A new DVD collection features 28 All-Star episodes from the first decade of Family Feud, with celebrities from assorted sitcoms and dramas competing against each other.
Sphere: Related ContentFacing stalled negotiations with union officials on how to resolve a major budget deficit, the ChicagoChicago reviews
Transit Authority began implementing major service cuts today for the first time in more than a decade.
Joe Ramos, 65, said the delays already impacted him when he left his job on the south side at 3:30 a.m. He said he had to wait two hours for his bus near 44th and Wallace St., doubling the normal time.
The delay meant he didn’t get to his home at Cottage Grove and 72nd Street until 6 a.m.
“It’s ridiculous,” said Ramos.
Jamika Bivens, 14, said the delays will really impact her school schedule as well as daily life. Bivens, of the South SideSouth Side reviews
, was waiting for the No. 29 bus on 69th and State Street.
“You’re going to be out too long and then it’s going to make you late for your destination,” said Bivens.
On the eve of service cuts today, Mayor Richard Daley voiced concern on Saturday that union members would rather accept 1,100 layoffs than agree to pay cuts, unpaid days off or other concessions.
“They said most of their members would agree that people be laid off, unfortunately,” said Daley, after he brought CTA and union officials to City Hall on Friday to try and restart negotiations.
On the North Side, Erin Bell, 28, was waiting with her daughter Emma, 6, on their way to a childrens’ birthday party and they were already delayed.
“We’re already late,” said Bell, adding they had been waiting 20 minutes for the No. 77 Belmont bus.
Bell, of Roscoe Village, said she had heard about the cutbacks but forgot they were to take effect today.
“I hope we don’t miss cake time,” said Emma.
The greatest impact of the service cuts will be felt Monday, the first work day since 119 bus routes and seven of the eight rail lines began operating less frequently, CTA President Richard Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez urged riders to plan their Monday commutes in advance to ensure they have enough time to reach their destinations.
As a general guideline, rail customers can expect an additional minute or two for trains to arrive during rush hour, while bus riders should expect an additional two to five minutes between buses, CTA said.
“Although the increments seem minor, there will be a significant difference in the length of a customer’s commute,” Rodriguez said. “Both buses and trains will fill up faster as a result of the service decrease, particularly during peak service hours, and riders may be forced to wait for multiple vehicles to pass before being able to board.”
CTA closely monitored routes from its control center Sunday and said there were “no serious problems related to service reduction,” according to CTA Chairman Terry Peterson.
Robert Kelly, president of the CTA’s rail union, said over the weekend that members historically have taken a hard line against concessions. He plans to met with members this week to present them with the CTA’s position and hopes an agreement can be reached within the next seven to 10 days.
“In the past the membership has said, ‘Don’t give up nothing,’ ” Kelly said. “I can tell you we don’t give up nothing without getting something. That’s negotiating.”
Even if the union agrees, the changes won’t come in time to push back the changes which commuters already had to grapple with today. Rodriguez warned riders to expect longer wait times and more crowded buses and trains.
CTA buses and trains will not run as often and some buses will not run as late into the night. Passengers should plan for longer waits between buses on 119 of 150 CTA bus routes, as well as on seven rail lines. Forty-one bus routes will have shorter hours and nine express routes will be eliminated.
CTA riders are advised to check transitchicago.com when making travel plans.
In addition, two dozen Pace suburban bus routes will be eliminated or operate with reduced service starting Monday to save money.
– Georgia Garvey , Kristen Mack and staff
Prada is launching their Spring 2010 Menswear campaign with this short film directed by up and coming Shanghai director Yang Fudong.
The short is very abstract and slow in pace, but there was something so fantastically romantic and surreal about it that actually had me rewatching the 9 minute video a few times. And the combination of silence and those great strings just ads so much to the experience…
“‘First Spring’ is Pradas latest collaboration with pioneering Chinese artist Yang Fudong.
Featuring young man gathered in Shanghai, dressed in Prada menswear, the black and white film portrays a timeless, dreamlike realm where anything is possible.
Inspired by the Chinese adage that ‘the whole years work depends on a good start in spring’, this bold and beautiful film represents an exciting new direction for Pradas visual communications at the start of this decade.”
-john-
The number of poor people increased 5.2 million in the last decade and almost of half of them are living in America’s suburbs, according to a report released Wednesday by the Brookings Institution.
The number of poor grew by 25 percent in suburbs from 2000 to 2008–almost five times the growth rate in primary cities–making the suburbs home to the largest and fastest growing poor population in the country, according to the study, “The Suburbanization of Poverty: Trends in Metropolitan America, 2000 to 2008.”
ChicagoChicago reviews too has seen a significant increase in the suburban share of the metro area’s poor. In 2008, 51.9 percent of poor people lived in the Chicago area’s biggest cities, which include Naperville and Joliet, compared to 48.1 percent in the suburbs.
Based on increases in unemployment throughout 2009, Brookings projects that the Chicago metro area may experience an increase in its poverty rate of approximately 2.3 percentage points.
“This trend toward the ’suburbanization’ of poverty is only likely to continue in the wake of the most recent recession,” said Elizabeth Kneebone, a Brookings senior research analyst and co-author of the report.
Nationwide, the poor population increased by 15.4 percent from 2000 to 2008, which led to a significant increase in the nation’s poverty rate. By 2008, 13.2 percent of Americans lived below the poverty line, which is $21,834 for a family of four.
–Kristen Mack
The number of poor people increased 5.2 million in the last decade and almost of half of them are living in America’s suburbs, according to a report released Wednesday by the Brookings Institution.
The number of poor grew by 25 percent in suburbs from 2000 to 2008–almost five times the growth rate in primary cities–making the suburbs home to the largest and fastest growing poor population in the country, according to the study, “The Suburbanization of Poverty: Trends in Metropolitan America, 2000 to 2008.”
ChicagoChicago reviews too has seen a significant increase in the suburban share of the metro area’s poor. In 2008, 51.9 percent of poor people lived in the Chicago area’s biggest cities, which include Naperville and Joliet, compared to 48.1 percent in the suburbs.
Based on increases in unemployment throughout 2009, Brookings projects that the Chicago metro area may experience an increase in its poverty rate of approximately 2.3 percentage points.
“This trend toward the ’suburbanization’ of poverty is only likely to continue in the wake of the most recent recession,” said Elizabeth Kneebone, a Brookings senior research analyst and co-author of the report.
Nationwide, the poor population increased by 15.4 percent from 2000 to 2008, which led to a significant increase in the nation’s poverty rate. By 2008, 13.2 percent of Americans lived below the poverty line, which is $21,834 for a family of four.
–Kristen Mack
The first decade of this century has seen a strong decline in crime, ChicagoChicago reviews police officials said today.
There were 14,000 fewer crime victims in 2009, compared to 2000, Supt. Jody Weis said in releasing official crimes statistics for last year.
Weis included figures stretching back to 2000 to highlight what he said was a “historic decline in overall crime.”
During the last decade, there was a 27 percent decrease in overall crime and a 28 percent decline in homicides, Weis said. The crime reduction tracks a national trend for most major cities.
Last year ended with 458 homicides, 54 fewer than 2008, or a 10.5 percent decrease, according to the official tally.
Overall, violent crime dropped by 6.6 percent in 2009. Weis credited much of the decline to the 8,200 weapons taken off the street and a surge in search warrants.
Scott Huber, Naperville’s squatter, was ordered today not to camp overnight or store any of his personal belongings downtown — a ragtag protest that has caused city officials embarrassment for almost a decade.
DuPage Judge George Sotos issued a preliminary injunction at the request of Assistant City Attorney Michael DiSanto.
“Naperville has a right to protect its public way for the safety of its citizens, and the city will suffer harm if this injunction is not granted,” he said. Sotos ordered Huber to comply by 8 a.m. Friday morning, but Huber said he had already removed his cartload of belongings, which he claims are part of an ongoing protest.
The preliminary injunction will remain in effect until Huber’s expected trial date in April.
Last year, the Naperville City Council passed an ordinance prohibiting camping and storing of personal items in the downtown area. It was aimed at Huber’s presence downtown since 2001.
Huber pressed Sotos for clarification of what he could do in the downtown area, drawing an angry response from the judge: “I couldn’t be clearer. There is no prohibition against lawful protest, but you are not going to set up residence in downtown Naperville. Period.”
Huber, who is representing himself, continued arguing that the ordinance is unconstitutional and contending he now has to figure out how to proceed.
“I expected this ruling,” he said. “I sensed hostilities.”
Huber has claimed the downtown as a protest site, blaming Naperville for the loss of his electronics business.
Naperville police cited Huber, 58, on Nov. 10 for violating the new ordinance. Last month, officers cited him 36 times — every day from Nov. 9 to Dec. 15. Police confiscated his property once and, after it was returned to him, he placed it back at the ChicagoChicago reviews Avenue parking deck.
– Art Barnum
Best of the World Music Awards 7-9pm, MNTC. This show collects performances from the shows of the past decade including Michael Jackson, Beyonce and Britney Spears.
The Bear Whisperer 7-9pm, APL. Is this a sequel to Grizzly Man? If so, whispering to bears doesn’t end so well.
Earth 2100 8-10pm, HISTORY. They may call themselves the History Channel, but tonight they look ahead to predict the hell our world will be in 90 years from now if we don’t change our ways.
The Jay Leno Show 9-10pm, NBC. Can Denzel Washington make this show worth watching? Probably not.
Planet of the Apps: A Hand-Held Revolution! 9-10pm, CNBC. A pair of Chicago entrepreneurs attempt to sell their budget management tool in this exploration of the growing market of mobile technology.
At the end of his first year, ChicagoChicago reviews
Police Superintendent Jody Weis had already faced angry aldermen and repeated questions about low morale and arrests.
And then 2008 ended with this: a troubling double-digit homicide increase.
But nearing the end of this year, homicides in the city have dropped by 11 percent, apparently reversing the 2008 spike and bringing the city more in line with a decline that started in the early part of the decade.
There had been 453 homicides through Monday, compared with 509 at the same time last year. Shootings were down 6 percent.
“I said at the end of the year that 2008 was the year of transition,” Weis said. “I (expected) 2009 to be the year of results.”
Experts cautioned against blaming or crediting any one person or strategy for a one-year crime trend, but Weis and other department officials said several efforts launched this year have chipped away at the violence.
City gang teams were reorganized, and they were given a new mission: more search warrants and fewer street-corner drug investigations. They were also told to ramp up their use of informants so they could make more informed arrests.
In the districts, commanders and community members say they’ve been working — from tracking gang anniversary dates to dog-walking – to make a difference on the blocks where they police and live.
Still, because Chicago’s homicide total brings the city in line with declines experienced here and nationally throughout much of the decade, some suggest the more compelling question could be what happened in 2008.
“(Last year) was the anomaly,” said James Alan Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University in Boston. “This year is part of the pattern.”
Weis doesn’t agree that the 511 slayings in 2008 were too out of step with the declines of the decade, especially compared with the 1990s when homicides were still in the 900s.
But 2008 was marked by high turnover. Several commanders were moved into new positions, including many in the districts.
Weis said he spent a good part of 2009 encouraging commanders to be creative and find solutions unique to their crime patterns instead of using cookie-cutter approaches.
“I want commanders who are risk-takers,” he said. “It took a while to have commanders understand that.”
But even if experts are hesitant to assess a one-year crime trend, they did note that some of the programs and strategies put to use in 2009 reflect the now widely accepted idea that policing should be based on quickly analyzing crime data and responding.
For example, on the Northwest Side in the Grand Central District, where officials estimate there are more than 20 street gangs fighting for territory, Cmdr. Robert Lopez started tracking the anniversaries of gang slayings so police could flood rival neighborhoods and look for trouble.
On at least one occasion an alleged gang member wearing a hat emblazoned with an anniversary date was arrested with a gun in rival territory, Lopez said. Investigators believe he was on his way to a shooting.
“He had a gun,” Lopez said. “It was the anniversary of someone getting killed. And he had the hat to prove it.”
Perhaps the most troubled area of the city, as a whole, has been the Far South SideSouth Side reviews
. The area receives a lot of support from citywide units that tamp down the violence.
But like in other districts, homicides were down nearing the end of the year. Calumet District Cmdr. John Ball credits coordination among all the local commanders, who meet weekly to look at crime data and decide where specialized teams would be best used.
Ball also agrees that 2008 was a transition year in many ways. He and three of the other five commanders were new to the area.
“We had to change and develop and recognize who was what,” he said.
Still, this fight for a neighborhood can’t only be fought by the police, experts said.
Professor Dennis Rosenbaum, a criminologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, calls it a “battle for the control of the space as well as the hearts and minds of young kids” – and says the community has to get involved.
On the Far Far reviewsNorth Side, when police in Rogers Park decided to start the year with a “zero tolerance” policy on one troubled strip, they demanded that residents help.
Police flooded Howard Street, which backs up to one of the most challenging parts of the district, to make arrests for anything from felonies to misdemeanors.
Meanwhile, residents Toni Duncan and Eva McCann also took to the neighborhood on foot, spiral notebooks in hand, jotting down anything that was amiss.
Duncan and McCann, community policing facilitators, noted decrepit buildings, busted street lights and even the color of gang members’ shoelaces. Dog walkers sometimes joined. They had anti-violence marches and got to know some of the troublemakers.
“We know who they are; they know who we are,” said Duncan, a seven-year resident. “It gives a sense of neighborhood or community. I am sure if I fell down, one of them would help pick me up. They’re not bad all the time.”
McCann, who has lived in the area more than 20 years, said zero-tolerance had its detractors because some residents have felt targeted. But since the program started she sees a more vigilant police force and a chance to attack real problems. “They’re … dealing drugs,” McCann said of some people in the area. “They are causing fights. They are loitering, and they are gambling and drinking. The list goes on.”
Another effort that comes from the community is CeaseFire, an anti-violence program working in some of the city’s most violent neighborhoods. Studies have shown a reduction in shootings where CeaseFire works. But after losing its funding, most of the work halted in August 2007. It was not brought back until March 2009, and the program has since mediated 350 conflicts and made more than 1,000 referrals for service.
“Any time you can talk a guy down from shooting someone, we save lives,” said Tio Hardiman, the director of CeaseFire Illinois.
Gangs drive at least half the shootings in the city, and the department also refocused its approach to these investigations in 2009, in part to try and arrest more people like Pierre Manning.
Since 2007, Manning, an alleged West SideWest Side reviews gang leader, had been suspected in 10 crimes in Chicago – among them shootings and a homicide, according to police records. He was among the most wanted gang members on the West Side and, police said, was behind an internal gang fight, sparking shootings across the community.
His February arrest in an alleged shooting – after he led police on a chase – came after weeks of gang officers investigating him. Manning was later charged with an unrelated killing.
To police, the arrest highlights how the newly structured gang teams work – policing larger areas and gathering information they need to arrest people who cause the most violence.
Investigating the most violent individuals is not a new idea, but some say there is now more communication among the various units involved: gangs, narcotics and homicide detectives.
Department brass said they increased the use of confidential informants and the number of search warrants – from 300 to 1,200 in the narcotics section alone. Cash seizures are also up $7.5 million.
“Gang activity is driven by the illicit trafficking in narcotics,” said Ernest Brown, the chief of the Organized Crime division. “By increasing the number of search warrants, we are attacking first their source of revenue. … The people who sell narcotics are also violent.”
The search warrants, in part, replaced the street-corner conspiracy investigations that have been done over the last several years. The investigations aimed to dismantle drug corners with months of surveillance and arrests of offenders and seizures of narcotics.
Brown said the department has not abandoned street-corner operations. Seventeen were done in 2009, but that is down from 34 the previous year.
“They frequently did not result in us arresting either a source of supply or a particularly violent group of offenders because they were more likely to be guys who were just ‘running’ the packs,” Brown said. “And as soon as the takedown was completed, there would be a whole group of replacement players.”
DETROIT – Water levels in the Great Lakes are continuing a two-year rebound.
The Detroit News reports today that the latest estimates from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers show levels in the Lake Michigan-Huron system and Lake Superior are between 5 inches and 9 inches above levels from one year ago.
Statistics also show Lake St. Clair is 1 inch lower than last year, and Ontario is 3 inches lower.
Army Corps data indicates Lake Ontario, Michigan/Huron, Erie and Superior ended November within inches of historical levels for this time of year. Lake St. Clair is slightly above its historical level.
The lakes had been declining for most of the past decade.
– Associated Press
State Rep. Julie Hamos told a debate audience today that she’s the best Democrat to win the 10th Congressional District seat because of her experience and ability to woo voters who’ve backed Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk for a decade.
Get the full story on Clout Street.
A decades-old sexual abuse allegation against a Roman Catholic priest from Poland was dismissed today in Cook County Circuit Court.
Rev. Chester Przybylo, 59, who for the last decade has been pastor of the Shrine of Christ the King in Winfield, had been accused of molesting a 13-year-old Polish immigrant while serving at Five Holy Martyrs in ChicagoChicago reviews in the late 1980s.
Jeff Anderson, the plaintiff’s attorney, blamed the dismissal on an Illinois Supreme Court ruling this year that clarified the time frame in which sexual abuse survivors must file lawsuits.
The Chicago Archdiocese settled with Przybylo’s accuser for nearly $1.4 million.
Entertainment Weekly recently announced what they think are the Top 10 Album of the Decade. Taking the number one spot is Kanye West’s debut album, “The College Dropout.” Jay-Z, or “big brother” as Kanye refers to him, had his “Blueprint” album land in 2nd while Jiggas wife Beyonce and Outkast also made the list. So do you agree?
Entertainment Weekly’s Top 10 Albums Of The Decade
1. The College Dropout, Kanye West (2004)
2. The Blueprint, Jay-Z (2001)
3. Kid A, Radiohead (2000)
4. Stankonia, OutKast (2000)
5. Love And Theft, Bob Dylan (2001)
6. Home, The Dixie Chicks (2002)
7. Funeral, The Arcade Fire (2004)
8. I Am… Sasha Fierce, Beyoncé (2008)
9. FutureSex/LoveSounds, Justin Timberlake, (2006)
10. You Are Free, Cat Power (2003)
Via: DrewReports
Having just recently made the trip overseas to Europe, Rihanna was in party mode while out in London on Saturday night (November 28).
Sporting a belly-exposing white top with black trousers and knee-high boots, the Barbadian beauty ws all smiles as she hit up Wellington club in Knightsbridge.
On what was the same night that her track “Umbrella” had been voted the best of the decade, the 22-year-old happened to be covered up by a large green umbrella in London’s heavy rain upon exiting Wellington – during which time a gust of wind opened it inside out like a parachute.
Nonetheless, Rihanna didn’t mind getting wet and carried on with her partying – proceeding to hit up Bungalow 8 nightclub on St Martins Lane before calling it a night at 3:40AM.
Sphere: Related ContentIn one tidy cover story—The Decade From Hell And Why The Next One Will Be Better—Time sums up the last decade and the one to come. Things were "hell" under George W. Bush, but will be better under Barack Obama.
Class dismissed: that’s really all you need to know. But just to drive home the Manichean message, Time editor Rick Stengel and Andy Serwer [of Time stable-mate Fortune], who wrote the cover story, appeared on Morning Joe today.
Of course there’s the inconvenient detail about Barack Obama having been elected in this decade. But not to worry. Serwer explains "you may see Barack Obama being elected as the beginning of the next decade."
Excerpts from the pro-Obama babble . . .
ANDY SERWER: Overall, it was a decade where Americans really suffered. There was, you know, a deferral of responsibility [translation: taxes not raised enough], neglect, and these things all sort of came home to roost this decade. So, not a great one. I mean, if you lived in China or Brazil, not a bad decade. But here in the United States, it was kind of tough.
Suggestion to Serwer: when making a pro-Obama argument, eschew references to things coming home . . . to roost. Interesting also that Serwer thinks that life was better under a Communist dictatorship than under George Bush. Andy, there’s a train leaving for Peking at noon. Be under it. Oh, sorry, forgot: we’re in the Golden Age of Obama now.
RICK STENGEL: Andy’s point, which I think is really good, is that we’re actually, we’re too pessimistic about the decade to come, and in fact it’s going to turn out to be a lot better than we think, in part because we have a lot of these excesses behind us, and we realize, we realize that we’ve been irresponsibility [sic], that we haven’t invested in our infrastructure, that there are health care problems in America. I mean, the next decade is actually bound to be better [Ed.: unless of course a Republican is elected in 2012, in which case it's Return To Hell].STENGEL: I think a lot of people have come to question what I think you were driving at: American exceptionalism, the idea that we are removed from the rest of the world in terms of politics, in terms of our economy. But actually we’re connected. And a lof of people have felt the confidence in America erode a little bit. I do think the election of Barack Obama as the beginning of the next decade might be a way of kind of reconceiving American exceptionalism.
No doubt. Obama sees America as not exceptional at all. No better, and probably worse, than any given Euro welfare state.
STENGEL: Andy’s story, despite the fact that it’s called The Decade From Hell, and looks back at what happened in the last decade, is actually optimistic about what is going to happen in the future, in part because we recognize the flaws and the mistakes that we made in the last decade.
Don’t you feel better now?
Sphere: Related Content
Over the weekend, Newsweek assistant managing editor Evan Thomas offered an intriguing insight into the MSM’s approach to the liberal health care bill slowly rolling its way through the Democratic-controlled Congress. After conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer accurately pointed out how the Senate bill only pretends to be “deficit-neutral” by front-loading the tax collection process while delaying the payouts, Thomas agreed: “Charles is right. This bill is a fiscal fraud.”
But he quickly added: “I’d still vote for it.”
NPR’s Nina Totenberg attempted to defend the Senate bill as one that “actually tries to do something about costs.” But she, too, was insistent on the need for congressional passage: “I am not saying it’s ideal. But we have to start this. But if we don’t get a health care bill this time, it is probably the last chance.”
MRC intern Mike Sargent caught the exchange on the panel show “Inside Washington,” which airs at various times over the weekend on a number of Washington-area stations, including the ABC affiliate WJLA:
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: The fraudulence of these numbers is absolutely staggering, and I’ll explain to you why. The benefits kick in in 2015, so outlays are only for half of that decade. The taxes and the cuts, the presumed spending cuts, all kick in at the beginning. You’ve got 10 years of money in and five years of outlay, so of course it will produce a deficit — I mean, a surplus. If you start of 2015 and go until the end of time, the amount of deficit added every decade is going to be about half a trillion. So once you start — When the program starts, it will be annually — it will cause a huge deficit annually. That is an absolutely phony number that Reid gave us.
EVAN THOMAS: Charles is right. This bill is a fiscal fraud. I’d still vote for it, because I think it’s a good thing to extend benefits and start down the road to universal and — because of the health insurance. But we have to be — if we were honest about it, we would say that we have not dealt with the money piece of it, with the cost thing, that we’re going to have to deal with. We’re going to kick that down the road and have to deal with it later.
KRAUTHAMMER: How do you do that?
NINA TOTENBERG: The thing about the health care bill, though, is that — the Senate bill — is that it actually tries to do something about costs. It its starts down that road.
THOMAS: It doesn’t! It doesn’t, it’s as fake as a $2 bill. You don’t get serious about costs.
TOTENBERG: Unlike the House bill, it tries to do things about cost. I am not saying it’s ideal. But we have to start this. But if we don’t get a health care bill this time, it is probably the last chance….
Sphere: Related ContentNASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – It’s been Taylor Swift’s year, and Wednesday was her night as she became the youngest person and the first solo female act in a decade to win the Country Music Association’s entertainer of the year award.
Sphere: Related ContentRay Hanania, who served as Cicero’s town spokesman more than a decade ago and who later received an out-of-court financial settlement after a falling-out with controversial Town President Betty Loren-Maltese, has been hired back in the same job with a one-year contract worth $88,400.
Hanania said current Town President Larry Dominick, whom he called a friend, offered him the job last week. Town trustees unanimously approved his contract at Tuesday’s board meeting. Elio Montenegro, who served as spokesman while working for a public relations firm hired by Cicero, was fired last week.
Hanania, who has held a number of political and media jobs the last several decades and has even tried his hand at standup comedy, also will help produce content for a new town-operated cable station.
Hanania said the town cut expenses in its media department to pay for his position, but he wasn’t able to provide a dollar figure.
Cicero has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for media services in the past few years. The town will continue paying Urquhart Media LLC to put together the town’s newsletter, maintain its Web site and do other tasks, officials said. The Tribune reported last year that Urquhart receives $180,000 a year from Cicero to boost Dominick’s agenda.
Urquhart was paid another $308,000 to promote Cicero’s new Municipal Complex. In addition, the firm also had contracts with Morton College and Morton High School District 201 that paid $42,000 and $48,000 a year, respectively.
Dan Proft, another principal at Urquhart and Dominick’s first town spokesperson, stepped down from the job in April to run as a Republican candidate for Illinois governor.
“When you have intense scrutiny like this town gets, you’re going to spend more money on media services,” Hanania said.
Montenegro, an independent contractor hired by Urquhart, would not comment on his firing. Jeff Davis, a principal at Urquhart, also would not comment.
In 1997, Hanania and his wife, Town Collector Alison Resnick, were fired when Loren-Maltese was still town president. Loren-Maltese was sentenced in 2002 to 8 years in prison for her part in looting the town of more than $12 million.
In March 2005, Hanania and Resnick accepted $250,000 from the town to settle a suit in which they accused Loren-Maltese and trustees of improperly stripping them of power for trying to expose town government corruption. Hanania and Resnick later were awarded $1 million for legal fees.
“I came back because this town is a different place now,” said Hanania. “I really believe that.”
–Joseph Ruzich
OPENS NATIONWIDE ON FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13TH!
Rock and roll will live forever but can it float?
PIRATE RADIO is the newest ensemble comedy from filmmaker Richard Curtis (screenwriter of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill, and writer/director of Love Actually), spinning the irreverent yet fact-based tale of a seafaring band of rogue rock and roll deejays whose “pirate radio” captivated and inspired 1960s Britain. Playing the music that rocked a nation and a decade, the group boldly and hilariously defies the government that tries to shut them down.
To watch the trailer: http://www.filminfocus.com/focusfeatures/film/pirate_radio
: ChicagoChicago reviews, Chicago Reader, ContestContest reviews, Pirate RadioPirate Radio reviews
A federal judge has found in favor of two ChicagoChicago reviews police officers in a suit brought by a man who spent a decade in prison for a 1993 rape before he was exonerated by DNA evidence.
U.S. District Judge James Zagel ruled there was no evidence the officers, Timothy Cullinan and Nancy Piekarski, framed Dana Holland of Chicago. The officers had followed footprints in the snow from the rape scene to Holland’s home, and he was taken into custody a short time later in an alley as he was throwing a pair of pants into a garbage can.
The victim at first did not identify Holland but later did. DNA testing in the 1990s was unable to exclude Holland, but a 2002 test cleared him and implicated his uncle.
Zagel wrote that Holland failed to prove the officers “acted with malice.”
A property tax Will County has collected for more than a decade to help pay for its juvenile detention center is “illegal” because the county never got approval from voters, the Illinois Supreme Court found today.
The tax, approved by the Will County Board in 1997, most recently generated $2.3 million for the River Valley JusticeDark Justice reviews Center, officials said. After reaching settlements with the county for four years, about 300 taxpayers — most of them corporations – sued the county in 2002.
Lower courts ruled against them after the county argued it had the authority to impose the tax under a 1907 statute.
But the Supreme Court on Thursday found that the county’s levy fell under the guidelines of a tax cap law passed in 1994, which requires certain levies be approved by voters in a “direct referendum.”
“It’s an important case because it gives teeth to the tax cap act,” said James Rooney, an attorney for the taxpayers. “It’s not that River Valley doesn’t serve a good purpose, it’s that they have to go to the taxpayers first.”
The court’s decision means the county likely will need to hold a referendum if it wants to continue collecting the tax, Rooney said. County officials forwarded calls to the spokeswoman for county executive Larry Walsh, who declined to comment, saying the court decision had just come down.
The state’s attorney’s office, which handled the case, also did not comment.
Will County has until Nov. 30 to pass a resolution putting a referendum measure on the Feb. 2 ballot.
For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: middle-class families are fleeing blue states.
The likely reasons behind these troubling trends are things rarely discussed in "the narrative"–concerns like high costs, taxes and regulations making it tough on industries that employ the middle class. One clear culprit: out of control state spending. State spending in New York is second per capita in the nation (anomalous Alaska is first); California stands fourth and New Jersey seventh. Illinois is down the list but coming up fast. Over the past decade, while its population grew by only 7%, Illinois’ spending grew by an inflation-adjusted 39%.
The problem here is more than just too-large government; it lies in how states spend their money. Massive public spending increases over the past decade in California, New Jersey, Illinois and New York have gone overwhelmingly into the pockets and pensions of public employees. It certainly has not flowed into such basic infrastructure as roads, bridges and ports that are needed to keep key industries competitive.
If the states are, as Justice Brandeis stated, the laboratories for democracy, what does this mean for the United States?
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Andre Crawford is accused of killing 11 women. One of his victims, Constance Bailey, 41, was found in an old tire shop. (Tribune file)
Marion Lemott has spent nearly a decade waiting to see the man charged with murdering her daughter, waiting to look into the eyes of the man who authorities say is among the ChicagoChicago reviews area’s most prolific serial killers since John Wayne Gacy.
She finally had her chance Monday morning — and Lemott missed it completely.
As the bald, bespectacled Andre Crawford sat at the defense table wearing a sage-colored Oxford shirt and jotting notes on a legal pad, Lemott assumed he was a lawyer.
She had no idea Crawford – the Navy veteran accused of raping and killing 11 women on the South SideSouth Side reviews during the 1990s — would look so normal.
“I didn’t expect him to look like everyone else,” Lemott said. “I thought he would look like evil.”
Jury selection in Crawford’s 11 murder cases began Monday, more than a decade after a serial killer terrorized the Englewood and New City neighborhoods, two of the city’s most impoverished and crime-ridden areas. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.
Crawford, 47, also is standing trial in the attempted murder and rape of a 12th South Side woman.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The hunt by Chicago police for an Englewood-area serial killer made headlines in the late 1990s but quickly disappeared from public consciousness after Crawford’s arrest in January 2000. Little has been written about the case since then, and few, if any, of the 100 prospective jurors seemed to recognize his name as the charges against him were read in court.
With scores of pretrial motions and a dozen victims, the case has inched through the justice system over the last 10 years. Crawford has been awaiting trial longer than any other inmate in Cook County Jail.
“Too much time has gone by,” said Glenford Lemott, whose sister Evandrey Harris was strangled in 1998. “People forget this happened, but not our family. We have waited more than 10 years for this day.”
Just as Crawford’s everyman appearance made it difficult for Harris’ family to recognize him in court, authorities and old acquaintances said his ordinary demeanor allowed him to blend easily into his community. A friendly sort who never turned down good barbecue or Coqui malt liquor, Crawford participated in neighborhood watch programs and helped police pass out fliers seeking information on the serial killings.
“He was a mild-mannered guy,” said Larry Crawford, a former friend who is not related to the accused. “He never degraded women or said anything that would make you think he was violent. He was a nice guy.”
Authorities, however, painted a much darker picture of Andre Crawford after charging him with the brutal deaths of Harris, Patricia Dunn, Rhonda King, Angel Shatteen, Shaquanta Langley, Sonja Brandon, Nicole Townsend, Cheryl Cross, Tommie Dennis, Sheryl Johnson and Constance Bailey. Police say he confessed to all 11 killings and that his DNA physically linked him to seven of those crimes.
Crawford killed the South Side women after luring them to secluded areas with deals to swap drugs for sex, law enforcement officials said. Most of the victims were strangled, and many of the alleged sexual assaults took place after the victims were dead, according to court records.
Police said Crawford routinely took his victims’ shoes and later sold them on an Englewood street corner. He allegedly told officials that he kept one pair of designer shoes worn by Brandon, 31, after strangling her and resold them for $20.
Crawford, a transient who occasionally worked for the Chicago Sun-Times delivery operations, lived in two of the abandoned buildings where two victims were discovered, authorities said. He allegedly told police that he placed a victim’s body in one building’s flooded basement hoping the water would destroy the DNA evidence.
His defense team declined to comment, citing a gag order imposed by Judge Evelyn Clay, who is presiding over the case. In court documents, however, Crawford’s lawyers maintain he made the statements after police threatened to place him in a jail cell with rival gang members, provided him with drugs and allowed him to get high.
The victims were all African-American women who authorities said engaged in “high-risk activities” such as prostitution and drug use. These women are common prey for serial killers, experts say.
“Serial killers pick on those who are vulnerable,” said Steven Egger, a criminology professor at the University of Houston-Clear Lake. “They pick on those who don’t fight back, and they pick on those who won’t be missed.”
Both Harris’ and Johnson’s families deny their relatives engaged in illicit activities, but even if the allegations were true, they say it would not make the women’s lives less meaningful. “That does not give you license to kill somebody,” Glenford Lemott said. “You don’t deserve to die just because you have a sickness or a weakness.”
The two families were the only relatives to attend the jury selection Monday, though they were asked to leave the courtroom because they could be called to testify during the trial. Both families said they support the prosecution’s decision to seek the death penalty.
Tashanna Johnson, whose mother was strangled in April 1999, said she wants Crawford to pay for every Christmas and birthday her mother missed during the last decade. She also wants him to be held accountable for the fact that three grandchildren born since Sheryl Johnson’s death will never know their grandmother.
“I want him dead,” Tashanna Johnson said. “In my heart, I feel he doesn’t need to be living. I want him to suffer like my mother suffered.”
Marion Lemott, who immigrated with her family to the United States from Belize in the 1970s, is still paying off her daughter’s funeral bills more than a decade after her death. She said she does not want her tax dollars to pay for Crawford’s incarceration any longer than necessary.
“Why should we keep paying to feed him, to clothe him?” Lemott said. “My daughter is dead. I believe (in) an eye for an eye.”
–Stacy St. Clair and Daarel Burnette II
Liza Morales stated before that the wedding between Khloe and Lamar was laughable. Now the mother of his children has some concerns about Khloe Kardashian being around her children.
“But with regard to my children being around Khloe – all I can say is that I have reservations about my children spending time with anyone I don’t know -and I don’t personally know Khloe Kardashaian.”
Morales and Odom have two children together and had been a couple for a decade before they split. They also suffered the loss of an infant son named Jayden who died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
Most Cook County residents are in for another round of sticker shock when new
property tax bills arrive in the mail in a few days, with the median increase in
many suburbs topping 10 percent and, in a handful, 20 percent.
Median
increases in many city neighborhoods will also hit double digits, with some
lower income areas hardest hit. The median rise in the West Garfield Park
neighborhood will top 46 percent, according to figures provided to the Tribune
by Cook County Assessor James Houlihan.
In all, four out of five
homeowners in the city and northern suburbs will get higher bills than last
year, In the south suburbs, 64 percent of homeowners will see bigger bills, yet
the median tax bills in several south Cook communities will actually decline
year over year.
In ChicagoChicago reviews, the median hike in residential bills will be
about 3 percent, although the median increase in many neighborhoods will be
shoot significantly higher than that, a Houlihan spokesman explained.
Read the rest at chicagotribune.com
Chart of suburban Cook County tax increases
Chart of city neighborhood tax increases
As with any event involving property taxes, the size of bills and increases can vary dramatically from house to house, block to block and neighborhood to neighborhood. The median tax hike in any community is the middle point of all increases, with about half of homeowners facing higher hikes than the median and half facing less.
Figures provided to the Tribune by Cook County Assessor James Houlihan illustrate how the upward march of property tax bills appears to have largely defied the housing-market crash as well as the steepest economic swoon since the Great Depression.
“This is just a terrible time for this to happen,” Houlihan said. “People are really pressed and their bills are going to go up.”
Some of the sharpest increases will be felt not by residents in trendy North Shore villages but rather in middle-class communities near O’Hare International Airport. In Franklin Park, the median hike in tax bills payable in 2009 will soar by 20 percent over last year, according to the assessor. In neighboring Schiller Park, the median increase will nudge 18 percent.
Though most bills will be up, regional variations reflect not only the health of local housing markets but also idiosyncrasies of the tax system in the county, where properties get reassessed on a rolling basis every three years and may not fully capture recent declines in property values.
Another contributing factor is the phasing out of a state-authorized program implemented earlier this decade to soften the tax blow of then-soaring home values. North suburbs received those benefits before south suburbs, so now north suburbs are feeling the pain of the phaseout earlier as well.
That helps account for contrasts like these: In Elmwood Park, part of the county’s northern assessment zone, the median increase is more than 12 percent over last year, and in Skokie it is near 13 percent.
Meanwhile, in south suburban Alsip, median bills will be up just 2.8 percent, in La Grange Park 2.5 percent and in Evergreen Park 1 percent. In Chicago Heights, median bills are slated to dip 3.1 percent.
Then consider the situation in Northlake, which straddles the dividing line between the north and south assessment zones. In the part of the town north of North Avenue, the median assessment is up 20.9 percent. But south of North Avenue, the median increase is 8.7 percent.
Houlihan, a 12-year veteran at the assessor’s post who is not seeking re-election, blamed the assessment spikes on lawmakers in Springfield, who in 2004 imposed caps on runaway tax assessments during the real estate boom but then three years later voted to gradually do away with the protections.
Foes of caps argued that they served to shift a heavier property tax burden onto owners of industrial and commercial property and would drive away business from the county if made permanent.
Assessment data showed residential properties now make up more than 62 percent of the value of taxable properties in the county, up from 48 percent a decade ago. Over the same period, the share borne by commercial and industrial property has dropped from about 42 percent to 32 percent.
The assessment caps are really an expanded homeowners exemption that tries to limit the annual growth in a home’s value for tax purposes. In the three-year phaseout plan, up to $33,000 in such growth can be protected the first year, only $26,000 the second year and $20,000 in the third and final year.
Because of the staggered way the county is reassessed, tax bills to south suburban homeowners now reflect year one of the phaseout process, the north suburbs are in year two, and the city is in year three. Tax bills come due in semi-annual installments, and the second – the one now headed your way — incorporates all the changes from the prior year.
Assessor’s data showed that the median assessment exemption in many northern suburbs currently sits at the allowable second-year cap of $26,000. That may portend even bigger bills for many homeowners next year, when the exemption declines to $20,000.
At the same time, the median assessment in many southern suburbs is well below not only this year’s exemption for that region, but next year’s reduced exemption as well.
Houlihan contended that the sharp increases about to jolt homeowners in many communities were not only predictable, but largely avoidable if the legislature left caps in place.
Two years ago, he had vigorously fought the repeal of the caps, arguing that it would result in sharply higher tax bills as caps were first lowered, then removed entirely. What couldn’t be foreseen at the time was that the process would coincide with a steep recession, leading to the hard-to-grasp phenomenon of rising tax bills while property values plummeted.
The union representing 6,000 hotel workers in downtown ChicagoChicago reviews and 15,000 hospitality workers in the Chicago area said Friday that contract negotiations are “very, very far from settlement.”
The contracts for the 31 hotels expired Aug. 31, the first time in a decade that the hotels and the union have failed to reach an agreement near the settlement deadline, a spokeswoman for Unite Here said.
The news comes after 3,000 members of that union voted overwhelmingly Thursday to authorize a strike in San Francisco.
Read more HERE on chicagotribune.com.
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