Illinois corporate tax credits swelled to $161 million 2011

When lawmakers raised taxes on Illinois residents and businesses, they also increased corporate income tax breaks for a select group of companies.

In 2011, businesses were eligible to claim about $161 million in tax credits — double from the prior year — mostly because of the increase to 5 percent from 3 percent in the state's personal income tax rate, which is a factor in determining the value of the incentives. The boost marked the largest increase in the Economic Development for a Growing Economy tax credit program, the state's main economic development program, since its creation in 1999.

Deere & Co., Boeing Co. and Caterpillar Inc., whose leader severely criticized lawmakers for tax hikes, were among dozens of companies that received more robust tax breaks. Some companies' deals also allowed them to be in line to receive tax incentives even while laying off workers or lowering wages.

The EDGE program allows a business to claim a credit against its corporate income tax liability if it agrees to create and/or retain jobs and make an investment in the state of at least $1 million, for companies with fewer than 100 workers, and at least $5 million for larger companies.

Once accepted into the program, which typically lasts 10 years, a company applies on an annual basis for a tax credit certificate, similar to a voucher, which it can claim when it files its taxes.

Marcelyn Love, a spokeswoman with the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, which administers the program, said that under the tax credit program companies make investments and employ workers, practices that otherwise would not have occurred without the credits.

"Both the private investment and the increased employment significantly increase tax revenue collection for the state in excess of the credits given," Love said in an email. Far from adding to the tax burden, she added, these incentives actually generate revenue for the state. "Further, most of these tax credits pay for themselves within two years."

The certificates are the only way to gauge the potential cost and scope of the program, because tax filings are not public. The Tribune obtained the 2011 certificates data, the latest year available, under the state's Freedom of Information Act. Companies have as many as five years to redeem a certificate.

After a deal is finalized, a company has two years to meet its side of the bargain and begin applying for certificates. Thus, the increase in the total value of 2011 tax breaks is also the result of companies receiving certificates for the first time. For example, Ford Motor Co. began applying for its certificates in 2010 from a 2007 deal.

During Gov. Pat Quinn's administration, companies have received increasingly larger deals. Many have been for retaining jobs, according to a Tribune analysis. In 2011, Sears Holdings Corp. was offered a tax credit package worth $150 million over 10 years to keep its headquarters in the state and retain at least 4,250 full-time jobs. The company, which after the deal was announced revealed that it was closing 125 stores nationwide, has yet to apply for a certificate. Five of those stores were in Illinois. State officials have said that during a recession, when few jobs are created, it's important to focus on retaining workers.

Chris Brathwaite, a Sears spokesman, said the company's employment level at its headquarters is higher than the more than 6,000 jobs it had when the deal was approved, but he declined to provide figures.

In general, the value of a certificate equals the number of jobs created and/or retained, multiplied by wages tied to those jobs and the state's personal income tax rate.

That means companies that didn't add one worker and kept wages at the 2010 rate received a 67 percent boost to their 2011 corporate income tax break. Just like individuals, corporations also registered a tax rate increase in 2011. Lawmakers set the new corporate income tax rate at 7 percent, up from 4.8 percent. The increases in breaks partially offset that hike.

The formula under which companies become eligible to receive tax breaks was aimed at encouraging job creation and increasing employee wages. Still, the 2011 data revealed that some companies made deals to allow job cuts and still qualify for incentives, a practice known as "normal attrition."

A case in point is Motorola Mobility. For the past two years, Motorola Mobility has qualified for certificates worth a total of $22.6 million while slowly chipping away at its workforce. Late last year, the smartphone-maker, which was acquired by Google Inc. in May, announced it was laying off 20 percent of its global workforce. Locally, the company cut hundreds of workers, bringing its Illinois head count to about 2,300, a figure that would make it ineligible for a 2013 certificate unless it boosts its workforce before the end of the year.

The Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity said the EDGE program played a crucial role in keeping Motorola Mobility in Illinois after it was acquired by Google. Its presence, the agency said, is drawing more technology investment and jobs to the state.

A state lawmaker wants the state to end the wiggle room practice, cap at $100 million the annual amount of tax breaks awarded and remove the investment bar so more small and medium-size businesses can qualify for breaks.

"Large multinationals are getting all the breaks," said Rep. Jack Franks, D-Marengo, adding that his focus is to modernize the program and increase accountability.

Franks' House Bill 1336 would also limit the length of the tax breaks to five years and require that companies pay workers at least the median salary of their occupation as determined by federal data. The bill also eliminates the provision requiring companies to make a capital investment in the state of at least $1 million or $5 million, depending on their size. And it creates a nine-member board to oversee the deals, with members appointed by the governor and approved by the state Senate.

Franks said that the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity shouldn't promote the program while also negotiating deals with companies, because it creates a conflict of interest.

Read More..

Passengers describe 'filth,' 'stench' on disabled cruise ship

MOBILE, Ala.—

Thousands of relieved passengers poured ashore from a stinking cruise ship on Friday after five days adrift in the Gulf of Mexico with overflowing toilets and stench filled cabins.

Exhausted passengers lined the ship's decks, waving towels and flashlights, cheering and singing "Sweet Home Alabama" as tug-boats pulled the stricken Carnival Triumph into the port of Mobile, Alabama.

Some travelers kissed the ground when they walked off, others disembarked wearing the ship's white bath robes, part souvenir and part protection against a chilly night.

With only one working elevator, it took several hours to get the more than 4,200 people off the ship, Carnival said. Passengers were greeted dockside with warm food, blankets and cell phones to call family and friends.

About 100 buses waited to carry passengers on a seven-hour bus ride to Galveston, Texas, while others buses departed for shorter rides to New Orleans, as well as hotels in Mobile, before eventually flying home.

The end of the saga, documented live on U.S. cable news stations, was another public relations disaster for cruise giant Carnival Corp. Last year, its Costa Concordia luxury liner grounded off the coast of Italy, killing 32 people.

Carnival officials said the Triumph, which entered service in 1999, would be towed to a Mobile repair facility for damage assessment.

The 893-foot vessel was returning to Galveston from Cozumel, Mexico on the third day of a four-day cruise when an engine-room fire knocked out power and plumbing across most of the ship on Sunday.

Passengers described a gut-wrenching stench on parts of the ship and complained to relatives and media by cellphone that toilets and drainpipes overflowed, soaking many cabins and interior passages in raw sewage.

"The stench was awful," said Robin Chandler, a 50-year-old from Dallas who spent her birthday on the ship. "A lot of people were crying and freaking out."

Jacob Combs, an Austin, Texas-based sales executive with a healthcare and hospice company, praised the ship's crew.

"Just imagine the filth," said Combs, 30. "People were doing crazy things and going to the bathroom in sinks and showers. It was inhuman. The stewards would go in and clean it all up. They were constantly cleaning," he said.

Debbie Moyes, 32, of Phoenix told the Los Angeles Times she was awakened Sunday by a fellow passenger banging on her door, warning people to escape.

"That was one of the only points in my life I thought I might die," the mother of four said as she stood in the parking lot.

Soon after, she said some passengers panicked.

"People were hoarding food -- boxes and boxes of cereal, grabbing cake with both hands," she said.

APOLOGY FROM CARNIVAL

Facing criticism over the company's response, Carnival Cruise Lines Chief Executive Gerry Cahill boarded the ship to personally apologize to passengers.

"I know the conditions on board were very poor," he told reporters, sounding shaken in a brief media appearance before he boarded the ship. "I know it was difficult. I want to apologize for subjecting our guests to that," he said.

"We pride ourselves with providing our guests with a great vacation experience and clearly we failed in this particular case," Cahill added.

Operated by Carnival Cruise Lines, the flagship brand of Carnival Corp, the ship left Galveston a week ago carrying 3,143 passengers and 1,086 crew. It was supposed to return on Monday.

Some passengers said conditions deteriorated rapidly on the Triumph earlier in the week, saying people were getting sick and passengers had been told to use plastic "biohazard" bags as makeshift toilets.

"It wasn't a vacation anymore it was like survival mode. Eat what you can. Snack when you can. It was awful," said passenger Tammy Garcia.

Smoke from the engine fire was so thick that passengers on the lower decks in the rear of the ship had to be permanently evacuated and slept the rest of the voyage on the decks under sheets, passengers said.

COMPENSATION OFFER

Some passengers said they tried to pass the time playing cards and organizing Bible study groups and scavenger hunts for the children on board the ship.

Cahill has issued several apologies and Carnival, the world's largest cruise company, said passengers will be reimbursed in full plus transportation expenses, a future cruise credit equal to the amount paid for this voyage, plus a payment of $500 a person to help compensate them.

Chandler, the passenger, scoffed at the compensation offer. "There are lost wages, I've got a baby sitter at home and I had to take off work," she said.

Some passengers said conditions improved on Thursday after a generator was delivered to the ship, providing power for a grill to cook hot food. Passengers said toilets began flushing again on Thursday and the ship served steaks and lobster - a relief after a steady diet of cold sandwiches of cucumber and cheese.

Carnival Corp Chairman and CEO Micky Arison was criticized in January last year for failing to travel to Italy and take personal charge of the Costa Concordia crisis. The tragedy unleashed numerous lawsuits against his company.

He has not publicly commented on the Triumph incident.

"I think they really are trying to do the right thing, but I don't think they have been able to communicate it effectively," said Marcia Horowitz, an executive who handles crisis management at Rubenstein Associates, a New York-based PR firm.

Carnival Corp shares closed down 11 cents at $37.35 in trading on Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange.

The Triumph is a Bahamian-flagged vessel and the Bahamas Maritime Authority will be the primary agency investigating the cause of its engine room fire.

Earlier this month, Carnival repaired an electrical problem on one of the Triumph's alternators. The company said there was no evidence of any connection between the repair and the fire.

For all the passengers' grievances, they will likely find it difficult to sue the cruise operator for any damages, legal analysts said. Over the years, the cruise industry has put in place a legal structure that shields operators from big-money lawsuits.

Reuters and Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times

Read More..

Facebook's latest revenue trick: Pay to promote friends' posts

Facebook has announced its latest attempt at making money, and this time it involves letting users pay to promote their friends' posts.

The feature lets users pay to have a friend's post show more prominently in other friends' news feeds.

"If your friend is renting their apartment out and she tells her friends on Facebook, you can share the post with the people you and your friend have in common so that it shows up higher in news feed and more people notice it," the company said, citing an example of when this feature could be useful. 

PHOTOS: Tech we want to see in 2013

The feature is similar to another one that Facebook introduced last year that lets users pay to promote their own posts.

The company said Thursday that people have been using that feature to promote posts about charities and causes, publicize events, advertise items they're selling, promote important life announcements or congratulate someone else on an accomplishment.

The cost of promoting a post depends on a number of factors, including geographic location and how many people the post would reach, Facebook said.

Facebook said the ability to pay to promote a friend's post will be rolled out to all users over time.

ALSO:

Google under fire for sending users' information to developers

Mother's 'baby' portraits of 13-year-old son go viral on Facebook

Bandai resurrects Tamagotchi pets just in time for Valentine's Day

Read More..

'Blade Runner' Olympian charged with girlfriend's murder

JOHANNESBURG -- South African "Blade Runner" Oscar Pistorius, a double amputee who became one of the biggest names in world athletics, was charged on Thursday with shooting dead his girlfriend at his upscale home in Pretoria.

Police said they opened a murder case after a 30-year-old woman was found dead at the Paralympic and Olympic star's house in the Silverlakes gated complex on the capital's outskirts.

Pistorius, 26, and his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp, had been the only people in the house at the time of the shooting, police brigadier Denise Beukes told reporters, adding witnesses had been interviewed about the early morning incident.

"We are talking about neighbors and people that heard things earlier in the evening and when the shooting took place," Beukes said outside the heavily guarded residential complex.

Police said a 9mm pistol had been found at the scene.

Beukes said police were aware of previous incidents at the Pistorius house. "I can confirm that there has previously been incidents at the home of Mr Oscar Pistorious, of allegations of a domestic nature," she said.

Pistorius, who uses carbon fiber prosthetic blades to run, is due to appear in a Pretoria court on Friday.

"He is doing well but very emotional," his lawyer Kenny Oldwage told SABC TV, but gave no further comment.

A sports icon for triumphing over disability to compete with able-bodied athletes at the Olympics, his sponsorship deals, including one with sports apparel group Nike, are thought to be worth $2 million a year.

South Africa's M-Net cable TV channel said it was pulling adverts featuring Pistorius off air immediately after blanket coverage of the arrest in a country more used to honoring Pistorius as a national hero.

"WE ARE ALL DEVASTATED"

Steenkamp's colleagues in the modeling world were distraught. "We are all devastated. Her family is in shock," her agent, Sarita Tomlinson, tearfully told Reuters. "They did have a good relationship. Nobody actually knows what happened."

Pistorius, who was born without a fibula in both legs, was the first double amputee to run in the Olympics and reached the 400-metre semi-finals in London 2012.

In last year's Paralympics he suffered his first loss over 200 meters in nine years. After the race he questioned the legitimacy of Brazilian winner Alan Oliveira's prosthetic blades, though he was quick to express regret for the comments.

South Africa has some of the world's highest rates of violent crime, and many home owners have weapons to defend themselves against intruders, although Pistorius's complex is surrounded by a three-meter high wall and electric fence.

In 2004, Springbok rugby player Rudi Visagie shot dead his 19-year-old daughter after he mistakenly thought she was a robber trying to steal his car in the middle of the night.

Before the murder charge was announced, Johannesburg's Talk Radio 702 said the athlete may have mistaken Steenkamp for a burglar.

Pistorius was arrested in 2009 for assault after slamming a door on a woman and spent a night in police custody. Family and friends said it was just an accident and charges were dropped.

OLYMPIAN UNDERGOES POLICE TESTS

Read More..

Irish composer Raymond Deane talks Achill, Alma and ABBA too

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Irish composer Raymond Deane chafes at what he sees as a lack of recognition in his homeland for classical composers in a country better known for traditional fiddling and rock supergroup U2 than for notes on staves.

“Classical music means Mozart and Beethoven and when you say Irish classical music their eyes just widen,” Deane, who recently turned 60, told Reuters over lunch at a French-style bistro in Dublin.

“Classical music doesn’t do much for the tourist industry except frighten off the tourists.”

Deane, who also is an activist who has taken up the causes of East Timorese and Palestinian human rights and campaigns to get artists to boycott Israel, described the Irish composer’s plight in the 1990s as “the honor of non-existence”.

Though he can rattle off the names of more than a half dozen Irish men and women composers of international stature, he says little has changed.

The difference is this year, Deane’s often haunting, sometimes playful chamber pieces got an airing at a birthday celebration in a Dublin church, one of his orchestral works was played at the National Concert Hall and September will see a concert staging of a new opera, “The Alma Fetish”.

The last, a collaboration with librettist Gavin Kostick, is a musical treatment of a theme that probably – actually, undoubtedly – would have been banned in Roman Catholic Ireland not too many years ago.

It is based on the love affair between composer Gustav Mahler’s widow Alma, a femme fatale for many a European intellectual, and the Austrian painter Oskar Kokoschka. He became so enamored of her he ordered up a life-size doll shaped, in all respects, like Alma.

Although the performance will be a concert staging, Deane said the doll will be there in some form or other, possibly in projections.

“You couldn’t not have it, because it’s absolutely central,” he said, adding that he was in part attracted to the story of Alma’s and Kokoschka’s affair because of the Olympia doll character in Offenbach’s opera “The Tales of Hoffmann”. Alma also seduced Oskar to the main theme of one of Deane’s favorite operas, Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde”.

“Alma seduced Oskar to the ‘liebestod’ but in my version she sings and plays it as a Viennese waltz,” he said.

In a sign of the pan-European roots of his inspiration, Deane has quoted and used themes from composers as diverse as Mahler, Mussorgsky and Stockhausen in a musical career that began at about age 10 when his family moved from scenic but rustic Achill Island, off Ireland’s west coast, to Dublin, and Deane began writing down improvisations at the piano.

“It’s ridiculous, everyone is immature at the age of 10 but I was a particularly immature 10-year-old, and to think I’ve stood by a decision I made then, there’s really something absurd about it.”

Here’s what else he had to say about getting a musical education via the BBC’s classical station Radio 3, what he did or didn’t learn from his professors and why he makes no secret about liking ABBA‘s “Dancing Queen”:

Q: You studied under some of the musical greats of the 20th century, including the eternal enfant terrible Karlheinz Stockhausen. What did that do for you?

A: “‘Study’ in quotation marks – anybody else who would have gone through my particular curriculum vitae, studying with (composer) Gerald Bennett in Switzerland, Stockhausen in Cologne…would have made some use of them, seen them as opportunities. To a large extent I wasted all the opportunities that were offered to me by these people, quite perversely.”

Q: So where did you learn your craft, or more simply, how did you become a composer?

A: “I went to the usual university, did a degree at Maynooth (National University of Ireland), a doctorate. But my main musical education really was BBC Radio 3. When we came to Dublin in my early teens I had this old transistor radio that was really my main connection to the outer world and it wasn’t linked up to anything so the reception from the BBC was diabolical. The static was amazing and sometimes it would disappear completely. I would tune in and hear ‘tssshh’ and through this I would hear the music and then ‘tssshhh’. Sometimes it would disappear and I would try to imagine what I was missing. I think a lot of the kind of perverse quality of some of those early pieces of mine stems from that – a distant relationship and a rather distorted relationship to something.”

Q: Plus you and your composer friend Gerald Barry, in the days a quarter of a century ago before you swore off the drink, used to have some late evenings in which he’d play Rod Stewart and you’d pick ABBA, particularly “Dancing Queen”.

A: “I was a big fan of ABBA, I still have a lot of time for ABBA, I have a lot of time for the Beatles, a lot of time for Neil Young…Bruce Springsteen. My CD and record collection has a lot of non-classical stuff in it. I probably draw the line at rap.”

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Irish composer Raymond Deane talks Achill, Alma and ABBA too
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/irish-composer-raymond-deane-talks-achill-alma-and-abba-too/
Link To Post : Irish composer Raymond Deane talks Achill, Alma and ABBA too
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

American, US Airways announce merger

CEOs Doug Parker and Tom Horton speak to the "CBS This Morning" co-hosts about the merger of American Airlines and US Airways in their first network morning interview.

AMR Corp., parent of American Airlines, and US Airways Group will merge and keep Chicago O'Hare International Airport as a hub, the companies said Thursday.

The merged airlines, to be called American Airlines, would create the world's largest carrier, edging out Chicago-based United Airlines, assuming the $11 billion merger is approved by regulators and U.S. bankruptcy court, where American filed for Chapter 11 restructuring in 2011. The combination is expected to be completed in the third quarter of this year and save $1 billion by 2015.

The merger would likely end a wave of consolidation that has helped put major U.S. airlines on more sound financial footing. The widely expected deal has been more than a year in the making. U.S. fliers would be left with four major airlines, American, United, Delta Airlines and Southwest Airlines, which together would control about three-quarters of the U.S. market.

"We think this merger is the best strategic fit for both companies because it cures each other's ills," said Morningstar analyst Basili Alukos in a note to investors Thursday. US Airways, which he says "is essentially a small domestic carrier" gains a network to compete with the largest airlines, while American benefits from US Airways' "lean operating system and better access to the East Coast."

In Chicago, the two have little overlap. American is the No. 2 carrier in the region, with about 27 percent of the market, 500 flights per day and 9,300 Chicago-based employees. O'Hare is American's second-largest hub, after Dallas-Fort Worth, which will be the headquarters for the merged airline. 

By contrast, US Airways flights account for just 2 percent of the seats flying out of Chicago's airports, and the carrier employs 170 here.

The combined airline would be run by US Airways CEO Doug Parker, while American's CEO, Tom Horton, becomes non executive chairman until next year.

The merger was unanimously approved by the boards of both companies. American said the combined airline would "have a robust global network and a strong financial foundation. The merger will offer benefits to both airlines' customers, communities, employees, investors and creditors."

American said customers of the merged airline would have access to more choices and increased service across the combined company's larger worldwide network and through an enhanced Oneworld Alliance, of which American Airlines is a founding member. The combined airline will offer more than 6,700 daily flights to 336 destinations in 56 countries.

"Our combined network will provide a significantly more attractive offering to customers, ensuring that we are always able to take them where they want to travel, when they want to go," Parker said. 

However, consumer groups have been critical of the merger before its announcement.

"From a consumer standpoint ... individual traveler or corporate travel department -- there are few benefits to offset the negative impacts of this proposed merger that include reduced competition, higher fares and fees and diminished service to small and mid-size communities," said Business Travel Coalition Chairman Kevin Mitchell.

Charlie Leocha, director of the Consumer Travel Alliance, said the merger offered "no discernible consumer benefits."

"Antitrust regulations were created to protect consumers, not to facilitate industry consolidation," he said. "The claim that this merger will provide more destinations is hollow. Whatever new cities are added by a future (American Airlines-US Airways) network are subtracted from the current airline alliance network that US Airways enjoys with United. The net effect is that, overall, consumers are left with nothing new and no improvement to the status quo."

Airlines executives said they were not worried about getting antitrust approval from the U.S. Justice Department because the airlines are complementary and overlap on just a dozen of 900 routes.

Industry analyst Jeff Kauffman from Sterne Agee agreed. "The Justice Department could order assets sales if it finds the deal creates a monopoly in any area. We see this as unlikely given there is little overlap of the respective networks," he wrote in a note to clients.

In Chicago, travelers would be largely shielded from the merger's downsides, experts have said. The region's plethora of flights from O'Hare and Midway, as well as the presence of many discount airlines, should hold fares largely in check on most routes after the merger. 

Route changes are most likely on a few overlapping routes from Chicago to US Airways hubs in Philadelphia, Phoenix and Charlotte, N.C., experts say.

"But most Chicagoans will still have at least four airlines competing for their business on the majority of routes -- and even more on routes such as Chicago to Los Angeles," said George Hobica, founder of Airfarewatchdog.com.

Customers can continue to book travel and track and manage flights and frequent-flyer activity through AA.com or USAirways.com and will continue as usual in the AAdvantage and Dividend Miles frequent flyer programs. At first, there are no changes to the frequent-flyer programs of either airline. Eventually, frequent-flyers will be able to earn and redeem miles on a larger network.

The merger is supported by American Airlines' unions, which separately negotiated contracts with US Airways in anticipation of a merger. "With a strong, proven leadership team focused on partnering with frontline employees, improving reliability and customer service, and expanding our network, the new American Airlines will return to a position of industry preeminence," said Dennis Tajer, spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, the American Airlines pilot union.

The new carrier would be 2 percent larger than current No. 1 United Continental Holdings in traffic, as measured by the number of miles flown by paying passengers worldwide.

In a note to employees Thursday, United CEO Jeff Smisek said the newly merged airlines would be a "formidable competitor" but that consolidation is good for the airline industry.

"We, our co-workers, our customers and our shareholders have benefitted from the improved financial health that consolidation has brought to our industry," he wrote. "United is a much stronger carrier today than we were before we merged, and we haven't even finished harvesting all the synergies of our merger. Delta, which is two years ahead of us in the merger process, is performing very well as a result of their merger. I'm encouraged by the successes we've seen in the airline industry in recent years."

The merger of the two airlines does not appear to provide clarity toward American and United Airlines reaching agreement with Chicago about completing the runway expansion project at O'Hare International Airport that has dragged on for eight years.

Officials from both United and American have said the new runways covered under the existing expansion agreement are sufficient to handle demand for the foreseeable future, and there is no justification for the airlines to spend more money on expansion now. 

The two largest airlines serving O'Hare have in the past vigorously opposed the city's financing plans for the expansion, saying the city is taking on too much debt through extensive bonding that would ultimately saddle the carriers with unacceptable costs. As a result, Chicago's plan to build the final runways and construct a massive western passenger terminal complex has been in an indefinite holding pattern.  

In 2011, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood brokered a deal for one new runway, on the south section of the airfield, by offering more in federal funds. Negotiations on completing the O'Hare expansion project, which once totaled $15 billion and was scaled back to less than $8 billion, were suspended until this year, with Chicago officials hoping to nail down an agreement by 2014.  

But no formal negotiations have taken place between the two airlines and the Emanuel administration, sources said.

The prospects for United and American investing in O'Hare expansion in the immediate future appears unlikely. United is focused on smoothing out its recent merger with Continental Airlines. American, whose parent company, AMR, is still working to get out of bankruptcy, will be consumed with its new partnership with US Airways.

In the merged company, Horton would be board chairman through the first annual meeting of shareholders. After that, Parker would take over as chairman. The board would initially be made up of 12 members, three American Airlines representatives, including Tom Horton, four US Airways representatives, including Doug Parker, and five AMR creditor representatives.

Under the merger agreement, US Airways stockholders would receive one share of common stock of the combined airline for each share of US Airways common stock then held. American Airlines stakeholders, including labor unions, would own 72 percent of the merged airline, while US Airways stakeholders would own the rest.

Vicki Bryan, senior high yield bond analyst at Gimme Credit, said in a note to investors Thursday the merger is good news for everybody involved, even fliers after the combined airline gets passed integration issues.

"Under CEO Doug Parker, we expect American will 'straighten up and fly right,' " she wrote.

gkarp@tribune.com

Tribune reporter Jon Hilkevitch contributed.

Read More..

Cubs' plan for more night games could be in trouble

CAPTIONS

Proposed Wrigley renovations
Shown here are ideas for the upper level seating and concessions area. (Provided by Chicago Cubs, HANDOUT /January 19, 2013)

By Ameet Sachdev and Hal Dardick




Clout Street

11:58 a.m. CST, February 13, 2013

The Chicago Cubs' push for more night games in the upcoming season could be in jeopardy, as Ald. Tom Tunney said he would not introduce legislation at today's City Council meeting.

The team has asked Tunney, whose 44^th ward encompasses Wrigley Field, to ease limits on night games, late Friday afternoon games, concerts and other non-game events that are part of a neighborhood protection ordinance. The Cubs want more flexibility in scheduling games and events to increase revenues as the owners of the team seek to embark on a $300 million renovation of Wrigley Field.

The Cubs currently schedule 27 night games and can add up to three more for national television purposes. The exact number of new night games the club seeks is unclear, but the team is eager to have more night games as soon as the upcoming season. The timetable depends on getting city approval as soon as possible so that Major League Baseball can adjust the 2013 schedule, which already has been unveiled.

The team had asked Tunney to introduce a measure amending the neighborhood protection ordinance at Wednesday’s meeting. But the alderman wants the Cubs to address parking, traffic and security issues in the Wrigleyville neighborhood.

The lack of a proposal today suggests Tunney is in no rush to give the Cubs what they want. Additional night games are just one of the changes the Cubs seek that are tied to Wrigley renovations. The team also wants the city to lift landmark restrictions on the stadium to allow for more advertising and change zoning around Wrigley to allow for pre-game street festivals.

A spokesman for the Ricketts family, the Cubs’ owners, said negotiations on several issues continue.

“Everybody has a sense of urgency,” said spokesman Dennis Culloton. “The team is still hoping to get things resolved by Opening Day at the latest.”

Read More..

Downtown condo market seeing rebound

Downtown Chicago's condo market is on the rebound after many moribund years, as sales volume and pricing improve in a market constrained by a lack of inventory.

It's a rare piece of good news for downtown condo owners as well as for developers pondering projects and trying to line up financing.

With a steady stream of apartment projects delivering in the next two years, the lack of new condo construction could signal opportunities for companies interested in pursuing smaller projects in key neighborhoods because the demand is there. Until those projects materialize, condo owners looking to sell face a better market than they have in several years.

Sales of existing downtown condos rose 31.2 percent last year, to 4,675 units sold, while the median sales price of $300,000 was a gain of about 2.6 percent from 2011, according to data from Appraisal Research Counselors.

Another piece of good news for current condo owners: Of the 65 downtown buildings studied by the firm, the average sales price per square foot of units sold during the second half of last year rose while the number of distressed condo sales in those buildings saw a substantial drop. Distressed sales, which accounted for  28 percent of sales since 2010, fell to 17 percent of sales during the second half of 2012.

In addition, only 1,104 newly constructed condo units remain unsold downtown.

"When we see more transactions occurring, that's a really good indication of demand," said Gail Lissner, a vice president at the firm. "The look of the condo market has changed in terms of unsold inventory."

Lissner's remarks came Tuesday during a lunchtime briefing on the local housing market.

Most of the unsold inventory, more than 500 units, is in the South Loop and the bulk of it is in the newly named and repositioned 500-unit South Loop Luxury by Related.

The three buildings, once called One Museum Park West, 1600 Museum Park and Museum Park Place 2 were taken over by New York-based Related Cos. in July have been renamed the Grant, Adler Place and Harbor View, respectively.

Since December, 40 units there are under contract, according to Related Midwest, which officially launched sales in the project Tuesday.

Other new projects reporting positive sales trends are Park Monroe Phase II, a 48-unit adaptive reuse project with 16 sales and CA3, a 40-unit building with 18 sales.

"These are all great indicators of strong sales," Lissner said. "Price stabilization has occurred in the market. You don't hear people talking about bottoming out. That was so yesterday."

mepodmolik@tribune.com | Twitter @mepodmolik

Read More..

No bail for suspects in Hadiya Pendleton slaying

Two suspects in the slaying of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton were ordered held without bond today.
Cook County Judge Israel Desierto ordered that Michael Ward, the alleged gunman, and Kenneth Williams, the alleged accomplice, remain in custody as they await trial.

Police say Ward, 18 and Williams, 20 were out for revenge from a previous shooting when they opened fire on a group of students in a South Side park Jan. 29 and hit Pendleton. Ward confessed to police that he and Williams mistook a Pendleton companion for rivals who had shot and wounded Williams last July, police and prosecutors say.

In court today, prosecutors disclosed that surveillance video captured the two as they fled in a white Nissan after the shooting. Police had identified Williams and Ward as occupants of the car "within approximately 10 minutes of the shooting," prosecutors said.

The two weren't arrested until this past weekend. Both made admissions to police about the shooting, with Ward telling detectives that Pendleton "had nothing to do with it. She was just there."

Williams told police he and Ward were driving around, looking for members of a rival gang, when they pulled up to the park. Ward got out and "snuck up on the group and they didn't see him coming," prosecutors quoted Ward as telling police. "Ward admitted he approached the fence and fired the gun six times. He ran back to the car and both defendants fled."

Ward told police that his gang and the rival gang "had been shooting at one another since 2010," and that one of Ward's friends have been killed by rival gang members. "It hurt, it hurt," he told police, according to prosecutors. "It hurt to a point where everyone had to go."

Detectives arrested the two Saturday night as the suspects were on their way to a suburban strip club to celebrate a friend's birthday, McCarthy said. Pendleton had been buried only hours earlier in a funeral attended by first lady Michelle Obama.
Williams did not confess and police have not recovered a weapon, McCarthy said.

McCarthy said that two days before the killing, police had stopped Ward in his Nissan Sentra as part of a routine gang investigation. That information wound up being the starting point for detectives when witnesses in the shooting described seeing a similar car driving away from the shooting scene, he said.

Through surveillance and interviews — including several fruitful interviews with parolees in the neighborhood — detectives were able to home in on Ward and Williams, McCarthy said. On Saturday night, the decision was made to stop the two if they were spotted. Police watched as they departed in a caravan of cars headed to the strip club in Harvey. They were stopped near 67th Street and South King Drive and taken in for questioning.

McCarthy said Williams was shot July 11 at 39th Street and South Lake Park Avenue, and an arrest was made. But that gunman was let go after Williams refused to cooperate, McCarthy said.

McCarthy also noted that at the time of Hadiya's slaying, Ward was on probation for a weapons conviction. McCarthy said weak Illinois gun laws allowed Ward to avoid jail time because of the absence of mandatory minimum sentences.

"This incident did not have to occur," McCarthy said. "And if mandatory minimums existed in the state of Illinois, Michael Ward would not have been on the street to commit this heinous act."

jmeisner@tribune.com

jgorner@tribune.com

Read More..

Chicago leads nation in gas-price spikes

Drivers in Chicago are seeing a painful rise in gas prices get even worse this month.

The average price of regular unleaded in the Chicago metro area on Tuesday is $3.93, according to AAA. That's up 12 cents from a week ago. A month ago, the average was $3.42. Statewide, the average is about $3.79, up 8 cents from last week and 46 cents last month.

Prices are rising at pumps across the country, too, but not as dramatically. The national average is $3.60, up about 7 cents from a week ago and 30 cents higher than this time last month.

It's not typical to see gas price spikes at this time of year. Demand is typically low and picks up in the spring before driving season. And in general, gas is cheaper to produce in the winter because refineries can use less expensive blends.

The main reason for the spike is the higher price of crude oil. The price of oil has gone from around $85 a barrel in December to around $97 now because of improving economic certainty as the country moved past the election and the fiscal cliff deadline, according to energy analyst Phil Flynn. It's also being driven by better-than-expected growth in China, the world's second largest economy.

Prices in the Chicago area are typically some the highest in the nation, but the cost of a local fill-up is accelerating at almost double the national rate.

Flynn attributes this to a number of refinery issues in the region. Some scheduled maintenance at refineries -- where gasoline and other products are produced from oil -- occurred earlier than usual, which cut off some supply, affecting prices. Many close at this time of year to start the switchover to lower-emission summer blends of gasoline.

Besides a major overhaul of BP's Whiting refinery, the largest supplier of gasoline to Midwest markets, that's believed to be driving prices higher, a fire temporarily shut down a refinery in northwest Ohio.

AAA, which tracks daily gasoline prices around the country, predicts they will continue their rapid climb as local refinery issues continue into the beginning of peak driving season.

Flynn is more optimistic.

He believes that once the major Whiting refinery overhaul is complete later this year, gas prices will stabilize.

"I'm probably in the minority but I think we are starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel," he said.

sbomkamp@tribune.com | Twitter: @SamWillTravel

Read More..