Chicago prison inmates used bedsheets to escape: official

The scene at the Metropolitan Correctional Center and in Tinley Park, where authorities were searching for two escaped prisoners on Dec. 18, 2012. (Zbigniew Bzdak & Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune)

Officials at a federal Loop jail discovered that two convicted bank robbers had escaped after employees arriving for work at about 7 a.m. today and saw a makeshift rope hanging from the outside of the high-rise facility, federal officials said in charging the two with escape.

Joseph "Jose" Banks and Kenneth Conley made good their escape from the Metropolitan Correctional Center after last being seen for a head count conducted at about 10 p.m. Monday, authorities said.

The two are believed to have scurried down ropes made from bedsheets from the high-rise cell they shared.

Authorities also revealed that in their cell guards found numerous articles of clothing and sheets piled under a blanket in both their beds to make it appear they were asleep.

The window in the cell was broken and the makeshift rope was tied to its bars and hanging down the south side of the MCC, authorities said.

Prosecutors charged both with escape in a criminal complaint filed this afternoon in federal court a few blocks from the scene of the escape.

Authorities said the two are believed to be traveling together and were reportedly last seen this morning in the Tinley Park area.

A widespread manhunt is underway by the FBI with the assistance of numerous federal, state and locallawenforcement agencies.

Both Banks and Conley were awaiting sentencing for bank robbery convictions. If they are captured and convicted of escape, they would face up to an additional five years in prison.

“A rope was fashioned out of bedsheets,’’ said a spokesman for the MCC. “I would imagine that they saved them up."

Conley and Banks, known as the Second-Hand Bandit who was convicted just last week, were first unaccounted for during a 5 a.m. head count, but it's unclear they were still inside the 27-story Metropolitan Correctional Center at the time, U.S. Marshal's Service spokeswoman Belkis Cantor said.

The makeshift rope could be seen dangling along the south side of the MCC, 71 W. Van Buren St.

The MCC spokesman declined to say whether any guards were under investigation or whether anything was smuggled into them or how the narrow cell window was widened.

Hours after the escape, SWAT teams forced their way into a Tinley Park house where a relative of Conley is believed to live. But no one was found inside, and FBI officials said they believe Conley and Banks had been there hours earlier.

The SWAT officers left the home after about 20 minutes 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.

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

Banks’ cousin, Theresa Ann Banks, pleaded for Banks to turn himself in.

“I just don’t want to see him get hurt or killed,” she said with a shaky voice. “(The family) is trying to hold themselves together. We just have to have faith in God and hope everything goes right.”

Theresa Ann Banks said she received a call about the escape from Banks' father, who heard about it on the news.

When Joseph Banks was arrested in 2008, Theresa Ann Banks said she visited him whenever she had a chance. “When I went to see him, he was calm, he was humble, he was happy to see me,” she said. “He was very positive every time I would go.”

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

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Samsung Galaxy Muse is like an iPod Shuffle that Syncs with Your Phone

In perhaps the most awkwardly titled tech press release ever, Samsung Mobile announced the launch of the new Samsung Galaxy Muse, a device which appears to have nothing to do with “CORRECTING and REPLACING and ADDING MULTIMEDIA” but everything to do with being a music player crossed with a smartphone accessory.

​Say goodbye to iTunes?

While most handheld music players (and smartphone or tablets with music apps) sync with a PC or Mac music app, like iTunes or Banshee, the Samsung Galaxy Muse syncs with your Android phone itself. It uses the Muse Sync app, which Google Play says will install on devices like the Nexus 7 tablet but which Samsung says will only work with the Galaxy S II, Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note II smartphones.

​Plug it in, turn it on

The pebble-shaped Muse connects to your Samsung phone via its headset jack. It doesn’t have a screen, so you have to control it iPod Shuffle style, and use the Muse Sync app to see how much of its 4 GB of space are free and decide which playlists to sync. Since it only has those 4 GB, it can only hold a fraction of the music that can be put on the much more powerful smartphones.

​Who is Samsung selling the Galaxy Muse to?

Samsung says “users can sync the songs they want and leave their phone behind,” the usefulness of which may depend on whether or not you feel limited by having to bring your smartphone with you. The press release mentions its “wearable design and small form factor,” and suggests taking it “in place of [your] smartphone … at the gym or on the go.”

​What other gadgets are like the Galaxy Muse?

The most obvious comparison is to the iPod Shuffle, Apple’s similarly tiny and screen-less portable music player. At $ 49, it costs the same as the Galaxy Muse (although a Droid-Life tipster found a $ 25 off coupon code for the Muse), but comes in seven different colors and has an embossed click-wheel controller instead of a flat and featureless surface. It requires you to use iTunes on a desktop PC or Mac, though.

​On the upside

The Galaxy Muse’s six hours of battery life may not be suitable for all-day listening, but may at least take the pressure off of a battery-hungry smartphone (so long as it’s one of Samsung’s flagship models). And as PCMag’s Chloe Albanesius notes, “it’s not very convenient to strap a 5.5-inch Galaxy Note II to your arm when you hit the gym.”

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
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Newsman’s disappearance largely kept secret

NEW YORK (AP) — NBC was able to keep the abduction of chief Middle East correspondent Richard Engel in Syria largely a secret until he escaped late Monday because it persuaded some of this country’s most prominent news organizations to hold back on the story.

Otherwise, the disappearance of Engel — probably the most high-profile international television reporter on a U.S. network — would have been big news.

Engel and three colleagues, producers Ghazi Balkiz and Aziz Akyavas and photographer John Kooistra, escaped during a firefight between rebels and their captors, forces sympathetic to the Syrian government. The journalists were dragged from their cars, kept bound and blindfolded and threatened with death.

NBC said it did not know what had happened to the men until after their escape. The first sign of trouble came last Thursday, when Engel did not check back with his office at an agreed-upon time.

The Associated Press learned of Engel’s disappearance independently and was asked to keep the news quiet upon contacting NBC, said John Daniszewski, the AP’s vice president and senior managing editor.

“A general principle of our reporting is that we don’t want to write stories that are going to endanger the lives of the people that we are writing about,” Daniszewski said. The first few days after an abduction are often crucial to securing the captive’s release.

CBS News also said that it had honored NBC’s request, but a spokeswoman declined to discuss it. ABC, Fox News and CNN were also contacted by NBC.

CNN, in an editor’s note affixed to a website story on Engel’s escape, noted NBC’s request. CNN said it complied to allow fact-finding and negotiations to free the captors before it became a worldwide story.

“Hostage negotiators say that once the global spotlight is on the missing, the hostages’ value soars, making it much harder to negotiate their freedom,” CNN said.

For similar reasons, the AP did not report its own news several years ago when a photographer was kidnapped in the Gaza Strip, securing his release within a day. In one celebrated case of secrecy, The New York Times withheld news that reporter David Rohde was kidnapped while trying to make contact with a Taliban commander in Afghanistan. Rohde escaped after seven months in captivity.

It wasn’t clear whether Engel’s abductors knew what they had at the time. That knowledge, CNN argued, could have greatly complicated any negotiations. In this case, the captors did not make any ransom demands during the time he was missing.

This isn’t simply a professional courtesy; the AP has withheld news involving overseas contractors in the past, Daniszewski said. For similar reasons, the organization does not reveal details of military or police actions it learns about beforehand if the news will put people at risk, and doesn’t write about leaders heading into war zones until they are safely there.

Still, it’s not a decision lightly taken by news organizations. “The obligation of journalists is to report information, not withhold it, except in exceptional circumstances,” said Robert Steele, a journalism ethics professor at DePauw University.

The news that Engel was missing was first reported Monday by Turkish journalists who had heard about Akyavas’ involvement, and was picked up by the U.S. website Gawker.com. In explaining why the news was reported, Gawker’s John Cook wrote that no one had told him of a specific or even general threat to Engel’s safety.

“I would not have written a post if someone had told me that there was a reasonable or even remote suspicion that anything specific would happen if I wrote the post,” Cook wrote.

He also noted that China’s Xinhua News Agency and the Breitbart website had also reported on Engel’s disappearance. Breitbart’s John Nolte attached a note to his report saying that he wasn’t even aware of any news embargo until after hearing that Engel had been released.

The news was also tweeted by a small number of journalists, apparently unaware of the embargo request.

Whether a disappearance has become widely known could influence a decision by AP on whether to withhold the news, Daniszewski said. In this case, it wasn’t clear that it had been widely circulated, he said.

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Attackers in Pakistan Kill Anti-Polio Workers

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A Pakistani mother mourned her daughter, who was killed on Tuesday in an attack on health workers participating in a drive to eradicate polio from Pakistan.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Gunmen shot dead five female health workers who were immunizing children against polio on Tuesday, causing the Pakistani government to suspend vaccinations in two cities and dealing a fresh setback to an eradication campaign dogged by Taliban resistance in a country that is one of the disease’s last global strongholds.

“It is a blow, no doubt,” said Shahnaz Wazir Ali, an adviser on polio to Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf. “Never before have female health workers been targeted like this in Pakistan. Clearly there will have to be more and better arrangements for security.”

No group claimed responsibility for the attacks, but most suspicion focused on the Pakistani Taliban, which has previously blocked polio vaccinators and complained that the United States is using the program as a cover for espionage.

The killings were a serious reversal for the multibillion-dollar global polio immunization effort, which over the past quarter century has reduced the number of endemic countries from 120 to just three: Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.

Nonetheless, United Nations officials insisted that the drive would be revived after a period for investigation and regrouping, as it had been after previous attacks on vaccinators here, in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Pakistan has made solid gains against polio, with 56 new recorded cases of the diseases in 2012, compared with 192 at the same point last year, according to the government. Worldwide, cases of death and paralysis from polio have been reduced to less than 1,000 last year, from 350,000 worldwide in 1988.

But the campaign here has been deeply shaken by Taliban threats and intimidation, though several officials said Tuesday that they had never seen such a focused and deadly attack before.

Insurgents have long been suspicious of polio vaccinators, seeing them as potential spies. But that greatly intensified after the C.I.A. used a vaccination team headed by a local doctor, Shakil Afridi, to visit Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, reportedly in an attempt to obtain DNA proof that the Bin Laden family was there before an American commando raid on it in May 2011.

In North Waziristan, one prominent warlord has banned polio vaccinations until the United States ceases drone strikes in the area.

Most new infections in Pakistan occur in the tribal belt and adjoining Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province — some of the most remote areas of the country, and also those with the strongest militant presence. People fleeing fighting in those areas have also spread the disease to Karachi, the country’s largest city, where the disease has been making a worrisome comeback in recent years.

After Tuesday’s attacks, witnesses described violence that was both disciplined and well coordinated. Five attacks occurred within an hour in different Karachi neighborhoods. In several cases, the killers traveled in pairs on motorcycle, opening fire on female health workers as they administered polio drops or moved between houses in crowded neighborhoods.

Of the five victims, three were teenagers, and some had been shot in the head, a senior government official said. Two male health workers were also wounded by gunfire; early reports incorrectly stated that one of them had died, the official said.

In Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, gunmen opened fire on two sisters participating in the polio vaccination program, killing one of them. It was unclear whether that shooting was directly linked to the Karachi attacks.

In remote parts of the northwest, the Taliban threat is exacerbated by the government’s crumbling writ. In Bannu, on the edge of the tribal belt, one polio worker, Noor Khan, said he quit work on Tuesday once news of the attacks in Karachi and Peshawar filtered in.

“We were told to stop immediately,” he said by phone.

Still, the Pakistani government has engaged considerable political and financial capital in fighting polio. President Asif Ali Zardari and his daughter Aseefa have been at the forefront of immunization drives. With the help of international donors, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, they have mounted a huge vaccination campaign aimed at up to 35 million children younger than 5, usually in three-day bursts that can involve 225,000 health workers.

The plan seeks to have every child in Pakistan immunized at least four times per year, although in the hardest-hit areas one child could be reached as many as 12 times in a year.

Declan Walsh reported from Islamabad, and Donald G. McNeil Jr. from New York. Salman Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad, and Zia ur-Rehman from Karachi, Pakistan.

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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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Quinn, Emanuel call for ban on assault-weapons

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

Illinois' leading Democrats on Monday pushed for more gun control in the wake of last week's school shootings in Connecticut, but gun-owner rights groups criticized the move as politicizing a national tragedy and said they were prepared to fight in Washington and Springfield.

U.S. Sen Dick Durbin, the state's senior senator and the No. 2 Democrat in the chamber, called for congressional hearings aimed at finding constitutional limits to Second Amendment rights while Gov. Pat Quinn and Mayor Rahm Emanuel re-emphasized their long-standing call to ban semi-automatic, assault-style weapons at the state and federal level.

The efforts by the three Democrats, motivated by Friday's shootings in Newtown, Conn., that included the deaths of 20 schoolchildren, came against a backdrop of a federal appeals court ruling opening the way for concealed possession of firearms in public in Illinois.

"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, and it's time that we as a country have an assault weapons ban," Emanuel said at a Chicago Police Department graduation and promotion ceremony. "And I would hope the leadership in Congress now will have a vote of conscience. It is time to have that vote."

Quinn, at a separate appearance, said he hoped the scope of the tragedy would motivate state lawmakers to act by early next month on a state ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Lawmakers recently rejected Quinn's attempt to use his amendatory veto power to rewrite a bill to impose such a ban.

Officials for the Illinois State Rifle Association sent an email to their members accusing Quinn and Emanuel of being among the "political opportunists who have swooped down on Newtown like a flock of vultures hungry to devour the 2nd Amendment."

"The echoes of the sirens had hardly faded when Quinn and other gun-control extremists hit the airwaves calling for the passage of legislation that would effectively abolish the 2nd Amendment to our Constitution," the group said. "Law-abiding gun owners have grown used to being blamed for the misdeeds of others and we're equally used to mounting effective defenses against those who would deny us our rights."

The call to action by Emanuel and Quinn came as another home-state Democrat, President Barack Obama, appeared to be taking a more cautious approach on the gun issue. A day after Obama pledged to use the power of his office to prevent gun violence, the White House did not provide any details on an approach, and spokesman Jay Carney said it was a "complex problem that requires a complex solution."

Durbin, a prominent Obama campaign surrogate who introduced the president as the party's nominee at the last two presidential conventions, has long supported additional gun control laws. But he also appeared to follow the lead of the president and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who said the chamber "will engage in a meaningful and thoughtful debate about how to change laws and culture that allow violence to grow."

On the Senate floor Monday, Durbin asked gun control opponents and gun rights supporters to try to find common ground.

"What will it take for a majority of Americans to speak out for sensible firearms policy in our nation?" Durbin asked. "It will take more than the shootings on streets in Chicago, East St. Louis and cities across the country. And sadly, it will take more than 26 victims, including 20 children, in a Connecticut grade school."

Durbin said the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights will hold hearings on the Second Amendment and gun control early next year. Durbin is chairman of the subcommittee.

A federal ban on assault weapons — which prohibited 19 specific types of military-style semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines — expired in 2004 under the Republican White House of President George W. Bush and a GOP-controlled Congress after 10 years. Emanuel has repeatedly touted his work as a top aide to President Bill Clinton in enacting the ban.

Like Durbin, Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy connected the Connecticut tragedy to the steady drumbeat of gun violence in America's cities.

"Any major city in this country is experiencing ongoing gun violence," McCarthy said. "It's these issues like this that all of the sudden explode and the gun debate starts and at the end of the day, nobody does anything about it. ... 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."

In Illinois, Quinn has called repeatedly for a state ban on semi-automatic weapons, most recently last week when the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it was unconstitutional for Illinois to ban comprehensively the carrying of firearms outside the home. The appeals court gave the state until June to try to craft new gun regulations.

Illinois is the only state in the nation to prohibit the concealed carrying of weapons in public.

In late July, when Quinn sought to write his own assault weapons ban onto another bill, it followed another mass killing — a shooting spree at a movie theater in Colorado that left a dozen dead and 50 people injured.

On Monday, the Democratic governor said he had reached out to legislative leaders as well as supporters of a ban on semi-automatic firearms and urged them to act quickly.

"This is the moment to do it," Quinn said.

"All of us who are parents, watching those grieving parents losing their children, their precious children, we've got to make sure that they did not die in vain. And one way to keep faith with those victims of that massacre on Friday is for Illinois, the heart of the heartland, to ban assault weapons," he said.

Lawmakers are scheduled to return into their lame-duck session shortly after the New Year, and Quinn already has called upon them to act on a number of high-profile issues, including gay marriage and public employee pension reform. A Quinn aide said the governor also is studying the possibility of pushing a gun measure after new legislators are sworn in Jan. 9, when more Democrats will take office.

The ban Quinn previously sought would have prohibited the sale, delivery, manufacture and possession of AR-15-style assault rifles, a civilian version of the military's M-16. A variant of that firearm was used in the Connecticut shooting, authorities said.

But the state rifle association, a lobbying group that holds great sway over Downstate Republican and Democratic lawmakers, urged gun owners to contact their state legislators "and deliver the message that lawful firearm owners will not play the role of scapegoat."

"As we have said many times before, gun control is a disease and you are the cure," the group told its members. "We're about to face an epidemic of attempted gun grabs. Be prepared and arm yourself with the resolve to uphold that which so many brave men and women have died to defend."

Tribune reporter Monique Garcia contributed.

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Amazon adds episodes of alt-comedy show “UnCabaret”

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Amazon Instant Video has added four exclusive episodes of “UnCabaret,” an alt-comedy showcase for the likes of Margaret Cho and Andy Dick, to its Prime Instant Video service.

The show was created and hosted by comedian and entertainer Beth Lapides and features performances by such comedy stars as Sandra Bernhard, Garfunkle and Oates, Greg Fitzsimmons and Rob Delaney. Instead of punch-line driven sets, performers are encouraged to show off story-based stream-of-consciousness acts.

Amazon Prime members will get free access to the titles. The episodes will be available for rental or purchase for Amazon Instant Video customers on an a la carte basis.

Amazon Prime costs $ 79 annually and gives members free two-day shipping as well as streaming access to movies and shows from the likes of Paramount and Disney-ABC. The catalog of titles grew a little larger Monday. In addition to “UnCabaret,” Amazon announced an exclusive content licensing agreement with Turner Broadcasting System and Warner Bros. TV to add two TNT shows, “Falling Skies” and “The Closer” to its service.

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Philippine Lawmakers Pass Reproductive Health Bill

MANILA — After a ferocious national debate that pitted family members against one another, and some faithful Catholics against their church, the Philippine Congress passed legislation on Monday to help the country’s poorest women gain access to birth control.

Jay Directo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Supporters of a landmark reproductive health bill celebrated as the Philippine Congress passed legislation on Monday to help the country’s poorest women gain access to birth control. 

Jay Directo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Opponents of a reproductive health bill, including a Catholic nun, looked at portraits of Philippine legislators as they passed a landmark measure Monday.

“The people now have the government on their side as they raise their families in a manner that is just and empowered,” said Edwin Lacierda, a spokesman for President Benigno S. Aquino III, who pushed for passage.

Each chamber of the national legislature passed its own version of the measure — by 13 to 8 in the Senate and 133 to 79 in the House of Representatives — and minor differences between the two must be reconciled before the measure goes to Mr. Aquino for his signature.

The measure had been stalled for more than a decade because of determined opposition from the Roman Catholic Church. Roughly four-fifths of Filipinos are Catholic.

Birth control is legal and widely available in the Philippines for people who can afford it, particularly those living in cities. But condoms, birth control pills and other methods can be difficult to find in rural areas, and their cost puts them out of reach for the very poor.

“Some local governments have passed local ordinances that banned the sale of condoms and contraceptives and forbid their distribution in government clinics, where most poor Filipinos turn for health care,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement on the issue, adding that the new bill would override such ordinances.

The measure passed on Monday would stock government health centers, including those in remote areas, with free or subsidized birth control options for the poor. It would require sex education in public schools and family-planning training for community health officers. The Philippines has one of the highest birthrates in Asia, but backers of the legislation, including the Aquino administration, have said repeatedly that its purpose is not to limit population growth. Rather, they say, the bill is meant to offer poor families the same reproductive health options that wealthier people in the country enjoy.

The United Nations Population Fund estimates that half of the 3.4 million pregnancies in the Philippines each year are unintended, and that there are 11 pregnancy-related deaths in the country each day, on average. Most of those could be avoided, the organization says, through improved maternal health care, a need that proponents say the new legislation will directly address.

Catholic Church officials took a hard line against the measure, saying it was out of line with the beliefs of most religious Filipinos. The church equated contraception with abortion, which is illegal in the Philippines.

“These artificial means are fatal to human life, either preventing it from fruition or actually destroying it,” the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines said in a statement on the eve of the votes in Congress.

The statement cited health risks associated with some forms of birth control, but the bishops’ strongest objections have been lodged on moral rather than medical grounds. In a pastoral letter, they said: “The youth are being made to believe that sex before marriage is acceptable, provided you know how to avoid pregnancy. Is this moral? Those who corrupt the minds of children will invoke divine wrath on themselves.”

The legislation prompted a heated national debate in the Philippines over the role that government should play in family planning and women’s health.

“This bill no doubt has inflicted a very wide chasm of division in our society,” said Juan Ponce Enrile, the president of the Senate. “Families are even divided, mother and daughter differing in their views, husband and wife differing in their views.” Mr. Enrile opposed the bill; his son, Juan, a congressman, voted in favor of it.

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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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President Obama: 'We will have to change' to keep our children safe

President Barack Obama is offering the Connecticut town grappling with the aftermath of a deadly school shooting "the love and prayers of a nation." (Dec. 16)

NEWTOWN, Conn.—

He spoke for a nation in sorrow, but the slaughter of all those little boys and girls left President Barack Obama, like so many others, reaching for words. Alone on a spare stage after the worst single day of his presidency, the commander in chief was a parent in grief.

“I am very mindful that mere words cannot match the depth of your sorrow, nor can they heal your wounded hearts,” Obama said at an evening vigil in the grieving community of Newtown, Conn. “I can only hope that it helps for you to know that you are not alone in your grief.”

The massacre of 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary on Friday elicited horror around the world, soul-searching in the United States, fresh political debate about gun control and questions about the incomprehensible — what drove the suspect to act.

It also left a newly re-elected president openly grappling for bigger answers. Obama said that in the coming weeks, he would use “whatever power this office holds” to engage with law enforcement, mental health professionals, parents and educators in an effort to prevent more tragedies like Newtown.

“Can say that we're truly doing enough to give all the children of this country the chance they deserve to live out their lives in happiness and with purpose? I've been reflecting on this the last few days,” Obama said, somber and steady as some in the audience wept.

“If we're honest without ourselves, the answer is no. And we will have to change.”

He promised to lead a national effort, but left unclear was what it would be, and how much it would address the explosive issue of gun control.

“What choice do we have?” Obama said. “Are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard?”

As Obama read some of the names of victims early in his remarks, several people broke down, their sobs heard throughout the hall.

He closed his remarks by slowly reading the first names of each of the 26 victims.

“God has called them all home. For those of us who remain, let us find the strength to carry on and make our country worthy of their memory,” he said.

For Obama, ending his fourth year in office, it was another sorrowful visit to another community in disbelief. It is the job of the president to be there, to listen and console, to offer help even when the only thing within his grasp is a hug.

All the victims were killed up close by multiple rifle shots.

The toll: six adults. Twenty boys and girls, all of whom were just 6 or 7 years old.

Inside the vigil children held stuffed teddy bears and dogs. The smallest kids sat on their parents' laps.

There were tears and hugs, but also smiles and squeezed arms. Mixed with disbelief was a sense of a community reacquainting itself all at once. One man said it was less mournful, more familial. Some kids chatted easily with their friends. The adults embraced each other in support.

The president first met privately with families of the victims and with the emergency personnel who responded to the shootings. That meeting happened at Newtown High School, the site of Sunday night's interfaith vigil, about a mile and a half from where the shootings took place.

“We're halfway between grief and hope,” said Curt Brantl, whose fourth-grade daughter was in the library of the elementary school when the shootings occurred. She was not harmed.

Police and firefighters got hugs and standing ovations when they entered. So did Obama.

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