SPRINGFIELD - Gov. Rod Blagojevich, doing battle with lawmakers for months, let them have their nearly 10 percent pay raises despite vowing during his re-election campaign to veto the increases.

A Chicago man was shot and killed while driving on a far South Side street, Chicago police said this morning.

Howard Taylor, 19, of the 13000 block of South King Drive and a cousin were traveling westbound at about 10 p.m. in the 800 block of East 130th Street near the Chicago Housing Authority’s Altgeld Garden complex when one of three men standing on the opposite side of the street opened fire with a handgun, hitting the driver in the head, police said.

A 20-year-old man was fatally shot and two other people were injured after being shot on a South Side porch late Monday.

Javon Morris, of the 1100 block of West 104th Place, was pronounced dead at 2 a.m. Tuesday at the Stein Institute, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.

A Chicago man, Ryan Boudreau, 27, riding his bicycle in the South Loop was struck and killed by a truck Monday afternoon, police said.

Boudreau was riding his bicycle south in the 1800 block of Clark Street when he was hit by a truck traveling northbound at about 3:15 p.m., Chicago Police Sgt. Eugene Mullins said.

The first car stolen was a purple 1993 Chevy pick-up. It was taken from a car lot in the 600-block of Champaign Avenue in Rantoul. It was found burning a few days later in Dolton, a southern suburb of Chicago. The second car was a 1994 Chevy Blazer. It was taken from the 1000-block of Englewood Drive. It turned up two weeks later in Chicago Heights and it too had been set on fire.

Is suburban Chicago’s “car kebab” going to that junkyard in the sky?

That’s what locals are wondering now that a giant spike of eight speared automobiles in a Berwyn, Ill., shopping-center parking lot faces an uncertain future.

Macy’s will build a new distribution center in southwest suburban Minooka to replace its existing distribution center at 4000 W. Diversey Ave., which will be shuttered next spring.

Macy’s also will move a furniture clearance store now at the Diversey complex to a leased space in a retail center near Fox Valley Mall in Aurora.

BACK to school Chicago style is unlike back to school anywhere else: try a three-kilometre street parade over six hours with marching bands, dance routines, a candidate for the US presidency, free T-shirts and smoky street barbecues feeding an audience of thousands of cheering spectators.

But then, school in Chicago may not be quite like anywhere else either. Last year 34 public school students died violently, 25 of them gunned down in their homes, in alleys and, most notoriously of all, on a school bus.

It means the head of the public school system, Arne Duncan, worries as much about keeping his students alive as lifting school standards. It has him in the thankless position of trying to enliven the gun law debate.
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The Chicago public school system has been abandoned by the middle class. Its 415,000 pupils are 90 per cent black and Hispanic. Most live below the poverty line. Something like 9000 are in effect homeless. Many rely on their school to feed them.

From statistics on the average amount of credit card debt per resident to pollution emissions by county, Crain’s Chicago Business’ impressive Market Facts provides a wealth of data about the Chicago area.

The 2007 version of Market Facts - available online free of charge - is the product of a “ground-up redesign,” including video segments that complement more than 100 infographics contained in the feature.

The suburban edition — a smaller version of the newspaper called the Reader’s Guide to Arts & Entertainment — published for the final time last week, says Publisher Mike Crystal.

Although the Reader’s new circulation total — 135,000 — will be the same as the combined circulation was for the two editions, the paper is calling it a 15% increase in circulation for the main edition.

You go first, Mayor Daley. Go ahead, eat the fish out of the Chicago River. You said last month when you inaugurated the reopened Chicago Riverwalk that the water had gotten so clean that you’d eat the fish. We were skeptical about the safety of river fish, so we had some tested.You were right, sort of.

The Chicago River is getting cleaner.

And it is safe to eat the wide variety of fish found in the river, but in small amounts — one 8-ounce meal a month for rock bass, bluegill and pumpkinseed fish, according to the state EPA’s chief toxicologist, Tom Hornshaw.

If it seems as if the cost to park downtown is skyrocketing, that’s because Chicago rates have spiked about 50 percent in the past five years, according to a recent study conducted by Colliers International USA, a Boston-based real estate firm.

“Chicago is very expensive and parking rates are rising much faster than in the country overall,” said Ross Moore, Colliers’ research director.

In the past year, Chicago rates have increased about 12 percent, compared with 4.4 percent for the country as a whole. The city’s average monthly rate is $350 and the daily median is $28.
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The Streeterville Organization of Active Residents, known by its acronym SOAR, wants Children’s Memorial Hospital to further refine its plans for a new $800 million Streeterville facility before seeking city approval.

After 10 months of negotiations, the residents do not yet have from Children’s a definitive plan for parking, the resolution of traffic problems noted in the hospital’s own study or a final building design, said Patty Frost, a SOAR director.

He then described the village’s strategy to stop the city from tearing down parts of the village for the multiyear, $15 billion runway expansion project. Bensenville officials claim Chicago doesn’t have the money to complete the project, which is at least $400 million over budget and behind schedule.

The Joker was serious business over the weekend at Wizard World Chicago, the pop culture and comic book convention that invades Rosemont each summer.

Warner Bros. chose the convention to show the first live footage of Heath Ledger as the Joker and shed a little light on “The Dark Knight,” the sequel to “Batman Begins,” currently filming in Chicago.

RECORD FLOODS MAKE O’HARE AN ISLAND: Peals of thunder marked the rain’s onset at 9:16 p.m. Visibility quickly dropped to near zero as the rain fell in blinding torrents. Through the night into Friday morning, waves of storms “trained” across the area from Rockford to the north part of the Chicago area. When the rain finally ended at 2:45 p.m. on Friday afternoon, a staggering 9.35″ of rain had inundated the O’Hare area. The airport was an island surrounded by flood waters with no access to and from the facility except by air for nearly 24 hours. In the Chicago area, three died and flood damage topped $220 million.

THE RAIN KEPT ON COMING: To make matters worse, the rains did not stop. After 0.59″ fell on Aug. 15, another 2.90″ cloudburst followed on the 16th. On Aug. 26 another 2.46″ fell–the month’s fourth day with more than 2″ of rain. By the end of the month, 17.10″ of rain had fallen at the official O’Hare gauge, and August 1987 became Chicago’s all-time wettest month.

The homeless population in Washington Square Park the other morning was equal to fully one-third of the homeless population of downtown Chicago.

There were eight homeless people in Washington Square Park, a k a Bughouse Square, on the Near North Side.

And yet there are only 24 people living on the streets in the entire downtown area just south of that park, according to that ridiculous count released by the city.

CAMARILLO, Calif. — Gasoline prices on average dropped about 10.7 cents in the last two weeks, according to a national survey released Sunday.

But the highest average price was in Chicago at $3.15, the Lundberg Survey of 7,000 stations nationwide says.

Though a classic ice cream cone may hit the spot in the heat of August, the high fat content and quick melting factor often leaves you with little more than a full stomach and a sticky mess. Why not try ice cream’s skinnier cousin, direct from Italy, instead? In addition to containing less butterfat, gelato is denser and served slightly warmer than American ice cream, giving it a richer, creamier flavor and texture. But don’t take our word for it–get the full scoop at one of the many gelaterias popping up around town.

Ventrella’s Caffe
After more than a decade in the TV news business, James Ventrella opened the coffee shop of his dreams in July 2006. Though the gelato comes courtesy of Palazzolo’s in Saugatuck, Mich., the rest of this Ravenswood spot is authentically Italian, right down to the vintage cooler and dishware. The cozy cafe stocks seven to nine kinds of gelato, including a couple of fruit flavors, at any given time. Staples include pistachio, hazelnut and stracciatella (similar to chocolate chip). $3 for a single scoop.

A 19-year-old man was shot to death in an apparent gang-related shooting on the South Side’s South Shore neighborhood Saturday night.

The man was shot about 10:50 p.m. Saturday at the 2000 block of E. 70th St., according to police News Affairs Officer Amina Greer.

The victim was walking down the street when he was approached by someone who asked him if he was a “four,” according to a report from the police First Deputy Superintendent’s office.

When the victim answered, “no,” he was shot in the head, according to the deputy’s report.

“It’s the nicest downtown,” said shop owner Ron Iverson of why he opened the Naperville location (he and business partner Jim LaChapelle have another shop in South Elgin).

On a sunny afternoon it would be hard to argue with Iverson’s opinion. The four-block by four-block area has the feel of a well-heeled college town.
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While downtown Naperville today is what many suburban center cities aspire to become, it wasn’t always so. Just three decades ago the area held a storage lot for abandoned autos, another lot for public works vehicles and a recycling center. Roberts has the pictures to prove it.

CHICAGO, Aug. 12 (UPI) — Illinois health officials have closed nine floors of a landmark Chicago office building because of a possible asbestos hazard.

The 38-story Art Deco Pittsfield Building, which dates from 1927, is home to many doctors and dentists and to the Friends of the Parks. While most of the building remains open, tenants wonder about asbestos dust, The Chicago Sun-Times reported.

PONTIAC, Ill. - With its name writ large in red cursive letters and lit by a neon glow, The Palamar Motel once beckoned countless travelers driving Downstate on The Mother Road. Now the “T” and half the “P” have fallen off, the faded pink motel room doors are bolted shut, and weeds fill the swimming pool to the rim.

But Gerald Hillyer remembers The Palamar’s heyday, when Saturday night crowds jammed in to hear big bands swing the adjacent supper club where he tended bar.

“We’re actually halfway between Chicago and Springfield, and a lot of the politicians would come in here,” Hillyer, 77, recalled as he stood in the broken parking lot of the property his parents once owned. “It was a nice watering-hole break.”

GLEN ELLYN, Ill. (AP) — A suburban Chicago man is free on bond after being charged with planting a bomb on the car of his ex-girlfriend’s new partner.

Artur Pawlina of Villa Park has been charged with attempted arson after police say he planted the bomb on the gas tank of the man’s car.

Brad Pitt arrived back in Chicago Friday, after doing jury duty in LA Thursday, to a warm welcome from partner Angelina Jolie who was at the airport waiting and welcomed him with a warm smile.

A massive hot dog clogged Chicago’s main artery Thursday morning.

In a rare occurrence of an encased-meat vehicle committing a traffic violation, Chicago police ticketed the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile for illegal parking on the Magnificent Mile.

The incident began at 10:57 a.m. in the 400 block of North Michigan Avenue. At least two members of the Wienermobile entourage left the vehicle in the six-lane street with its emergency blinkers on. The vehicle is registered to Kraft Foods under the Wisconsin license plate “WEENR.”

A curious crowd has gathered in Chicago’s Old Town, where a film crew has spent a good portion of the night setting up shop.

Word has traveled through the neighborhood that the latest in the “Batman” series, “The Dark Knight,” starring Christian Bale as the Caped Crusader, is shooting scenes. People, many with cell phone cameras in hand, are craning their necks to look beyond the police barricades so they can see something — anything.

Waterlogged residents in northern Illinois were bracing themselves Tuesday for more rain—and checking their sump pumps—after flash floods overnight soaked basements, closed highways and forced at least 40 people to evacuate their homes in Rockford.

Hardest hit by the storms were Lake and McHenry Counties and part of southeast Rockford. At the height of the storm, nearly 50,000 Commonwealth Edison customers were without power in northern Illinois.

Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte SA said that traffic measured in vehicles on its Chicago Skyway totaled 56,651 units in July, up 1.91 pct from a year earlier.

Binil Samuel’s life seemed to be just beginning when it ended early Monday morning after a hit-and-run crash on Chicago’s Northwest Side.

Samuel and his friends had been bowling and were driving home when a black tow truck smashed into his friend’s Nissan. The truck stopped briefly, then fled, witnesses said.

CHICAGO — Two men were shot in separate incidents by gunmen who approached on bicycles late Monday on the South and Southwest Sides.

At about 10 p.m., three gunmen on bicycles shot a male standing at West 59th and South Mozart streets. The gunmen fled the scene after the shooting, according to police News Affairs Officer David Banks.

Make way Evanston. Watch out Oak Park. Berwyn is stepping out and demanding that attention be paid. Yes, Berwyn.

Long a bedroom community that many people might have overlooked in their search for a convenient and inviting suburb in which to put down roots, Berwyn is putting on a new face and marketing itself to the rest of metropolitan Chicago via a new ad campaign launched last month that purports to position Berwyn at the center of life in metropolitan Chicago.

Online T-shirt retailer Threadless has announced it will be opening its first brick-and-mortar retail store in its hometown of Chicago next month. The store will open its doors on Friday, September 14, and will celebrate the launch with two free concerts that night (one all ages, one over 18).

The company, which was started in 2000, has received more than 60,000 submissions and boasts more than 300,000 members.

This week, the family will gather again to mourn the sudden loss of Hyland, a Loyola University graduate who died after she was hit by a car this weekend on Chicago’s North Side.

Hyland was in Chicago visiting friends, with whom she had been having a night of fun when she was hit by a 2007 Chevrolet Impala about 4:30 a.m. Sunday. It was the middle of a rainstorm, police said, and she had been trying to cross the street against a traffic light in the 6800 block of North Sheridan Road when she was hit.

When Diane Rabe was pregnant, she didn’t want her crack cocaine addiction to filter down to the baby.

But she had tried and failed before to break the addiction chain, so instead, she started saving money for an abortion.

“But I got high with it,” the West Dundee woman said.
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In Cook County alone, there are more than 260,000 estimated hardcore crack users.

“Because there are few multi-family townhouses or apartments, it has a small-town feel.”

The same goes for Park Slope and Chicago’s Lincoln Park. They may feel disconnected from the city, but their denizens still report to the big-city mayor and send their kids to the cities’ school systems.

The National Weather Service has confirmed that a tornado touched down at about 6:15 p.m. on the southwestern edge of Bolingbrook but was confined to a very small area. It damaged two houses.

CHICAGO - Do bloggers need their own Norma Rae?

In a move that might make some people scratch their heads, a loosely formed coalition of left-leaning bloggers are trying to band together to form a labor union they hope will help them receive health insurance, conduct collective bargaining or even set professional standards.
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“I think people have just gotten to the point where people outside the blogosphere understand the value of what it is that we do on the progressive side,” said Susie Madrak, the author of Suburban Guerilla blog, who is active in the union campaign. “And I think they feel a little more entitled to ask for something now.”
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Others see a blogger coalition as a way to find health insurance discounts, fight for press credentials or even establish guidelines for dealing with advertising and presenting data on page views.

Family members say police used excessive force when they used a taser on a South Side man. But Chicago police say the man lunged at them. CBS 2’s Mike Puccinelli reports.

Police say he was conscious at the house and unconscious when he arrived at Saint Bernard Hospital where he was pronounced dead. His mom, Lula Johnson, says that’s not true. She said she watched her son die on her dining room floor.

Conditions conducive for hot days can make for cool beach waters. Chicago’s hottest days at the beach often coincide with days when beach water temperatures are unseasonably cold. This results from a process called “upwelling.”

Chicago police have issued a community alert after a man broke into a home and sexually abused a 7-year-old girl.

The break-in happened at about 5 a.m. Friday at a home in the 200 block of West Marquette.

Saturday afternoon, there was a vigil in the Englewood community. Organizers wanted to hold events to teach residents how to protect themselves.

A jury convicted Darryl Deshon Johnson of second degree murder this afternoon for the shooting death of a 15-year-old boy over a Chicago Bulls Basketball jersey last year.

Mayor Richard Daley said he’s confident in the safety of the city’s bridges even though he criticized the federal government for “not putting money into infrastructure.”
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He said the city’s movable bridges are inspected every two to three days by staff.

It speaks well for Chicago’s cultural vitality that a sizable number of recently released classical recordings involve musicians, composers and ensembles that are affiliated with local musical institutions, base their performance activity in the metropolitan area or got their start here.

Pride of place among these recent CD issues must go to a new Deutsche Grammophon album devoted to works by Osvaldo Golijov, the Argentinian-American composer-in-residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. His music bestrides the many cultural influences that inspire him, giving each work a strong autobiographical flavor, like an aural diary.

CARPENTERSVILLE, Ill.
Ten years later, the 31-year-old construction worker no longer feels welcome — even though more than 40% of Carpentersville’s 37,000 residents are Hispanic.

“I’m thinking of moving,” said Delgado, a legal U.S. resident applying for citizenship whose Chinese-American wife is a U.S. citizen. “I think it’s stupid to deal with all this stuff.”
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Humpfer claimed rental housing was overcrowded and ambulance bills were high because illegal immigrants were taking advantage of the health care system.

Those who support the measure also have complained about strained schools, increased crime and even public urination.

1. Turn off incandescent lights. They produce more heat than light.
2. Cook with small appliances. Slow cookers, microwave ovens and electric frying pans.
3. Use vent fans properly.
4. Keep vents clear.
5. Max out the cool night air.
6. Set the ceiling fan properly.

A powerful Chicago alderman, upset about oil company BP’s plan to release more pollutants from an Indiana refinery into Lake Michigan, says municipal bond underwriting firms with ties to BP will be excluded from city business.

Officials at the Chicago Department of Public Health are trying to find out how a 47-year-old man contracted West Nile encephalitis.

The victim, who became ill last month, is in a coma.

A Chicago man faces reckless homicide charges after a high-speed crash on the Edens Expy. left two of his friends dead.

Patrick Prosniak, 23, hobbled into bond court on crutches Thursday, recovering from injuries he suffered in a July 22 wreck that killed Justine Stevens, 22, and Joseph Thomas, 23. Judge Colleen Hyland set bond at $200,000.

A woman believed to be in her 30s was wounded in an apparent drive-by shooting at an Uptown neighborhood park early Thursday.

The woman was in a park in the 4500 block of North Clarendon Avenue about 2:20 a.m. She heard a loud noise prior to being shot in her left hip, a report from the police First Deputy Superintendent’s office said.

Witnesses told police multiple assailants pulled up in a dark-colored Oldsmobile and started shooting into the park on Clarendon Avenue, the report said. The offenders fled the scene after the shooting.

…However, the woman is not a gang member and does not appear to be the intended target of the shooting, which may be gang-related.

The Windy City may have banned foie gras, but there’s no putting the kibosh on their hometown franks. T+L found the best in town, bite by bite

In an old mom-and-pop-style storefront, Murphy’s Red Hots (1211 W. Belmont Ave., Lakeview; 773/ 935-2882) has wooden floors and cheery red-vinyl tablecloths for a cozy, pub-like feel. BEST BITES After 20 years, genial Bill Murphy has mastered every detail of the authentic red hot: a perfectly cooked Vienna Beef dog with a snappy natural casing on a warm, but not soggy, S. Rosen poppy-seed bun piled with impeccable condiments.

The touristville location, across the street from the original Rock ‘n’ Roll McDonald’s, is jarring. Although it is now part of the largest privately owned restaurant company in the Midwest, the hot dogs at Portillo’s (100 Ontario St., River North; 312/587-8910) are hard to put down — they are direct descendants of those served at the original trailer stand, opened in 1963. BEST BITES Try the messy chili dog — laden with homemade chili con carne.

Three men were shot to death in separate outbursts of violence within a nine-hour span across the city, Chicago police said Thursday.

In the first shooting, two men were standing in a gangway about 4:30 p.m. Wednesday in the 8000 block of South Burnham Avenue when witnesses said a man ran up and began shooting, killing James Collier, 24, and wounding the 41-year-old man he was with, authorities said.

Meanwhile, detectives are questioning a suspect in the fatal shooting of a man about 1:30 a.m. Thursday as he was getting into his vehicle outside his home in the 700 block of North Central Avenue on the West Side.

Two people were shot Wednesday evening, one fatal, in the South Chicago neighborhood.

The men were shot in the 8000 block of South Burnham Avenue about 4 p.m., according to police News Affairs Tom Polick.

Lets hope that Chicago Bridge inspectors are better than Chicago porch inspectors at discovering and remediating potential structural failures.

As I follow the news on television about the collapse of the bridge in Minneapolis, I hear that structural damage, not terrorism, is the apparent cause. Too bad we are pouring billions of dollars into Iraq while the infrastructures in our major cities are collapsing for want of cash and concern.