 96.8.

The Packers entered the game having won 11 straight division games.

fmitchell@tribune.com

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