Chicago sets brisk timeline for electric aggregation deal

The City of Chicago laid out a timeline Thursday for how it intends to quickly complete a deal that would move approximately 950,000 Chicagoans to a new electricity supplier.

The timing of the deal is important because Chicagoans stand to save the most money over Commonwealth Edison's rate between now and June 2013, when ComEd's prices are expected to drop because pricey contracts they entered into years ago will expire. The timeline has Chicagoans moving to the new supplier in February 2013.

In Tuesday's election, Chicago voters passed a proposal to allow the city to negotiate for better electricity prices on behalf of residential customers and small businesses. The city is one of hundreds of Illinois communities participating in so-called electricity aggregation and is by far the largest city in the nation to attempt such a large bulk purchase for electricity.

Michael Negron, deputy chief of policy and strategic planning for the mayor's office, said electricity suppliers have shown great interest in snagging Chicago's service. Nearly 100 people packed a conference Monday for the city's "request for qualifications" process. The bidders ranged from multi-billion corporations to smaller providers from all over the country, he said. Industry analysts say the deal could be worth hundreds of millions of dollar to the winning supplier or suppliers.

The timeline is as follows:

Nov. 14: Municipal aggregation ordinance introduced as substitute ordinance in city finance committee

Nov. 21: Bidder responses to request for qualifications due

Nov. 26 - Dec. 11: Finance committee will conduct two public hearings on aggregation ordinance

Early December: City and Delta Institute convene stakeholder process for identifying options for a portion of savings to go toward increased energy efficiency or the development of cleaner, renewable energy sources.

Dec. 5: Qualified pool of energy providers announced

Dec. 6: Issuance of request for pricing; responses due within days. The sole selection criteria at this point will be price because the RFQ phase will have screened out bidders based on their capacity, financial stability, customer service and ability to deliver cleaner energy.

Dec. 12: City Council considers aggregation ordinance

Mid/Late-December: Opt-out letters are sent to approximately 1 million customers

Early January: Opt-out data processed and final customer list prepared.

February: Participating Chicago customers are switched over the course of the month

March: All Chicago ratepayers who have not opted out are under the new supplier. City will announce its plan for investment of savings into cleaner energy or improved energy efficiency.

Read more about the Chicago electricity deal.

jwernau@tribune.com | Twitter @littlewern

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United says Sandy cut October revenue by $90M

United Airlines said Superstorm Sandy cut its October revenue by about $90 million as it was forced to cancel almost 5,300 flights.

That's nearly an entire day's worth of United's schedule lost. It runs about 5,500 flights a day throughout the world, including those operated by its regional partners. United's scrapped flights accounted for about a quarter of total the industry's Sandy-related cancellations.

United, the world's largest airline, said late Wednesday that the storm that came aground in the New York area 10 days ago shaved about $35 million off its profit in October. Delays and cancellations in the New York region tend to ripple throughout the world because it's a major international connection point and is one of the busiest airspaces in the country.

United's traffic in October fell 3.3 percent.

But the hurricane-winter storm hybrid boosted its per-passenger revenue by about 1 percent. That's because some stranded travelers were stuffed onto other flights, allowing the airline to improve efficiency.

Delta said last week that Sandy cut its October revenue by $45 million and profit by $20 million.

Both airlines are likely to report the impact of Sandy for the month of November. They are expected to release November figures early next month. Added to that, the winter storm that blanketed the New York area on Wednesday, little more than a week after Sandy, will also hurt profit and revenue.

United Airlines suspended operations at New York's three main airports Wednesday afternoon.

United parent United Continental Holdings Inc. is based in Chicago.

Its shares finished at $20.53 on Wednesday.

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Exclusive: Google Ventures beefs up fund size to $300 million a year

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Walt Weiss hired as Colorado Rockies manager

DENVER (AP) — Walt Weiss is making the rare jump from the high school dugout to the big leagues.

The Colorado Rockies hired the former major league shortstop Wednesday night to replace manager Jim Tracy, who resigned Oct. 7 with one year and $1.4 million left on his contract rather than return to a club where its assistant general manager had moved into an office in the clubhouse.

The 1988 AL Rookie of the Year with Oakland, Weiss played shortstop for the Rockies from 1994-97 and was a special assistant to general manager Dan O'Dowd from 2002-08.

He left to spend more time with his family and last season coached Regis Jesuit High School outside Denver, in Aurora, to a 20-6 record and the 5A semifinals of the state championship. Weiss' son, Brody, is in his senior year at the school.

The Rockies made the announcement after owner Dick Monfort and top officials deliberated at the general managers' meetings in Indian Wells, Calif. — held at a hotel Monfort owns, the Hyatt Regency Indian Wells Resort & Spa.

Weiss didn't return a phone message and e-mail from The Associated Press. A team spokesman said Weiss would be introduced at a news conference Friday at Coors Field.

"It was a lot of different things," general manager Dan O'Dowd said before suggesting senior vice president of major league operations Bill Geivett speak about Weiss' hiring. Geivett didn't immediately return phone messages.

Weiss and Arizona coach Matt Williams were the finalists to replace Tracy, who quit following the worst season in franchise history. Rockies bench coach Tom Runnells and first baseman Jason Giambi also interviewed, with Giambi saying he would retire as a player if he got the job.

The 48-year-old Weiss spent parts of 14 seasons in the major leagues, also playing for Oakland (1987-92), Florida (1993) and Atlanta (1998-2000). A .258 career hitter, he was an All-Star in the 1998 game at Denver's Coors Field.

Colorado had more familiarity with Weiss than with Williams.

"He would take trips in the minor leagues. He was always around with the major league club at home, as well," Geivett said earlier Wednesday. "I know Walt pretty well."

Williams, a five-time All-Star third baseman, has been Arizona's third base coach the last two seasons after a year coaching first base. Before that, he was a Diamondbacks' broadcaster for five years.

"I played against him in college when he was at UNLV," Geivett said. "No real personal contact."

Weiss is just the sixth manager for the Rockies, following Don Baylor (1993-98), Jim Leyland (1999), Buddy Bell (2000-02), Clint Hurdle (2002-09) and Tracy (2009-12).

Colorado went 64-98 last season under Tracy, who was promoted from bench coach to manager in May 2009 and was voted the NL Manager of the Year after guiding Colorado into the playoffs that season.

The Rockies started strong in 2010 but faded at the finish and they ended up going 294-308 under Tracy, who also had worked with Geivett in Montreal and Los Angeles.

Energized by the young players and the challenge of fixing things, Tracy said repeatedly toward the end of last season that he wanted to fulfill the final year on his contract in 2013. But he changed his mind after meeting with Geivett following the team's last-place finish in the NL West.

Things changed dramatically for Tracy on Aug. 1 when Geivett, the assistant general manager, was given an office in the clubhouse and began focusing on roster management, particularly as it related to the pitchers, and evaluating the coaching staff and the rest of the players. Tracy's responsibilities were narrowed to game management and meeting with the media.

"I thought we worked together fine," Geivett said after Tracy's surprise resignation last month.

Geivett had said that structure will remain in place next season but he didn't think that would be an issue in his search for a new manager.

In addition to altering their front office, with O'Dowd focusing his attention on the minor leagues and player development, the Rockies last summer reacted to Coors Field playing like its pre-humidor days by adopting a radical four-man rotation and a 75-pitch limit with several designated piggyback relievers, a much-derided experiment that lasted two months.

Geivett has said the Rockies will return to a traditional five-man rotation next season with pitch limits determined on a case-by-case basis.

Tracy was given an indefinite contract extension last spring but it guaranteed only his 2013 salary of $1.4 million as field manager and really just represented the club's desire to keep him in the organization in some capacity.

___

AP Sports Writers Ronald Blum, in Indian Wells, Calif., and Pat Graham contributed.

___

Follow AP Sports Writer Arnie Melendrez Stapleton on Twitter: http://twitter.com/arniestapleton

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Ex-oil man to be next Anglican leader: UK media

LONDON (Reuters) – A former oil executive who went to the same exclusive school as Prime Minister David Cameron will shortly be named Archbishop of Canterbury, spiritual leader of the world’s 80 million Anglicans, British newspapers said on Thursday.

Justin Welby, 56, the Bishop of Durham, who has had a meteoric rise up the Church of England hierarchy since quitting the world of commerce in 1992, will be announced as the next archbishop as early as Friday, the reports said.

The nomination follows weeks of speculation that the Church body assigned to elect the future archbishop was split over choosing a reformer or a safe pair of hands to maintain the status quo.

Cameron’s spokesman said an announcement would come “soon”.

Welby, who went to the same exclusive school, Eton College, as Cameron, London mayor Boris Johnson and Princes William and Harry, has already accepted the position, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Bookmaker William Hill stopped taking bets on the future archbishop after a run of bets on Welby on Tuesday.

“In the space of less than an hour we had to cut the odds three times, so took the decision to close the book as we know a decision is already overdue and it seems word may have leaked out,” the bookmaker said in a statement

Welby will replace left-leaning incumbent Rowan Williams, who has said his successor as head of the global Anglican Communion will need “the constitution of an ox and the skin of a rhinoceros”.

Welby is widely reported to be against gay marriage but broadly in favor of the ordination of women bishops, two of the most divisive issues in the communion.

The new archbishop will earn about 74,000 pounds ($ 120,000) a year. He will have lodgings in the Old Palace in Canterbury, southeast England, and the historic riverside Lambeth Palace in London. His tenure will last until retirement at 70 or until he decides to move on.

(Reporting By Alessandra Prentice; editing by Steve Addison/Maria Golovnina)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Experts raise concerns over superhuman workplace

LONDON (AP) — Performance-boosting drugs, powered prostheses and wearable computers are coming to an office near you — but experts warned in a new report Wednesday that too little thought has been given to the implications of a superhuman workplace.

Academics from Britain's leading institutions say attention needs to be focused on the consequences of technology which may one day allow — or compel — humans to work better, longer and harder. Here's their list of upgrades that might make their way to campuses and cubicles in the next decade:

BRAIN BOOSTERS

Barbara Sahakian, a Cambridge neuropsychology professor, cited research suggesting that 16 percent of U.S. students already use "cognitive enhancers" such as Ritalin to help them handle their course loads. Pilots have long used amphetamines to stay alert. And at least one study has suggested that the drug modafinil could help reduce the number of accidents experienced by shift workers.

But bioethicist Jackie Leach Scully of northern England's Newcastle University worries that the use of such drugs might focus on worker productivity over personal well-being.

"Being more alert for longer doesn't mean that you'll be less stressed by the job," she said. "It means that you'll be exposed to that stress for longer and be more awake while doing it."

WEARABLE COMPUTERS

The researchers also noted so-called "life-logging" devices like Nike Inc.'s distance-tracking shoes or wearable computers such as the eyeglasses being developed by Google Inc. The shoes can record your every step; the eyeglasses everything you see. Nigel Shadbolt, an expert in artificial Intelligence at southern England's University of Southampton, said such devices were as little as 15 years away from being able to record every sight, noise and movement over an entire human life.

So do you accept if your boss gives you one?

"What does that mean for employee accountability?" Shadbolt asked.

BIONIC LIMBS — AND BEYOND

The report also noted bionic limbs like the one used this week by amputee Zac Vawter to climb Chicago's Willis Tower or exoskeletons like the one used earlier this year by partially paralyzed London Marathon participant Claire Lomas. It also touched on the development of therapies aimed at sharpening eyesight or cochlear implants meant to enhance hearing.

Scully said any technology that could help disabled people re-enter the workforce should be welcomed but society needs to keep an eye out for unintended consequences.

"One of the things that we know about technology hitting society is that most of the consequences were not predicted ahead of time and a lot of things that we worry about ahead of time turn out not to be problems at all," she said. "We have very little idea of how these technologies will pan out."

THE PRESSURIZED WORKPLACE

The report was drawn up by scientists from The Academy of Medical Sciences, the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society.

"We're not talking science fiction here," said Genevra Richardson, the King's College law professor who oversaw the report. "These technologies could influence our ability to learn or perform tasks, they could influence our motivation, they could enable us to work in more extreme conditions or in old age, or they could facilitate our return to work after illness or disability .... Their use at work also raises serious ethical, political and economic questions."

Scully said workers may come under pressure to try a new memory-boosting drug or buy the latest wearable computer.

"In the context of a highly pressurized work environment, how free is the choice not to adopt such technologies?" she said.

Union representatives appeared taken aback by some of the experts' predictions. One expressed particular disquiet at the possibility raised by the report that long-distance truck drivers might be asked to take alertness drugs for safety reasons.

"We would be very, very against anything like that," said James Bower, a spokesman for Britain's United Road Transport Union. "We can't have a situation where a driver is told by his boss that he needs to put something in his body."

___

Online:

The report: http://royalsociety.org/policy/projects/human-enhancement

Raphael Satter can be reached on: http://raphae.li/twitter

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Diaz, Firth in London for 'Gambit' world premiere

LONDON (AP) — In the trailer for their new movie "Gambit," Britain's Colin Firth and American co-star Cameron Diaz are shown in various states of undress. But the two say fans shouldn't get the wrong idea — "Gambit" is a caper film, not a love story.

Speaking at the comedy's world premiere in London on Wednesday night, Diaz said flesh was only flashed for laughs in the film.

Firth agreed. Referring to a scene where he appears without trousers, he said audiences will get "treated" to 20 minutes of his knees, but that's all.

Directed by Michael Hoffman, "Gambit" is about private art curator Harry Deane (Firth) who devises a scheme — with the help of a Texas rodeo queen (Diaz) — to con England's richest man into purchasing a fake Monet painting.

"Gambit" opens in the U.K. on Nov. 21.

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McDonald's sales drop, first time since 2003

McDonald's Corp. says a key sales figure fell in October, marking the first monthly drop in nearly a decade for the world's biggest hamburger chain.

The company, based in Oak Brook, says global revenue at restaurants open at least 13 months fell 1.8 percent for the month. The last time it dropped was in 2003.

The figure is a key metric because it strips out the impact of newly opened and closed locations. The figures are a snapshot of money spent on food at both company-owned and franchised restaurants. They do not reflect corporate revenue.

The fast-food chain says the figure fell 2.2 percent in both the U.S. and Europe. In the region encompassing Asia, the Middle East and Africa, it dropped 2.4 percent.

After years of outperforming its rivals, McDonald's has seen sales slow recently amid intensifying competition and a persistently weak economy. To rev up sales, the company has been working to emphasize value in markets around the world.

In the U.S., for example, McDonald's is stepping up advertising for its Dollar Menu after its attempt to market an "Extra Value Menu" for slightly higher prices fell flat. But the company said Thursday that the efforts were offset by "modest consumer demand" and competition.

In particular, McDonald's is facing stiffer competition from longtime rivals Burger King and Wendy's, which are both in the midst of reviving their brands with new ad campaigns and improved menus. Taco Bell, owned by Yum Brands Inc., is also enjoying growth with the help of new offerings such as it Doritos Locos Tacos and higher-end Cantina Bell bowls and burritos.

Additionally, people are increasingly flocking to restaurants such as Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. and Panera Bread Co., which offer better quality food for a little more money. Still, McDonald's said it would remain focused on underscoring its value message in the U.S.

The same was true for Europe, where McDonald's gets 40 percent of its business. Amid the region's ongoing economic uncertainty, McDonald's said it would offer new meal combinations at various price ranges and continue remodeling restaurants.

In the Asia, the company said it plans to differentiate itself with menu offerings tailored to local tastes.

McDonald's shares were down 61 cents at $86.23 in premarket trading. CEO Don Thompson had warned last month that sales were trending negative for the month.

MCD Net Income Quarterly data by YCharts

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'THE BEST IS YET TO COME': OBAMA IN VICTORY SPEECH

His lease renewed in trying economic times, President Barack Obama claimed a second term from an incredibly divided electorate and immediately braced for daunting challenges and progress that comes only in fits and starts.

"We have fought our way back and we know in our hearts that for the United States of America, the best is yet to come," Obama said.

The same voters who gave Obama four more years in office also elected a divided Congress, sticking with the dynamic that has made it so hard for the president to advance his agenda. Democrats retained control of the Senate; Republicans kept their House majority.

It was a sweet victory for Obama, but nothing like the jubilant celebration of four years earlier, when his hope-and-change election as the nation's first black president captivated the world. This time, Obama ground out his win with a stay-the-course pitch that essentially boiled down to a plea for more time to make things right and a hope that Congress will be more accommodating than in the past.

The vanquished Republican, Mitt Romney, tried to set a more conciliatory tone on the way off the stage.

"At a time like this, we can't risk partisan bickering," Romney said after a campaign filled with it. "Our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the people's work."

House Speaker John Boehner spoke of a dual mandate, saying, "If there is a mandate, it is a mandate for both parties to find common ground and take steps together to help our economy grow and create jobs."

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell had a more harsh assessment.

"The voters have not endorsed the failures or excesses of the president's first term," McConnell said. "They have simply given him more time to finish the job they asked him to do together" with a balanced Congress.

Obama strong in battleground states

Obama claimed a commanding electoral mandate — at least 303 electoral votes to 206 for Romney — and had a near-sweep of the nine most hotly contested battleground states.

But the close breakdown in the popular vote showed Americans' differences over how best to meet the nation's challenges. With more than 90 percent of precincts reporting, the popular vote went 50 percent for Obama to 48.4 percent for Romney, the businessman-turned-politician who had argued that Obama had failed to turn around the economy and said it was time for a new approach keyed to lower taxes and a less intrusive government.

Obama's re-election assured certainty on some fronts: His signature health-care overhaul will endure, as will the Wall Street reforms enacted after the economic meltdown. The drawdown of troops in Afghanistan will continue apace. And with an aging Supreme Court, the president is likely to have at least one more nomination to the high court.

The challenges immediately ahead for the 44th president are all too familiar: an economy still baby-stepping its way toward full health, 23 million Americans still out of work or in search of better jobs, civil war in Syria, an ominous standoff over Iran's nuclear program, and more.

Sharp differences with Republicans in Congress on taxes, spending, deficit reduction, immigration and more await.

And even before Obama gets to his second inaugural on Jan. 20, he must grapple with the threatened "fiscal cliff" — a combination of automatic tax increases and steep across-the-board spending cuts that are set to take effect in January if Washington doesn't quickly come up with a workaround budget deal. Economists have warned the economy could tip back into recession absent a deal.

Despite long lines at polls in many places, turnout overall looked to be down from four years ago as the president pieced together a winning coalition of women, young people, minorities and lower-income voters that reflected the country's changing demographics. Obama's superior ground organization in the battleground states was key to his success.

'You have made me a better president'

The president's victory speech — he'd written a concession, too, just in case — reflected the realities of the rough road ahead.

"By itself the recognition that we have common hopes and dreams won't end all the gridlock, or solve all our problems or substitute for the painstaking work of building consensus and making the difficult compromises needed to move this country forward," Obama said.

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Move over, Obama; Twitter had a big night too

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