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Neil Gaiman has long had a fascination with cities. What got him started was an encounter with Free Live Free, Gene Wolfe’s complex novel set in Chicago. It got Gaiman thinking how cities, too, can be characters in a story. “Gene made Chicago somewhere magical,” Gaiman said. “That was the …

By Judith Graham, Tribune reporter6:27 p.m. CDT, April 7, 2011 Day after day, the delivery trucks arrived at the building on Chicago’s North Side, bringing walkers, hospital beds and wheelchairs to residents. But there was a problem: Most of the older men and women getting the equipment were healthy and …

SPRINGFIELD — House lawmakers today defeated a measure that would have taken away Chicago’s ability to regulate how people store guns, a prelude to an expected spring showdown over a push to allow people to carry concealed weapons. The debate put on display the Capitol’s traditional regional fight over gun …

Fear mongering is the use of fear to influence the opinions and actions of others towards some specific end. If the federal government shuts down this Friday, few Illinois residents are likely to feel an immediate impact, but certain key services could still be halted. Testing for some heavy metals …

Homeland Security outreach facing criticism The Associated Press 4:28 p.m. CDT, April 6, 2011 chibrknews-homeland-security-outreach-facing-criticism-20110406 The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is “taking it to the streets.” Or at least that’s the motto behind a new pilot program aimed at combatting the negative image that some community groups have about …

By Fabrice Coffrini | AFP News US physicists are to announce Wednesday that data from a major atom smasher lab may have revealed a new elementary particle, or potentially a new force of nature, the New York Times reported. A spokeswoman from the US Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator …

Che ‘Rhymefest’ Smith: ”We concede nothing” April 6, 2011 (CHICAGO) (WLS) — A vote challenge is looming in the city’s 20th Ward race. Aldermanic candidate Che ”Rhymefest” Smith is alleging massive vote fraud in the race. With 98 percent of precincts reporting, Ald. Willie Cochran had 53 percent of the …

DuPage County Proposition / Referendum results. Voters voted 79% in line with DuPage Libertarians recommendations, many tax raising and government expanding propositions have been blocked! This is a victory for DuPage County! via April 5th DuPage County Election Results « DuPage Libertarians.

Homicides dipped slightly in Chicago in March after having increased the previous month by 18 percent, according to statistics released today. While homicides dropped across the city by 1.4 percent, 10 police districts saw a double-digit drop in homicides, the department said. Total crime dropped by 8.1 percent across the …

Chicago is seeing additional market pressures that are contributing to the steep climb in local prices and may even mean record breaking prices according to petroleum analyst Patrick DeHaan. The current record price for Chicago was set in July, 2008 when the average price of regular gasoline hit $4.35 per …

Zabrina Worthy frets when she talks about losing her house. She never saw how it could happen to her the way it did. Her voice cracked with tears at the first words she spoke to me, over the telephone: “I completely lost everything I had.” When they boarded her house, …

Four friends of David Koschman told detectives earlier this year they’d be willing to take lie-detector tests to back up their recollections that Koschman wasn’t being physically aggressive when he was punched in the face by a nephew of Mayor Daley in a drunken confrontation in 2004 that led to …

A federal jury has awarded a Chicago man $100,000 after deciding a lawsuit in his favor that alleged he was beaten by Chicago police who planted drugs on him. In his lawsuit, Al Williams claimed members of the now-disbanded Special Operations Section arrested him in May 2007, struck him in …

By Sandra Torres Illinois State Police changed it’s mind and decided not to investigate the homicide case involving Mayor Daley’s nephew. On March 24, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez requested that independent investigators take a second look at the death of David Koschman and the way the Chicago Police …

There is wasteful spending in the city budget– and I’m not talking about Chicago Police officers who abandon their posts to have sex with women while they should be on duty. Last week, the city’s Inspector General Joseph Ferguson found $18 million that could easily be trimmed from the budget. …