Integrys Energy Services tapped to supply Chicago's electricity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tribune reporter John Byrne contributed.

jwernau@tribune.com

Twitter @littlewern

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Preckwinkle blasts Emanuel, quickly backs off

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle on Thursday quickly backed off a public barb she tossed at Mayor Rahm Emanuel for his crime-fighting strategy, marking the second time in a little more than three months she has toned down off-the-cuff remarks.

This time, the first-term Democrat retreated after saying the mayor and his hand-picked police superintendent, Garry McCarthy, were too focused on arrests as a solution to rising violence and not enough on improving a "miserable" public school system and beefing up youth programs.

"Clearly this mayor and this police chief have decided the way in which they are going to deal with the terrible violence that faces our community is just arrest everybody," Preckwinkle said during a question-and-answer session after delivering a Union League Club luncheon speech on her second anniversary in office. "I don't think in the long term that's going to be successful.

"We're going to have to figure out how to have interventions that are more comprehensive than just police interventions in the communities where we have the highest rates of crime. And they're almost all in African-American and Latino communities."

When Preckwinkle faced reporters minutes later, she said Emanuel is working to improve schools and youth programs. She added that her criticism of the public schools controlled by Emanuel was aimed at society as a whole and not the mayor personally.

The Emanuel flap follows Preckwinkle's remarks about former President Ronald Reagan. In late August, the blunt-talking Preckwinkle took aim at Reagan's legacy. Later she said she regretted saying he deserved "a special place in hell" for his role in the war on drugs.

At the luncheon Thursday, Preckwinkle was asked what she could do to address city violence, which has drawn national attention this year with a spike in the city's murder rate and brazen incidents like the fatal shooting of a young man at a funeral for a reputed gang member.

Preckwinkle said much of the problem results from a Chicago school system with a low high school graduation rate.

"We have contented ourselves with a miserable education system that has failed many of our children," Preckwinkle said, adding that more after-school enrichment and job-training programs were needed. "I'm talking about the kids who don't graduate, let alone the kids who graduate (who) don't get a very good education, even with a high school diploma."

Emanuel aides offered a restrained response.

"Mayor Emanuel strenuously agrees that a holistic approach is necessary to successfully address crime," Emanuel spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton said in a statement. "His multipart strategy ranges from improving early childhood education, providing a longer school day and creating re-engagement centers for youth, to delivering wraparound services, revitalizing the community policing program and working to prevent retaliatory actions by gangs.

"All of these work in tandem, but let's make no mistake, criminals deserve to be arrested," Hamilton wrote.

Emanuel and McCarthy have directed additional police resources into troubled South Side and West Side neighborhoods, combined with additional social services and community-building efforts. Emanuel also dedicated $9 million in additional funding next year for early childhood education, after-school programs and jobs, children's eye exams and programs that address domestic violence.

Reminded of those initiatives, Preckwinkle acknowledged that Emanuel is putting more city money into such programs, some of which are coordinated with the county. She said her criticism of schools wasn't directed at Emanuel, who appoints the Chicago Public Schools board and picks the system's CEO.

"This was a critique of all of us. It wasn't aimed at the mayor," said Preckwinkle, a former CPS high school history teacher.

The point, Preckwinkle said, is that education over the long run will do more to quell violence than arresting people and locking them up.

"You know unfortunately we live in a country in which we are much more willing to spend money on keeping people in prison than we are on educating them in our public schools," she said. "And that's disgraceful. It reflects badly on all of us."

She added, "I don't think we are going to arrest our way out of our violence problems."

Preckwinkle has frequently criticized a justice system that she says locks up African-American and Latino men in far greater numbers than their white counterparts, particularly for drug crimes, when studies show drugs are used in equal numbers across ethnic and racial boundaries.

<em><a href="mailto:hdardick@tribune.com">hdardick@tribune.com</a></em>

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Deportation looms for tech guru McAfee after heart drama

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – Software guru John McAfee, fighting deportation to Belize, was rushed to a hospital in Guatemala on Thursday shortly after his asylum request was rejected, but a suspected heart attack turned out to be stress in a fresh twist to the saga.

The 67-year-old U.S. computer software pioneer was taken swiftly from a hospital in a police car out of the sight of media, after earlier arriving in an ambulance lying on a stretcher.

His lawyer said he was being taken back to an immigration department cottage where he has been detained since crossing illegally into Guatemala from neighboring Belize, where police want to question him in connection with his neighbor’s murder.

“He never had a heart attack, nothing like that,” said Telesforo Guerra, a former attorney general who had earlier said McAfee had two mild heart attacks.

“I’m not a doctor. I’m just telling you what the doctors told me,” he added. “He was suffering from stress, hypertension and tachycardia (an abnormally fast heartbeat).”

McAfee was posting on his blog www.whoismcafee.com in the morning, the time he suffered the stress attack.

“I don’t think a heart attack prevents one from using one’s blog,” Guerra had said at the time.

Guerra’s assistant, Karla Paz, earlier said she found McAfee lying on the ground and unable to move his body or speak.

McAfee was detained by Guatemalan police on Wednesday for illegally sneaking across the border with his 20-year-old girlfriend to escape authorities in Belize. He has said he fears authorities in Belize will kill him if he returns.

Guatemala’s foreign minister, Harold Caballeros, said earlier McAfee’s request for asylum was rejected.

Constitutional lawyer Gabriel Orellana, a former foreign minister, said the government should have given more weight to the asylum request rather than rush to a decision.

“We should take into account the fact that McAfee has not been accused of any crime in Belize,” he said.

QUARRELED WITH FELLOW AMERICAN

Police in Belize want to quiz McAfee as “a person of interest” in the killing of a fellow American, Gregory Faull, with whom he had quarreled. But they say he is not a prime suspect in the probe.

McAfee says he has been persecuted by Belize’s ruling party because he refused to pay around $ 2 million he says it is trying to hustle out of him, he said.

Belize’s prime minister denies this and said McAfee, who made millions from the Internet anti-virus software that bears his name, was “bonkers.” McAfee later lost much of his fortune and turned to a life of semi-reclusion by the Belizean beach.

McAfee spent Wednesday night reading his blog and posting his thoughts on a laptop he said was lent to him by the warden of the cottage where he was staying.

One person asked him if he felt like committing suicide.

“I enjoy living, and suicide is absurdly redundant,” he wrote. “The world, from the very beginning, hurls viruses, accidents, hungry animals, defective DNA – and uncountable more – in an attempt to kill us. It always succeeds. Suicide is simply aiding and abetting.”

McAfee’s earlier posts spoke of his relief at arriving in Guatemala, thinking he had found a way out of his troubles.

One of his readers posted a message offering him just that.

“John. I have a special ops team near the La Aurora International Airport. I can get you out of jail and provide safe passage back to the States for a fee. Please let me know if this interests you.”

DRUG PAST

Guatemala’s government originally said the eccentric tech entrepreneur, who loves guns and young women and has tribal tattoos covering his shoulders, would be expelled to Belize within hours. But it later rowed back.

The U.S. State Department said it was aware of McAfee’s arrest and its embassy was providing “appropriate consular services,” but could not comment further.

On the island of Ambergris Caye, where McAfee has lived for about four years, residents and neighbors say he is eccentric and at times unstable. He was seen to travel with armed bodyguards, sporting a pistol tucked into his belt.

The predicament of the former Lockheed systems consultant is a far cry from his heyday in the late 1980s, when he started McAfee Associates. McAfee has no relationship now with the company, which was sold to Intel Corp.

McAfee was previously charged in Belize with possession of illegal firearms, and police had raided his property on suspicions that he was running a lab to produce illegal synthetic narcotics. He says he has not taken drugs since 1983.

“I took drugs constantly, 24 hours of the day. I took them for years and years. I was the worst drug abuser on the planet,” he told Reuters just before his arrest. “Then I finally went to Alcoholics Anonymous, and that was the end of it.”

(With reporting by Andrew Quinn in Washington; Writing by Simon Gardner and Dave Graham; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Philip Barbara)

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Lurie Children's Hospital sees surge in patients at new Chicago building

Executives at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago expected a "bump" in patients when the $855 million hospital opened in June.

They weren't prepared for a mountain.

Since the former Children's Memorial traded its patchwork of aging buildings in Lincoln Park for a new high-rise in Streeterville on June 9, patient volume has surged, more than doubling hospital projections.

The number of patients is up about 16 percent in the first five months, according to hospital data, an increase driven by an influx of children with more acute health problems, including transplant patients, kids with heart problems and others in need of specialized care.

Revenue over that five-month period increased 12.9 percent to $222 million.

"We expected to have a new-hospital bump in (patients). We had a new-hospital mountain," said Michelle Stephenson, Lurie Children's chief patient care services officer and chief nurse executive. "We've had some months where the (number of inpatients) was 24 percent over what we expected. "

To meet the demand, the hospital hired 151 nurses to ensure full coverage, she said.

Those new hires came on top of about three dozen pediatric specialists and department heads Lurie Children's recruited in the run-up to the hospital opening.

Stephenson said the hospital has yet to determine the specific reasons behind the jump in patients, but said data shows it is drawing more children from the collar counties and downstate.

She also cited the location, adjacent to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine and Prentice Women's Hospital, which is connected to Lurie via an enclosed skyway.

Moving 31/2 miles south next to Prentice, which sends Lurie about a quarter of its patients, is likely a significant factor in the patient boom, said Jay Warden, a senior vice president at The Camden Group, a consulting firm.

"It used to be a challenge for moms to have a baby transferred to Children's while they had to stay at Prentice until they're discharged," Warden said. "Now it's the best of both worlds for both hospitals."

Warden said hospitals typically get a burst of new patients when they open facilities, in part because of the accompanying marketing and publicity blitz. That's not always the case with children's hospitals, which tend to serve the sickest and smallest of patients who have few other options.

He said limitations at the old hospital likely kept some patients away.

Indeed, Children's Memorial had a listed capacity of 247 beds, but with shared rooms and other factors, executives considered the hospital full at 220 patients, Stephenson said. The Lurie hospital has a capacity of 288 beds in all-private rooms, which it has come close to filling on a few occasions.

One ward that's consistently bursting at the seams is the neonatal intensive care unit, which was built to handle 44 patients but is averaging about 50. Some of the children have been bumped into shared space in the hospital's cardiac care unit, Stephenson said.

As for patients, the new facility has been a hit, with satisfaction scores up an average of 10 percent, hospital officials said.

Tina Sneed, whose 18-year-old daughter Whitney Ballard recently underwent a liver transplant at the hospital, said she's happy with the expanded rooms and new areas for parents.

She and her daughter have made several 7-hour trips from Kentucky in the last 18 months to see specialists, including overnight stays at both facilities.

Her only complaint?

"The waiting room was kind of crowded," she said. "It was nothing too bad, they just have so many (surgeries) going on at the same time we barely had room to move in there."

pfrost@tribune.com

Twitter @peterfrost

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Police break up dog fight in Dolton

Police rescued up to ten dogs from a dog fighting ring in Dolton on Wednesday night, authorities said.

Eight people were arrested, including six who police found hiding in the rafters after the first two were caught at the scene, police said.

Someone called police in the south suburb and told them about the dog fighting in the 1500 block of East 142nd Street and responding officers "were able to observe the incident and apprehend suspects at the scene," said TaQuoya Kennedy, a spokeswoman for Dolton.

“The dogs (pit bulls) showed signs of improper care and abuse / indications of dogfighting,” she said in a statement late Wednesday.“We have numerous suspects in custody, and we have called out the Cook County unit that investigats dog fighting to assist us with the charges and ongoing investigation.”

Cook County sheriff’s police were alerted to the dog fights by Dolton police and are assisting in the investigation.

“They called us immediately, knowing we handle this stuff all the time,” said Frank Bilecki, spokesman for the Cook County Sheriff’s Office.

Evidence technicians, animal crimes investigators and animal control are still at the scene, Bilecki said.

"When police hit the building people fled out of there ... We’re told that there might be cameras. Police are going to be out there for a little bit gathering evidence," Bilecki said.

Two males are in custody, but their ages weren't immediately available, Bilecki said.

Kennedy said at least four dogs were found along with a makeshift ring. Bilecki said police found as many as 10.

WGN-TV Assignment Editor Andrew Zuick contributed to this report.

pnickeas@tribune.com
Twitter: @peternickeas

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UK’s Kate leaves hospital after morning sickness

LONDON (Reuters) – Prince William‘s pregnant wife Kate left the King Edward VII hospital in central London on Thursday where she had spent four days being treated for acute morning sickness.

Accompanied by her husband, Kate, 30, appeared at the steps of the hospital smiling and holding a bouquet of yellow flowers. Neither she nor William spoke to waiting reporters before being driven way.

Kate, who married the second-in-line to the throne in April last year, has been suffering from Hyperemesis Gravidarum, an acute morning sickness which causes severe nausea and vomiting and requires supplementary hydration and nutrients.

There has been no announcement about when the baby is due, although the prince’s spokesman has said Kate is less than 12 weeks pregnant.

(Reporting by Stephen Addison; Editing by Tim Castle)

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The New Old Age Blog: How the 'Death With Dignity' Law Failed in Massachusetts

On election night, Jim Carberry and others who had worked to put a “Death With Dignity” law on the Massachusetts ballot gathered in the back room of a Waltham restaurant and watched their effort go down to narrow defeat.

“We were disheartened,” Mr. Carberry recalled. “For a lot of us, it was personal.”

His wife Margie, diagnosed with a rare brain tumor in 1995, had sought aggressive treatment for years – many surgeries and procedures, lots of radiation – hoping to see her younger daughter graduate from high school in 2011. She survived long enough to attend the ceremony. Then, with no medical options remaining, she asked to have her feeding tube removed. It took her five weeks to die. She was 51.

“I made her a promise that I would do whatever I could to keep other people from going through what we did,” said Mr. Carberry, who is 56. He gave endless media interviews and appeared in a TV ad with his mother-in-law, urging a yes vote on Question 2.

Question 2, which would have allowed doctors to prescribe drugs with which terminally ill patients could end their lives, drew less national attention than Elizabeth Warren’s Senate victory. But for those concerned with end-of-life decisions, Massachusetts was a major battle in an ongoing campaign.

Heading into election season, the volunteers and staffers who had collected signatures to put the law on the ballot could point to solid public approval. In August and September, polls by the Boston Globe, Suffolk University and others found 60 percent support or more.

By late October, however, Question 2 could no longer claim a majority. It lost by about 68,000 votes, a 51 to 49 percent defeat.

This was a fight its opponents felt they couldn’t afford to lose. “If the proponents could pass this in 40-percent-Catholic Massachusetts, they’d be running through the other states within five years,” said Joe Baerlein, whose public relations and lobbying firm Rasky Baerlein marshaled the opposition.

Its early research showed that Massachusetts residents believed in individual choice, and respect for others’ choices, about death and dying, Mr. Baerlein said. So the anti-Question 2 forces didn’t attack on direct moral or ethical grounds; instead, its ads took aim at certain provisions and how they were worded.

For instance, the proposed law — which included multiple safeguards and waiting periods to prevent impulsive requests, coercion or abuse — required a physician to “recommend” that a terminally ill patient notify his next of kin of his intent.

But it didn’t “require” family notification. “How would you feel if you came home and your mother had decided to take her life?” Mr. Baerlein said. “Voters couldn’t get their arms around that.”

The law also required a prescribing physician to refer a patient to a psychiatrist or psychologist “if the physician believes the patient may have a disorder causing impaired judgment,” like depression. But opposition ads criticized it for not mandating that a psychiatrist be one of the two physicians a patient had to consult.

Opponents also pointed out that medical prognoses — the law required that a patient be within six months of death — can be wrong. One ad, almost a counter to Dignity 2012’s spot featuring Mr. Carberry, showed a young widow whose husband lived a year and a half longer than expected. She was grateful he hadn’t “made a terrible decision based upon a doctor’s guess.”

“In the end, even if you believed you should control your end of life decision-making, there are too many flaws in the language,” Mr. Baerlein said.

To supporters, however, none of this parsing mattered nearly as much as money. They were vastly outspent.

The two groups pushing for Question 2 spent a little over $1 million this year, state finance records show, the bulk of which came from national groups like the Compassion and Choices Action Network and the Death With Dignity National Center.

The two major opposition groups spent close to $5 million, mostly on TV and radio ads in the campaign’s final weeks. “It’s a tactic they’ve used in other states, to blitz the airwaves with commercials,” said Peg Sandeen, who heads the Death With Dignity National Center.

Though some opposition money came from anti-abortion groups and the conservative American Principles Project (it gave $175,000, and its board chairman personally contributed $523,000), most came from Catholic organizations and archdioceses around the country, including $450,000 from the Knights of Columbus and $250,000 from the Archdiocese of Boston.

Supporters of Question 2 couldn’t counter that onslaught. “It’s so easy to scare people on this issue; that’s what happened in Massachusetts,” Ms. Sandeen said. “Fear-based arguments work.”

Data from the two states where physician-assisted suicide is legal shows that “slippery-slope” fears are probably overblown. Very few patients take advantage of death with dignity laws: Last year, just 114 people received lethal prescriptions in Oregon and 103 in Washington. In both states, about a third of those patients ultimately didn’t use the drugs.

It seems unlikely that any change in language could make an assisted-suicide law acceptable to the Catholic leadership.

But the campaign continues and so, undoubtedly, will the opposition. In neighboring Vermont, Gov. Peter Shumlin said last week he believes the legislature will pass a death with dignity law this session. In Massachusetts, Ms. Sandeen said, since supporters must wait until after 2016 to put the law on the ballot again, they will take their case to the legislature.

Mr. Carberry was ready to re-enlist. “I’d like to think that it’s not over,” he said.

Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

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Clock running out for owners of prime parcels near McCormick Place

The development team behind a long-stalled plan to build hotels and restaurants just north of McCormick Place suffered a serious setback in federal bankruptcy court on Wednesday afternoon.

Judge Jack Schmetterer granted a motion by lender CenterPoint Properties Trust to reject the latest development plan of property owner Olde Prairie Block Owner LLC, which is led by developers Pamela Gleichman, Karl Norberg and Gunnar Falk.

Schmetterer said Olde Prairie failed to show its plans were financially plausible, noting its pledges from investors were highly conditional.

"It's a maybe situation," he said. He gave them 10 days to produce a more solid plan.

"I urge them to take their best shot, because it is the last one they will get," he said. The next hearing is Dec. 17.

Gleichman said she is confident she can get more iron-clad commitments from her team's investment partners within that time frame.

If Schmetterer dismisses the bankruptcy case at the next hearing, it would open the door for a foreclosure auction of the property. This would make it possible for the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the state-city agency that owns McCormick Place, or other parties, to bid for the properties located on the north side of Cermak Road, across the street from the authority's administrative offices and the West Building of McCormick Place.

McCormick Place officials are aiming to vastly expand the amenities surrounding the convention complex to include more hotels, restaurants, entertainment venues and an arena that could host large-scale corporate assemblies and potentially collegiate sports such as DePaul Blue Demons basketball.

DePaul University, which would like to bring its men's basketball back to the city from its current home at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, is weighing a number of sites. McCormick Place and United Center officials have acknowledged talks with the university.

Opposition to an arena on the Olde Prairie blocks surfaced this week, with the Prairie District Neighborhood Alliance writing a letter stating an arena would be out of character in the historic residential area and would create traffic problems. Ald. Robert Fioretti, whose 2nd ward includes McCormick Place, has expressed opposition to an arena on that site as well.

kbergen@tribune.com | Twitter @kathy_bergen

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Hamstring strain could sideline Urlacher for season

The Bears have to brace themselves for the possibility of Brian Urlacher missing at least the rest of the regular season.

Multiple sources told the Tribune that Urlacher won't play for the next three games at a minimum after suffering a Grade 2 right hamstring strain during Sunday's 23-17 overtime loss to the Seahawks. An MRI confirmed the severity of Urlacher's injury.

Nick Roach is expected to make his fourth career start at middle linebacker Sunday in place of Urlacher, with Geno Hayes expected to take Roach's usual strong-side linebacker spot.

The Bears (8-4) have four more regular-season games, starting with Sunday's division matchup against the Vikings in Minnesota. Urlacher hopes to recover in time for the playoffs, which start with wild-card weekend games Jan. 5-6.

If the playoffs started today, the Bears would be the fifth seed against the fourth-seeded and NFC East-leading Giants (7-5). To remain in playoff contention, the Bears need to win at least two of their final four games against the Vikings (6-6), Packers (8-4), Cardinals (4-8), and Lions (4-8).

Urlacher's return in a month, however, might be a long shot considering the severity of the injury.

Gus Gialamas, an orthopedic surgeon from Sea View Orthopedic Medical Group in San Clemente, Calif., said a Grade 2 hamstring typically takes four to six weeks of recovery.

"Grade 2 means it's not a complete rupture, but it's a partial rupture,'' Gialamas said. "It takes a while -- maybe a week to 10 days -- for the inflammation to stop. That muscle then has to heal, and then you have a lot of physical therapy for strengthening and stretching. The goal is to avoid as much scar tissue in the hamstring as possible.

"I'm thinking he would be lucky to come back in four weeks, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was longer than that. It's just a tough injury.''

When reached by the Tribune, Urlacher declined to discuss the injury or his playing status. He initially felt a "pop'' while chasing Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson near the sideline during overtime. Urlacher pulled himself from the game before the final play.

He told WFLD-Ch. 32 this injury isn't as serious as a similar one in preseason of 2004 with which he missed seven games.

"I did that on the first day of training camp and that MRI showed more damaged back then than it did this time," he said.

The eight-time Pro Bowler entered the 2012 season recovering from a serious knee injury. He sprained the medial collateral ligament and partially sprained the posterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during last year's season finale against the Vikings.

Despite sitting out some practices to rest his knee, Urlacher started the first 12 games.

The Bears are 7-15 without Urlacher since he entered the league in 2000.

"He's the leader of our defense,'' defensive tackle Henry Melton said Tuesday. "He's a huge locker room guy. We love having him around. He's what Chicago Bears football is all about.''

Nevertheless, Melton expressed confidence in Roach.

"Nick has been rotating (at middle linebacker in practice) just in case measures called for it,'' Melton said. "It's not going to be the same without Brian, of course. But Nick can get the job done.''

The 34-year-old Urlacher has a base salary of $7.5 million in this, the final year of his contract. He expressed a desire to play at least two more seasons, depending on his health. His says his knee feels better than ever after multiple procedures. Now, it's a matter of how long the hamstring strain lingers.

General manager Phil Emery wouldn't commit to re-signing Urlacher and said any contract offers would be based on performance.

Could Urlacher have played his last game with the Bears?

"I do not think that's going to happen,'' he told Ch. 32. "But, if it does, I have had a really good and long career so I would be sad, but I would not be crushed."

Urlacher has made a statement this season with a team-leading 88 tackles, one interception return for a touchdown, three forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries. He was named the NFC's Defensive Player of the Week following his Week 9 performance against the Titans.

The club re-signed Dom DeCicco to the 53-man roster to add depth at the linebacker position, bringing him back three months after he was released with an injury settlement (groin). He took Patrick Trahan's spot, who was released on Tuesday.

DeCicco was second on the team with 17 special-teams tackles as an undrafted free agent from Pitt a year ago. He did play middle linebacker during training camp when Urlacher was sidelined with his knee issue.

vxmcclure@tribune.com

Twitter @vxmcclure23

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Software guru McAfee says to seek asylum in Guatemala

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – U.S. anti-virus software guru John McAfee, who is on the run from police in Belize seeking to question him in a murder probe, has crossed into Guatemala and said on Tuesday he will seek political asylum there.

McAfee has been in hiding for three weeks since police in Belize said they wanted to question him as “a person of interest” about the murder of fellow American Gregory Faull, with whom McAfee had quarreled.

McAfee smuggled himself and his girlfriend, Samantha, across the porous land border that Belize shares with Guatemala. He stayed at a hotel in a national park before heading for Guatemala City on Monday evening.

“I have no plans much for the future now. The reason I chose Guatemala is two-fold,” McAfee told Reuters by telephone from Guatemala’s Supreme Court, flanked by his lawyer, former attorney general and lawyer Telesforo Guerra.

“It is a country bordering Belize, it is a country that understands the corruption within Belize and most importantly, the former attorney general of the country is Samantha’s uncle and I knew that he would assist us with legal proceedings.”

McAfee has denied involvement in the murder and told Reuters on Monday he would not turn himself in. He posted repeatedly on his blog www.whoismcafee.com while on the run, describing how he would constantly change his disguise to elude capture.

On Tuesday, he appeared with his hair and goatee died black, and wearing a dark suit and tie – a far cry from the surfer-style blonde hair highlights, shorts and tribal-tattooed bare shoulders he sported in Belize.

“(Guerra) is now attempting to get political asylum for myself and for Sam. I don’t think there will be much of a problem. From here I can speak freely and safely,” McAfee said.

TECH GENIUS, “BONKERS”

McAfee says he believes authorities in Belize would kill him if he turned himself in for questioning. Belize’s prime minister has denied the claim and called the 67-year-old paranoid and “bonkers.”

On the Caribbean island of Ambergris Caye, where McAfee has lived for about four years, residents say he is eccentric, impulsive, erratic and at times unstable, with a penchant for guns and young women.

He would often be seen with armed bodyguards, pistols tucked into his belt, and McAfee’s neighbor had complained about the loud barking of dogs that guarded his exclusive beachside compound.

His run-in with authorities in Belize is a world away from a successful life in the United States, where he started McAfee Associates in 1989 and made millions of dollars developing the Internet anti-virus software that carries his name.

There was already a case against McAfee in Belize for possession of illegal firearms, and police had previously raided his property on suspicion he was running a lab to make illegal synthetic narcotics.

McAfee says he has been persecuted for refusing to donate money to politicians, that he loves Belize, and considers it his home.

Guatemala is a canny choice to seek refuge. It has long been embroiled in a territorial dispute with Belize. Guatemala claims the southern half of Belize and all of its islands, or cayes, rightfully belong to it. There is no extradition treaty between the two countries.

A Guatemalan government source said there was “no reason” to detain McAfee because there was no legal case against him pending in the country.

Harold Caballeros, Guatemala’s foreign minister, said his government was unaware of any arrest warrant and would study McAfee’s asylum request once presented, saying its success would “depend on the arguments.”

Guerra told Reuters McAfee would return to Belize once his situation in Guatemala was made legal, citing the fact he had crossed into the country illegally to avoid capture by police in Belize.

“He can go to the United States, there is no problem with that,” he added. “We have asked the U.S. embassy for support with our (asylum) request.”

He said the asylum request would be formally presented on Wednesday.

The U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City said in a statement McAfee would have to work within the country’s legal framework, but declined to elaborate. “The embassy does not comment on the actions of American citizens, due to privacy considerations.”

(Reporting by Simon Gardner and Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Kieran Murray and Eric Walsh)

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