The Rev. Al Sharpton is coming to Chicago, targeting what he calls chronic police misconduct and a lack of political accountability.

The New York-based civil rights leader’s Chicago office plants him squarely on the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s turf, leading some to wonder if the city is big enough for both of them.

Three people were in custody Wednesday afternoon, suspected in the Tuesday sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl in a Southwest Side park, Chicago police said.

The girl was attacked by three men about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday at Hayes Park in the 2900 block of West 85th Street, but the crime was not reported to authorities until Wednesday, police said.

At a West Side drug market that was recently shut down by Chicago police, dealers took the idea of the free sample to a particularly ruthless extreme: those who took samples and then didn’t show up to buy more drugs were beaten up or worse.

At least one was shot dead, said 11th District Commander James Jackson.

Police announced today that they shut down the market, run by the Traveling Vice Lords street gang in the East Garfield Neighborhood.

Fulcrum Asset Advisors LLC of Barrington and Angelo, Gordon & Co. of New York are working on a deal to buy 125 S. Wacker Drive for about $113 million from Tishman Speyer which bought the same 540,000 square foot tower for $44 million in late 2004.

Tishman, an old-line New York-based real estate firm that has been expanding its presence here, bought the 31-story tower for about $80 square foot and is selling it for about $210 square foot, a 163 percent price rise, knowledgeable industry sources said.

A court ruled Wednesday the City of Chicago is not liable in a deadly porch collapse that happened four years ago in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. Thirteen people were killed and dozens injured when the crowded porch gave way, sending people and debris crashing to the ground.
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The families of the 13 people who died when the Lincoln Park porch collapsed in 2003 sued the city, among other parties. Their argument was that the porch had no building permit, was way oversized, poorly constructed, that city inspectors knew that, didn’t write it up, and were themselves poorly trained.

The criminal case against R. Kelly is finally headed to trial. At a hearing in Chicago today (August 1), Judge Vincent Gaughan decided Kelly’s trial will begin on September 17.

Kelly was charged with 21 counts of child pornography in 2002 (seven of which were later dropped) for allegedly videotaping himself having sex with a girl prosecutors claim was only 14 years old at the time. Kelly pleaded not guilty

The Chicago Police Department is out $650,000 because a jury found male officers harassed a female officer by putting pornography in her mailbox every day.

Police believe there is a link between four attacks against women in north lakefront neighborhoods over the past several months, but they say it is likely a different man raped and clubbed a woman in Wrigleyville early Sunday.

The latest attack happened early Tuesday near Clark Street and Deming Place at the north end of the Lincoln Park neighborhood. A woman reported that she was grabbed by a man at 3:20 a.m. He fled when she started screaming.

Police issued an alert after two earlier incidents: one around May 14 in the 600 to 800 blocks of West Aldine Avenue and one on April 27 in the 3300 block of North Broadway. In each case, a man approached a woman between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m., touched her and asked for a sexual act in exchange for money. In both attacks, the man tried to overpower the woman but the woman fought him off, according to the alert.

The fourth incident was on July 23, when a woman was attacked between 2 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. as she walked to her home in the 500 block of West Briar. The woman was thrown to the ground and the suspect tried to assault her, police said. He was described as a Hispanic, 25 to 30, with short, combed-back hair and medium complexion.

But police believe a different man is likely the culprit in the attack on Lakewood Avenue near Waveland Avenue at 4:30 a.m. Sunday.

Police say in that case, a woman in her mid-20s was coming home to an apartment in the 3700 block of North Lakewood Avenue at 4:30 a.m. when she was attacked from behind.

A garage exploded and burned to the ground early Thursday on the city’s West Side near Garfield Park.

As Kris Habermehl reports from Chopper 2, the garage behind a two-flat at 632 N. Trumbull Ave. exploded and caught fire around 6:30 a.m.. The roof was blown off the structure, and it was left leaning to one side.

The walls of the garage later collapsed, leaving the entire structure on the ground. The fire was so strong that it communicated to a garage across the alley, belonging to a home at 633 N. St. Louis Ave.

An autopsy is scheduled for later Wednesday for a man who was struck and killed by a Chicago Transit Authority Brown Line train on the Northwest Side Tuesday night.

According to police News Affairs officer David Banks, a 17-year-old Hispanic man was hit and killed by a Brown Line train near Albany and Eastwood avenues about 9:45 p.m.

Not only do scholars trip over each other in the community, the titles of their books echo each other. Allan Spear’s “Black Chicago: The Making of a Negro Ghetto, 1890-1920″ released in 1967, was followed by Arnold Hirsch’s “Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago 1940-1960,” published in 1998.

Those and similar books collectively paint a portrait of Chicago’s black community over a century — from when African-Americans came to the city hoping to escape Jim Crow to the present-day gentrification described in Pattillo’s book.

A Chicago casino emerged Tuesday as a potential way out of the state’s deepening budgetary morass, but top lawmakers couldn’t agree how to divvy up the massive windfall it might generate.

But GOP leaders said they would like to see revenues from a city casino go, at least in part, toward a statewide construction program.

Last week, Senate Democrats proposed a 90-cent hike in state cigarette taxes to fund a capital program — a plan Republicans oppose.

Since the indictment of its former boss Conrad Black in November 2005, the Sun-Times Media Group has seen its market cap slashed by 75% and its stock price cut in half. Last year the company’s advertising revenue was down 14%.
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The Sun-Times may believe they are positioned as a bulwark against the Chicago Tribune, which is suffering a much slower but similarly real demise.

A key barometer of manufacturing activity in the Chicago area showed a bigger-than-anticipated decline in July, apparently reflecting a slowdown in auto-related production.A key barometer of manufacturing activity in the Chicago area showed a bigger-than-anticipated decline in July, apparently reflecting a slowdown in auto-related production.
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Historically, manufacturing in the Chicago area has been disproportionately affected by the fortunes of the domestic auto industry.

Power was shut off to part of the CTA Brown Line Tuesday night after a man was reportedly killed after being struck by a train.

About 9:45 p.m., a man was struck by a Brown Line train near Albany and Eastwood, according to police News Affairs Officer David Banks. The man was dead on the scene, Banks said. It was not yet known what exactly happened — if the incident was a suicide or if the man was accidentally struck by the train.

The incident occurred near the Brown Line’s Francisco station, Taylor said.

The family of Daniel Piña is gathering for his wake on Chicago’s West Side this evening. Police suspect it was gang members who gunned down the 17-year-old over the weekend.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Business activity in the Chicago region worsened in July, according to a survey of corporate purchasing managers released on Tuesday, surprising analysts who were looking for a better reading.

The Chicago purchasing-managers’ index dropped to 53.4% in July from 60.2% in June, according to the Chicago NAPM.

The report about activity in the Chicago region followed an upbeat reading on overall U.S. growth on Friday.

When you consider only hotel rooms sold, Vegas’ 40 million hits the jackpot, followed by the Orlando area (27.2 million), L.A. (25.5 million), Chicago (24.8 million) and New York City (23.9 million).

A 15-year-old boy was wounded Monday night in a South Side shooting involving a group dressed in black hooded sweatshirts and bandannas.
The teenager was sitting on the porch of his home in the 7800 block of South Constance Avenue about 11 p.m. Monday when the shooting occurred, a report from the police First Deputy Superintendent’s office said.

A woman was assaulted in a trendy north lakefront neighborhood early Tuesday, the third such attack in the past nine days.
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The attack comes less than 48 hours after a woman was clubbed, dragged into a gangway and raped early Sunday a couple of miles to the northwest in the Wrigleyville neighborhood.

Despite nationally falling gasoline prices, Chicago’s average remains the highest in the nation at $3.29 a gallon.

Nationally, the average price for regular was $2.88 a gallon, mid-grade was $3.01 and premium was $3.12. The nation’s lowest average price, $2.65, was in Cleveland.

As Angelina Jolie hits town this week to continue filming the crime action thriller ”Wanted,” fans are wondering where the Oscar winner just might be sighted.

No word yet whether her growing collection of children — or main man Brad Pitt — will be here for the short visit, but Jolie’s security team sure has been busy.

Bodyguard types and Jolie personal staffers have been in Chicago this past week, scoping out possible travel routes (mainly to and from filming locations). A source close to the actress indicates ”most of her meals will likely be taken on set in her trailer, or back in her hotel suite.”

“Right now it’s only available up to the fourth floor (of buildings),” Grasso said. “It’s about what you want it to be. If you’re happy as a cable (modem) user, then this might be a great supplemental service to go all over town.”

Mayors from eight North Shore communities joined U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) on Monday in announcing plans to fight the proposed discharge of significantly more ammonia and industrial waste into Lake Michigan by the massive BP oil refinery in Whiting, Ind., after years of effort to clean up the Great Lakes.

“Any time you start putting more pollution into the lake, it’s a concern,” said North Chicago Mayor Leon Rockingham, who joined officials from Highland Park, Highwood, Kenilworth, Lake Bluff, Lake Forest, Waukegan and Wilmette in announcing formation of the Shoreline Mayors Task Force to address lake issues such as pollution.

The robbery came two weeks after Antoine Walker, a Chicago native and Miami Heat star, had his multimillion-dollar home in the upscale Gold Coast neighborhood of downtown Chicago burglarized in broad daylight, in similar fashion.

Knicks guard Quentin Richardson has had two brothers murdered in Chicago, his hometown. Most recently, in 2005, his brother Lee Jr. was shot and killed in a failed mugging attempt as he was walking on Chicago’s South Side with Richardson’s father, Lee Sr., in front of the Richardson home. The attack took place on a side of town long known for criminal activity and violence.

The Chicago Project for Violence Prevention at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health has been awarded a $1.7 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to expand the CeaseFire program to cities outside of Illinois.

“This grant recognizes that many cities around the country are struggling with violence and grappling with a lack of successful and specific intervention strategies to reduce shootings and killings,” said Dr. Gary Slutkin, founder and executive director of the Chicago Project for Violence Prevention and research professor of epidemiology in the UIC School of Public Health.

The grant will support CeaseFire implementation in Baltimore, Cincinnati, and Newark, N.J. The cities, Slutkin says, were chosen due to high levels of violence and their strong desire to use CeaseFire’s public health and epidemic control approach to reducing shootings and killings.

Chicago police on Monday were investigating the death of a man whose body was found on the street after apparently plummeting from the 10th-floor window of his Hyde Park apartment.

The body of Kirk Alexander, 46, was found about 6 a.m. Monday outside the 14-story apartment building in the 1600 block of East Hyde Park Boulevard, police said.

An 18-year-old man was fatally shot overnight while playing dice near his West Side home, Chicago police said.

The slaying occurred around 11:15 p.m. Sunday in the 900 block of North Lawler Avenue in the city’s Austin neighborhood, police said.

The victim, Robert Thomas, was playing dice on the corner with several other people when a gunman in black clothing approached and fired on the group, striking Thomas in the neck and back, Officer Marcel Bright said. The gunman was last seen running south on Lawler.

A 19-year-old was shot to death near his Southwest Side home in an apparent gang-related incident early Sunday.

What’s with NBA players getting robbed in Chicago? A little over two weeks ago, it was Antoine Walker who got stuck up inside his own home, and now Eddy Curry (and his family) has been a victim of home robbery:

SPRINGFIELD - The sponsor of legislation to pump millions into the Chicago area’s struggling transit system through an increase in regional sales taxes will push ahead with the measure this week despite veto threats from the governor.

Rep. Julie Hamos (D-Evanston), chair of the House Mass Transit Committee, said she expects the proposal to be approved by the committee this week. She hopes to bring the measure to a full vote as soon as she secures the supermajority of 71 votes in the House that is required in the General Assembly’s overtime session.
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The plan calls for a 0.25 percent sales tax hike in Cook and the collar counties and would authorize the city to impose a real estate transfer tax to support the Chicago Transit Authority.

Metra, Pace and CTA need a total of $226 million in additional operating subsidies, with the CTA’s portion of that amount being $110 million, according to the Regional Transit Authority.

If the state doesn’t come through with the money, transit officials say they will be forced to cut jobs, reduce bus and train routes and increase fares as early as September.

Property values in Chicago are rising faster than those in the Cook County suburbs, although overall appreciation is moderating from the double-digit percentage gains a few years ago, said a report to be issued today by the Civic Federation.

After a cautious start early in the decade, Meijer Inc. is making a big push into Chicagoland, one of the nation’s most competitive retail markets.

Since 2000, the chain has increased its presence in Illinois to 14 stores, 11 of them in Chicago’s suburbs and most built in the past two years.

It’s a bolder move for privately held Meijer, which is generally known for its conservative growth strategy. And it’s a sign of revitalization at the 73-year-old Grand Rapids chain.

Chicago didn’t crack the top 25 for fashion cities in one annual survey, but at least New York continues to trump Paris, Rome and Milan for No. 1.

The Global Language Monitor, which tracks words and phrases used in media and online to create a list of the most influential cities in fashion, placed New York ahead of Rome, then Paris, London, Milan and Tokyo. Los Angeles was No. 7, with Hong Kong, Las Vegas and Singapore rounding out the top 10.

The list from 11 to 25 includes Berlin, Sydney, Barcelona (Spain), Shanghai, Melbourne (Australia), Moscow, Bangkok, Mumbai (India), Santiago (Chile), Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo (Brazil), Buenos Aires, Johannesburg, Dubai (United Arab Emirates) and Krakow (Poland). The list doesn’t go beyond 25.

A West Side man was fatally shot near his home early Saturday, police said.

The incident happened at about 2:45 a.m. in the 1300 block of South Central Park Avenue, said Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Marcel Bright.
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The victim was identified as Brandon Woodard, 20, who lived on the same block where the shooting occurred, according to a spokesman for the Cook County medical examiner’s office. He was pronounced dead at 3:30 a.m. in Mt. Sinai Hospital in Chicago.

Chicago police search for the gunman who shot and killed a teenager overnight.

Alejandro Calderon, 19, had just returned from a barbecue at a friend’s house when, witnesses say, a group of people drove up in front of his Southwest Side home and fired two shots.

Calderon was hit in the head by a bullet and later died at the hospital.

While police say the shooting appears to be gang-related, Calderon’s family says he was not a member of any gang.

The 357-room Inn of Chicago, formerly under management by Best Western, has reopened after a renovation, as an independent boutique hotel. The hotel is now known as the rather cumbersome Inn of Chicago Magnificent Mile. New features include a poshed-up lobby, InnBar lounge, reappointed guest rooms and bathrooms, and the creation of 58 executive guest rooms, There is also Lavazza Caf downstairs for coffee and snacks.

A 19-year-old resident of the Chicago Lawn community and national Silver Gloves boxing champion was shot to death near his Southwest Side home in an apparent gang-related incident early Sunday.

After returning about 2:15 a.m. from a family barbecue, Alejandro “Alex” Calderon sat on the front porch of the family’s home in the 3300 block of West 60th Place. He, his brother and a friend waited for his sisters husband so they could head to the back yard together.

AURORA, Ill. — A 27-year-old Aurora man died shortly after arriving at a local hospital with multiple gunshot wounds early Sunday in the western suburb, police said. Police are investigating the Sunday shooting death of Renee Saldana, according to an Aurora police release.

About 3 a.m., Saldana was shot several times in the 500 block of 7th Avenue, but when police arrived on the scene, they received a call from Rush-Copley Medical Center in Aurora in regards to a gunshot victim that was driven to the hospital, the release said. A 22-year-old acquaintance drove Saldana to the hospital in a full-size conversion van, but he succumbed to his injuries soon thereafter, the release said. Saldana, of the 7200 block of Eola Road, was shot in the arm and torso area. Officers found shell casings in the area of 7th Avenue and Hinman Street, the release said.

OAK LAWN, Ill. (AP) - Police in Chicago’s south suburbs are warning merchants to be on the lookout for counterfeit money after dozens of fake bills have turned up in area stores.

Since July Tenth, three fake $100 bills and one fake $50 bill have been found in Oak Lawn. And in recent months, more than dozen fake $100 bills have been used in Tinley Park, Matteson, Chicago Heights, South Holland and Homewood.

Marcelino Perez never had a big birthday celebration before.

But as about 50 people were dancing at the party in a South Chicago backyard early Saturday morning, someone shot into the crowd. In the end, nine partygoers went to the hospital — including Perez’s wife and six members of his extended family.
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Perez, a Mexican immigrant, held the party at a residence he owns in the 8700 block of Escanaba, a few doors down from his home.

Around 9 p.m., partygoers heard shots ring out and some saw men shooting at each other nearby. Police were called, but the shooters fled. The party continued into the night, and attendees — around 200 people, including dozens of kids — were urged to stay in the backyard.

About 1:30 a.m., witnesses said, someone started shooting from the alley into the backyard party.

“It was like a massacre,” said Latress Young, 33, who was shot twice in the arm.

Curry is 2nd NBA star targeted in month

Former Bull Eddy Curry was robbed at gunpoint in his southwest suburban home early Saturday, less than a month after fellow NBA star Antoine Walker was victimized in a similar attack in Chicago.

Curry, a 6-foot-11-inch center for the New York Knicks, was at his Burr Ridge mansion with three family members and an employee when the home invasion took place around 12:15 a.m. Saturday, Burr Ridge Police said in a statement. Three armed offenders wearing masks bound the 285-pound Curry and the other victims with duct tape and then fled with cash and jewelry.

“The downturn in the residential sector has spilled over into the commercial side as the mortgage lenders, title companies, real estate and mortgage brokers shut down or downsize,” said Doug Shehan, a senior director at Cushman & Wakefield Illinois Inc.

Over the past several months the contraction of these firms has kept vacancy rates high, rents modest and building sales uncertain, he said.

“It’s changed the landscape of the suburban markets dramatically,” Shehan said. “Now, what will be the next industry to absorb the space?”

With job growth slowing in the metropolitan region, the answer might be a long time coming.
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Indeed, by midyear this 25 million-square-foot submarket, which also includes Rolling Meadows, Itasca and Hoffman Estates, had at least 19 percent of its offices vacant.
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The space give-backs reflect the contraction of several real estate-related companies in the Schaumburg area and elsewhere. So far this year Schaumburg-area firms have laid off at least 1,500 employees, according to state records.

Throughout metropolitan Chicago, job growth fell 27.5 percent for the 12-month period that ended in May, to 44,200 jobs from 61,000 a year earlier, according to research done for the Tribune by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

ELGIN, Ill. A shooting outside a home in this Chicago suburb left two people dead and three others injured, authorities said Friday.

Julian Mascote, 18, and Francisco Franco, 21, both of Elgin, died after being shot late Thursday, police Sgt. Sean Rafferty said.
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The five were shot while standing outside the Mascote familys home on the 300 block of North Street on Elgins east side.
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Thursdays shooting was the areas fourth gun-related case in recent weeks, police said.

The chain from New York unveiled a swath of marketing initiatives on Thursday aimed at attracting more customers to the Macy’s State Street flagship in Chicago, its second-biggest department store, after New York’s Herald Square, and a place many shoppers have avoided since it changed its name from Marshall Field’s in the fall.

From domestic guru Martha Stewart decorating the Great Tree in the Walnut Room for the holidays to Macy’s in-house designers reviving the Field Gear clothing label, the programs attempt to tap into the iconic store’s Chicago history.

Yet, the upbeat effort comes as Macy’s notified employees at its North division, made up of former Field’s stores, that it will cut the range of wages and commissions for some sales associates starting in August and offer voluntary severance packages for those who choose to leave. Macy’s officials declined to be more specific but said the pay model at the former Field’s stores is outdated and out of line with the other Macy’s divisions.
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It is working with the Chicago History Museum to create a special store exhibit highlighting the 100th anniversary of the Tiffany Ceiling, Great Clock, Walnut Room and Great Tree. A Macy’s lounge is set to open in early August for Macy’s Platinum and Elite credit card holders with a coat check, refreshments and wireless Internet connections. And the store is drawing on the Joffrey Ballet to make the Nutcracker its holiday window theme.
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It has been a tough week for Macy’s in Chicago. The Chicago Department of Public Health shut down the State Street store’s food court on Monday, the first closing at that location in at least a decade, according to the city’s records.

Then, just as the store was closing at 8 p.m Wednesday, a man plunged eight stories to his death in the flagship’s center atrium.

…a judge’s order stopped all major work in a section of Bensenville that would be affected by the O’Hare Expansion project. However, it was unclear how long Bensenville would be able to keep the city of Chicago from demolishing almost 400 vacant homes to make way for the new runways.
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The work started Thursday morning; only hours after Popejoy issued an order prohibiting the demotion of these vacant structures. The city said it was just clearing trees and doing routine maintenance, but Bensenville sent out police to make sure the work stopped.

MUNDELEIN, Ill. (CBS 2) — Police in far north suburban Round Lake are looking for two men who kidnapped another man, drove him to Texas, and left him there for no clear reason.
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The victim returned to the Chicago area Friday and a composite sketch of the abductors was released.

Both were described as Hispanic men between the ages of 28 and 35, with black hair and brown eyes.

At the end of the four-month bust, 145 women and 49 men were charged with crimes involved with prostitution. The women were charged with street prostitution and the men with solicitation of a sex act. An additional 60 women were arrested for prostitution for advertising their sexual services on the craigslist website. Most ads on the site offered sexual acts in exchange for money. Two of the women were arrested twice in the operation.

Elgin police today were looking into the possibility that a shooting late Thursday night that killed two people and wounded three others was gang-related.

What to do in the county, the region and Chicago

The bill also increases the real estate transfer tax in the city of Chicago, which would go directly toward more funding for the Chicago Transit Authority. And it changes the makeup of the RTA board to give the suburbs more representation, changing the balance of the board to be equal between the city of Chicago, suburban Cook County and the collar counties.

The new funding package immediately would bail out deficits in Pace, the suburban bus board, Metra, the commuter rail board, and the CTA. It would forestall proposed service cuts on suburban Pace routes planned for September.

Located “Off The Beaen Path” in a hidden area of Wilmette called 4rd & Linden (Where one has very little reason to frequent whatsoever!) Chinoiserie Restaurant has struggled to survive for almost 12 years as one of the North Shore’s “Best Kept Secrets.”

WELL FOLKS THIS HAS GOT TO STOP! LET THE SECRET OUT!

Everyone says our food is FANTASTIC. Everyone says our decor is CHARMING. Everyone says they LOVE our restaurant. Then where the heck are you guys???

LOOK - You whined that we didn’t accept change cards and what did we do? We raced right out and 12 years later we take change cards! You complained that you wanted your entrees to come to the table at the same time and now we do our best to honor that ridiculous request. What more do you want? Soup - well guess what!? Do we have soup!!!! You speak and Chinoisere listens!

Yes, in the past our prices were a lot higher then our competition - But check out our new prices. Now they’re just a little higher - but still with the same first rate high quality ingredients. After all, did you marry your wife cause she was a little cheaper?

Police work to recover a body from the Chicago River that was found Wednesday between a barge and the wall at Harrison Street.

Chicago winters have warmed an average of 5 degrees since the 1970s, but summers haven�t kept pace in the production of truly hot days. When overall summer temperatures are averaged and compared, readings haven�t fallen. But, as hot weather enthusiasts may have suspected, the pace at which 90 (degrees)-plus days have occurred is off. Since 2000, the city has hosted only 143 daytime highs of 90 (degrees) or higher at Midway. By comparison, the 1930s saw 343 days with 90s, the 1950s hosted 276, and the 1940s featured 252. If 90s continue occurring at the pace observed so far, the 2000-2009 period would be the lowest yielding decade in terms of summer 90s since the 1930s.

On a warm day in July, Sara Anderson took her boys, ages 11 and 8, from their home in far northwest suburban Richmond to play at Illinois Beach State Park, the same beach she’d gone to as a child.

Not far from the towel they spread on the sand: a piece of washed-up debris that was a stark reminder of a problem that’s marred the park for more than 10 years. Asbestos.

The local owners of the Chicago Reader, an alternative weekly newspaper that combines long cover stories with comprehensive entertainment and cultural listings, said Tuesday they have sold the publication to a Tampa-based publisher.

The deal with Creative Loafing Inc., a chain of four alternative weeklies, caught Reader staff members by surprise. The paper has enjoyed stable ownership since it was started in 1971, and several of its 10 shareholders, including co-founder Bob Roth, worked in management.

WASHINGTON - Executives from the oil company BP hit a bipartisan buzz-saw on Capitol Hill Tuesday, as Illinois lawmakers rebuked them in a private meeting and the House prepared to condemn BP’s plans for increasing the dumping of pollutants into Lake Michigan.

Bashing BP, which recently secured an Indiana state permit to discharge more ammonia and suspended solids from its massive oil refinery in Whiting, is a new sport for Illinois politicians who see big problems with the permit—and little political downside to attacking an oil giant over drinking water quality, especially with no Illinois jobs hanging in the balance.
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There were no Indiana lawmakers at the meeting. They generally have been reluctant to criticize BP, at least in part because the refinery expansion would add 80 new jobs.
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Several Illinois lawmakers said Tuesday that protecting the Great Lakes, the world’s largest source of fresh surface water, is more important than the potential for cheaper gasoline.

With a batch of big-state primaries looming on Feb. 5, after the preliminaries in four contests where rural, small-town and suburban voters dominate, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards are focusing on problems of poverty and programs to help blighted slum neighborhoods.

Such problems are not unknown in Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire or South Carolina, where the primary and caucus trail begins, but they are far larger in California, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey and New York — all of which vote on Feb. 5. That is one reason why urban issues have come to the fore.
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Obama:
“If you are an African-American child unlucky enough to be born into one of those neighborhoods,” he said, “you are most likely to start life hungry or malnourished. You are less likely to start with a father in your household, and, if he is there, there’s a 50-50 chance that he never finished high school and the same chance he doesn’t have a job. Your school isn’t likely to have the right books or the best teachers. You’re more likely to encounter gang activities than after-school activities. And if you can’t find a job because the most successful businessman in your neighborhood is a drug dealer, you’re more likely to join that gang yourself. Opportunity is scarce, role models are few and there is little contact with the normalcy of life outside those streets.”
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And Edwards has made perhaps the most serious effort of anyone to understand the pathology and psychology of poverty, drawing on both academic studies and the firsthand experiences of his walking tours.

They offer similar proposals — a higher minimum wage, an expanded earned income tax credit, new subsidies for housing, easier access to college and job training, and a health care system that insures every family.

Illinois smokers are in for a cold winter.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed legislation Monday making Illinois the latest state to ban smoking in public places _ including bars, restaurants and work places. The law goes into effect Jan. 1.
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Chicago carpenter Rob Nelson saw a chilly future. “It looks like I’ll be spending a lot of time outside,” he said.

A 31-year-old man was fatally beaten by a group of gang members late Monday night on a West Side street, police said this morning.

Juan Reyes was beaten at about 9:30 p.m. in the 2700 block of West Haddon Avenue, Chicago Police Officer David Banks said.

Road and rail upgrades may be on the way for Kane County commuters. A Kane County Board committee Monday discussed a request for federal funds for four Kane road projects — three of them in the Tri-Cities area — in the upcoming federal fiscal year.

The panel also voted to support a Metra plan to upgrade the Union Pacific west line that runs from Chicago to Elburn.

On the night of the fight, the Chicago Police Department and the city’s 911 system failed miserably. It took 26 minutes for police to show up, and if it takes that long for police to respond to an emergency in this well-to-do neighborhood, I shudder to think how long it would have taken for them to show up in a poor one.

The award-winning chef of Chicago’s Alinea (Uh LIN’ nee uh) restaurant says he has been diagnosed with mouth cancer.

Grant Achatz says he has been diagnosed with an advanced stage of squamous cell carcinoma of the mouth.

The yellow school bus rumbles through vacant lots and past demolished buildings, full of people who have paid $20 for a tour of what was once among the most dangerous areas of this or any other city in the United States.
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By the time the city started pulling down or rehabilitating the projects in the late 1990s, each one had its own headlines that spoke to the failure of public housing in Chicago.

At Cabrini-Green a boy was struck by a bullet and killed as he walked hand-in-hand with his mother. At the Ida B. Wells project, a 5-year-old boy was dangled and then deliberately dropped to his death from a 14-story window by two other children.

And at Robert Taylor, where the illegal drug trade thrived, a rookie police officer was shot to death on a stakeout outside a gang drug base.

Turner could even add her own story. She saw a teenage boy shot on the very day she arrived at the Robert Taylor Homes in 1986.

Block after block, street after street, the town in western Cook County claims to have the nation’s largest concentration of Chicago-style bungalows, and now it has set out to make the most of it.

To the tune of $131,000, Berwyn has begun an extensive campaign to get residents of Chicago to buy a house there. It has rented 14 billboards around the big city - particularly on the North Side — to extol the virtues of the suburb, population 65,000.

“Ghost payrolling, tax fraud, obstruction of justice, witness tampering — you might think we were talking about the Chicago Outfit,” said Robert Grant, special-agent-in-charge of the FBI’s Chicago office. “Sadly, we’re talking about the Melrose Park Police Department.”

Free People, the young bohemian arm of Urban Outfitters Inc., set up shop in Bucktown this month, its first Chicago store.

The shop joins a growing contingent of national chains discovering the hip neighborhood that not long ago was an enclave of independent boutiques and art galleries.

A 19-year-old alleged gang member was shot after a reported argument with the girlfriend of a rival gang member Thursday night in the Wicker Park neighborhood on the North Side.

The shooting occurred at 1356 N. Bosworth Ave. at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, according to a Shakespeare District Police captain.

BP’s plan to dump more waste into Lake Michigan needs to be plugged up. Even if the giant oil company proves that the extra waste it will be dumping is no threat to aquatic life or humans, we must have zero tolerance for the release of any additional pollution into our precious lake waters. Lake Michigan is a vital resource for Chicagoans — it provides our drinking water and our beach recreation, and it inspires the soul of our city with a water border, 30 miles long. Polluting its waters affects us all.

British carrier BMI has a fall fare sale that offers Chicago-Manchester, England, starting from $634 round-trip. That’s a non-stop route, by the way, and the price includes all taxes and fees.
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Among the restrictions: Book by Aug. 1 for travel Sept. 4-Dec. 17.

This past Sunday, Barack Obama gave a speech at the Vernon Park Church of God in Chicago in which he noted that the number of city schoolchildren killed in the last school year was higher than the number of soldiers from all of Illinois killed in Iraq over the same period. “From South Central L.A. to Newark, New Jersey, there’s an epidemic of violence that’s sickening the soul of this nation,” the Illinois senator told the crowd. “The violence is unacceptable and it’s got to stop.”

Obama didn’t invent this analogy. In June, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley made a similar point, comparing the annual toll of nationwide gun deaths to Iraq casualty figures, and wondering what happened to the outrage.

The United States Postal Inspection Service is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to a conviction in the shooting of a mail carrier in south suburban Calumet City.

A 21-year veteran of the U.S. Postal Service was in a mail delivery truck at Hoxie and Wilson Avenues about 4 p.m. Wednesday when an armed man approached and demanded money, Postal Inspector Wanda Shipp said Thursday.

It’s always been my dream to live in a “big city” loft. When I lived in Los Angeles I would watch movies filmed in New York or Chicago featuring a hip character living in a super cool artsy loft. I would think to myself, “I have to experience living in a space like that!” Now, a few years and one unexpected career move later, I’m living in my Chicago loft dream come true.

In recent years, thousands of former suburban dwellers have turned in their daily commutes for a downtown Chicago neighborhood. Demand for quality living space has boomed, and loft living has become the rage. Old factories are being converted into some of the cities’ coolest living spaces.

Although not affiliated with the Grant Park festival, the Chicago Park District opens its parks each summer for free outdoor movies. Dubbing the event “Movies in the Park,” the lineup of films include “Happy Feet” “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “Open Season.” Janette Kerr, program and event coordinator for the Chicago Park District, said most of the films are family-friendly and never R-rated.

“Chicago is so beautiful in the summertime,” Kerr said. “What better way to provide free programming than having movies in the park?”

But you don’t have to drive into Chicago to see a great movie outdoors. The “movie in the park” concept has become popular in several nearby suburban communities, including Elgin, Marengo and Dundee Township. The Crystal Lake Park District is showing movies this summer at the Main Beach Band Shell. At dusk tonight, the featured film is “How to Eat Fried Worms.”

Woodstock began offering movies at Emricson Park last year. On Sunday, the city will show “E.T.” The outdoor movie season will end Aug. 25 with “Charlotte’s Web.”

Sometimes I don’t let my children as far as the next house.” says Gregorio Gonzalez. Gonzalez is a self proclaimed former gang banger from the Humboldt park area of Chicago. “One of the worst neighborhoods you could be raised in.”

Two teenage boys were shot and wounded as they walked near a South Side elementary school Monday afternoon, police said.

The two boys — one 14, the other 15 — were walking in the 4500 block of South Champlain Avenue when a shooter riding in a car opened fire about 1:40 p.m., witnesses said.

The boys fled from the gunshots and fell in the common yard shared by residents of the apartment complex across the street from Woodson South Elementary School. The 14-year-old was in serious condition at University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital Monday night; the 15-year-old was in stable condition, police said.
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The sound of gunshots terrified one mother, whose apartment faces the street where the boys were shot. The woman, who didn’t want her name used because she feared the gang activity of her Bronzeville neighborhood, said she ran for the front door when she heard the succession of shots. Her three young sons were playing in the yard outside, she said.

Last month, Schanna Gayden, 13, was killed while she stood in a Northwest Side school playground, and the mother feared her children could be the next victims of gang crossfire.

Senator Obama of Illinois rolled out a plan to cure the ills of urban America, just as one of his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, John Edwards, wrapped up a three-day trip focusing on America’s poor.

In a speech yesterday in the capital’s poorest neighborhood, Anacostia, Mr. Obama scolded official Washington for turning a blind eye to obvious problems lurking not far from the city’s monuments and tourist meccas.

“The streets here are close to our capital, but far from the people it represents. These Americans cannot hire lobbyists to roam the halls of Congress on their behalf and they cannot write thousand-dollar campaign checks to make their voices heard,” Mr. Obama said, according to prepared remarks released by his campaign. “They suffer from a politics that has been tipped in favor of those with the most money, and influence, and power.”

Mr. Obama proposed national funding for a series of programs that he said have been proved to assist the urban poor. He said he hoped to “replicate” in 20 cities a widely acclaimed New York-based nonprofit that provides health care, after-school care, tutoring, and other services, the Harlem Children’s Zone.

Anti-gang legislation and police crackdowns are failing so badly that they are strengthening the criminal organizations and making U.S. cities more dangerous, according to a report being released Wednesday.

The report says Los Angeles and Chicago are losing the war on gangs because they focus on law enforcement and are short on intervention.

A Northwest Side man was found shot to death in his apartment Tuesday evening, and police are searching for his missing car.

A relative found Tomasz Rogalski, 23, of the 4600 block of North Milwaukee Avenue shot multiple times, Officer Amina Greer said.

A blue four-door 2002 Saturn with front-end damage and Illinois license plate of G793837 was missing from the apartment building, police said.

ON THE INBOUND RAMP: Many motorists pass the southwest corner of Ohio and Franklin each morning on their inbound trip downtown. Construction has started there on Silver Tower, a 229-unit condo project of Terrence Sommerfeld, owner of Oak Brook-based Metropolitan Real Estate Co. The building is 65 percent sold, and should open by May 2009.

REINVENTING ROBBINS: The dominant feature of the landscape in south suburban Robbins is vacant properties, many that are tax-delinquent. Chicago attorney Judd Harris has assembled a partnership that paid $1.3 million to get control of some 1,300 parcels constituting about a third of the village. He plans around 800 homes, with a count of 100 in the first phase.

Residents on the Southwest Side are up in arms over a series of incidents at a local park including a possible hate crime.

On Saturday night, 16-year old Richard Valdez was beaten into a coma in the park — possibly for racial reasons.

Residents said that same night, it took police 20 minutes to respond to Durkin Park Saturday night after a teenager plowed a car into a group, injuring eight people.

Chicago and the surrounding area have seen a wide array of different weather this summer. The city has seen extreme heat waves, heavy rain and storms that have knocked out power for days, and even some gorgeous 75-degree days. But this wacky weather is not over yet.

Public health officials said Tuesday that 636 people have reported becoming ill after eating at a food vendor’s booth at the Taste of Chicago.

Officials said more than 100 reports have come in since Monday.

Those who became ill said they ate at the Pars Cove Persian Cuisine booth at the yearly food festival.

The national headquarters of the Obama presidential campaign are in a Michigan Ave. highrise in Chicago. The campaign planned early on to open a more accessible place for volunteers to work and they have, on the tenth floor at 300 West Adams in Chicago.

Flash flood warnings were issued today for Chicago and nearby areas by the National Weather Service as a series of severe thunderstorms moved across the Upper Midwest.

The storms come packing heavy rainfall that the service could be as much as 5 inches in some locations. These storm drenched eastern Iowa and northwestern Missouri early in the day.

Two people who said they fell ill after eating hummus at the Taste of Chicago food festival are suing the restaurant that served the food.

Monique Roach, 49, and 43-year-old Willie Smith filed a lawsuit Monday against Pars Cove Persian Cuisine.
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The Chicago Department of Health said more than 500 people have reported becoming sick after eating food from the Pars Cove booth.

For the first time a Chicago crime camera is credited with nailing murder suspects. At the same time Chicago police also unveiled new crime prevention monitors.
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A school security camera helped Chicago police detectives catch two murder suspects. Police say 19-year-old Jorge Morones and 20-year-old Orlando Rojas were caught, in large part, due to the images caught by the camera in the Little Village neighborhood where 14-year-old Roberto Duran was gunned down in June.

Mayor Richard Daley suggested ever so diplomatically Monday that Rio de Janeiro has its share of crime and violence and also may not be the easiest place to navigate because of its geography.

The Chicago Health Department confirmed on Friday that the shirazi was the source of the Salmonella outbreak that resulted in hundreds of people reporting food poisoning, although they have not yet determined how the salad became contaminated.

Salmonella is a potentially deadly type of food poisoning, symptoms of which include fever, abdominal pain, nausea, gas and bloody diarrhea. Symptoms appear within 36 hours of exposure, and usually last four to seven days. In very severe cases, Salmonella can lead to kidney failure and other complications.

A month has come and gone since Pace unveiled its contingency plan, hoping that it wouldn’t have to take the proposed fare hikes and service cuts to public hearings.

But the hearings begin today (Monday), and are scheduled to continue through July 26.
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Pace is trying to plug a $50 million hole in its 2007 budget. About $23 million stems from Pace suburban bus operations, while the other $27 million stems from its paratransit operations, which cover the entire six-county RTA region.

Effective in early October, no weekend service — fixed route or suburban paratransit — would remain in the Pace contingency plan. Ross said Pace currently operates 83 routes on weekends, providing service to more than two-million riders a year.

Pace also would eliminate 63 Metra feeder and shuttle routes, erase 27 bus routes it considers under-performing, or on which federal funding is running out, would eliminate most downtown express service and would end special events service, such as buses to Cubs, Sox and Bears games.

Fares would jump a month earlier, on Sept. 1, from $1.50 on Pace mainline routes and $1.25 on feeder and shuttle buses to $2. Pace would continue to honor the CTA monthly pass, but would stop honoring other CTA fare cards. Dial-a- ride fares would increase by 25 percent, to at least $2, and van pool fares would increase by 10 percent.

One guess what’s being served at the River North neighborhood’s new Martini Park.

The answer: Women. Those thirtysomething, and past the days of submitting to the guy controlling the velvet rope.

CEO Chris Barish thought the nation’s older partyers were underserved. Not everyone, he figured, wanted to hang out in five-inch stiletto heels, bustiers and booty shorts. That was the crowd he cultivated as developer of clubs Light New York and Marquee in New York, and Light Bellagio, Carmel and Mist in Las Vegas.

He sold his interests in those concepts in 2003 and opened the first Martini Park outside Dallas.

Three teens have been arrested in connection with the killing of Isidro Duran, an ice cream vendor who was shot Sunday.
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The teens approached Duran as he was selling ice cream and flashed a handgun. When Duran tried to flee, they shot him multiple times in the back and leg area, Deputy Chief Greg Lindmark said. Two of the men were found near the scene and the other was arrested later, he said.

A man was fatally shot in an alley Sunday afternoon on Chicago’s South Side, police said.

The man was found shot in the head about 2:10 p.m. in the 8000 block of South Yates Avenue in the South Chicago neighborhood, Officer John Mirabelli said.

The Fisher Avenue Apartments on the city’s westside will be closed for good Sunday afternoon.

The buildings are owned by Duke Properties of suburban Chicago.

Neighbors say they’ve seen crime plague the apartments for years and that the out-of-town landlord hasn’t done its part to keep the neighborhood safe.

Annette Barrios has children that live at the Fisher Avenue Apartments. She describes how they got the news: “They waited until the last minute and said everybody going to have a big surprise tomorrow. That’s what everyone was told. The surprise was - you all got to get out of here in 15 days.”

A West Side woman who opened fire on three officers before they fatally shot her had a history of violence, police said Monday.