News Chicago

Associated Press 2:32 a.m. CST, December 9, 2010 A Chicago marketing company has launched an effort to try to get neighbors not to put chairs in street parking spaces when they shovel them out after snow storms. via Group wants snowy Chicago chair tradition to end – chicagotribune.com.

The data war between companies that have refused to do business with Wikileaks and the online activists keen to defend it is getting more intense. The tool through which attacks are carried out against websites perceived to be anti-Wikileaks has now been downloaded more than 31,000 times. Security experts warned …

You know that government employee compensation is a crushing problem when even President Barack Obama dropped a pay freeze bomb on federal employees. Under it, some 2.1 million federal civilian workers would be frozen out of an expected average 1.4 percent pay increase in 2011 and whatever largesse scheduled for …

Updated: Tuesday, 07 Dec 2010, 9:27 PM CST Published : Tuesday, 07 Dec 2010, 8:58 PM CST By Dane Placko, FOX Chicago News Chicago – Three Cook County whistleblowers have been fired by new County Board President Toni Preckwinkle. The three employees– Todd Stroger’s scheduler, a secretary in the president’s …

Ben Bradley December 7, 2010 (CHICAGO) (WLS) — Negotiations over new casinos in Illinois are building before an expected vote next month in Springfield. The current version of the bill calls for two new riverboat casinos in the suburbs and a land-based casino in the city of Chicago. ABC 7 …

CHICAGO — The Chicago City Council is considering a measure that would allow businesses in the city to install non-lethal electric security fences. The proposal would allow the fences if they don’t border residential or public areas, are surrounded by non-electric perimeter fences and bear posted warnings. The Chicago Tribune …

WASHINGTON — White House aide Susan Sher earned more than half a million dollars from the University of Chicago Medical Center in 2009, when she left to join the Obama administration only a few weeks into the year, according to a newly released financial disclosure. Sher was general counsel and …

2 local firms have purchased delinquent property taxes Spire developer loses control of site in foreclosure suit Irish developer Garrett Kelleher‘s company has lost control of the site on which he started to build the 2,000-foot Chicago Spire. A Cook County Circuit Court judge has granted a request by Anglo …

Number of offenders shot rises sharply December 06, 2010| By Annie Sweeney, Tribune reporter A new report shows that Chicago police used Tasers to subdue nearly 700 offenders over 12 recent months, a dramatic increase that reflects the department’s decision earlier this year to expand its use of the weapons. …

December 4, 2010 BY MICHAEL DRAKULICH A Midlothian woman working as an accountant siphoned off more than $600,000 over a 3 1/2 -year period from an Oak Lawn firm whose funds she was hired to protect, a Cook County assistant state’s attorney said in court Friday. Bail was set at …

Invalidating petition signatures could keep Emanuel tenant off mayoral ballot December 03, 2010| By Ray Gibson, Tribune reporter State police are looking into allegations that nominating petitions for five political candidates, including four Chicago mayoral contenders, were fraudulently notarized, a spokeswoman for Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White said Friday. …

December 3, 2010, BY DAVE McKINNEY AND FRAN SPIELMAN Staff Reporters The Illinois Senate on Thursday approved police and firefighter pension legislation that Mayor Daley warned would blow a $550 million hole in the city budget, but the top Senate Democrat pledged to try softening that financial hit next month. …

So which elected officials own stakes in full-body scanning machines now in more than 60 U.S. airports? And what are those individual investments worth? We still can’t connect the dots to say that, because these Congressmen invested in these tech companies, than, ipso facto, those scanners were then put in …

You Tube freezes Alex Jones Channel as web censorship accelerates in frightening early salvo of move towards tiered Internet system that favors large corporations while strangling independent voices Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Tuesday, November 30, 2010 In a damning new lurch towards web censorship, Google’s news aggregator has blacklisted …

Off the Markley Please take the time to read Beau Hodai’s fascinating report on the issue for In These Times. The prison-industrial complex is one of the most insidious corporate interests in the United States. The industry lobbies for and makes money from counter-productive drug laws, and–you guessed it–the continued …