Chicago Sun-Times

City boasts it’s filling potholes within 2 1/2 days of hearing about them

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 23:55:12 -0600

Chicago’s never-ending war on potholes may not be so never-ending after all. Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration boasted Wednesday that it has eliminated the 9,000-pothole backlog the mayor inherited when he took office in mid-May and now is “keeping pace with daily” requests to fill potholes. That has undoubtedly been helped along by the unseasonably mild and relatively snow-free winter. But, it’s also a product of the city’s new and more strategic approach to pothole patching. The Chicago Department of Transportation is now using a new mapping technology to build “daily grid routes” that allow city crews to address “open calls …

Gary cop charged for shooting gun into the air after fight

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:23:32 -0600

Already facing firing for crashing his squad car after smoking pot and drinking, Gary police officer Laron Leslie is now facing a felony charge for firing his gun into the air during an argument, police said.

Gov. Pat Quinn on pension mess: ‘Everything is on the table’

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:24:04 -0600

Gov. Pat Quinn took his case for a budgetary crash diet directly to state lawmakers Wednesday, pushing a grim assortment of prison closures and spending cuts in a spending plan that he said was built around “hard realities.”

Fewer restaurants interested in shorter Taste of Chicago

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:52:24 -0600

Chicago restaurants are not exactly chomping at the bit to participate in Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to shrink and revamp the Taste of Chicago. Only 40 restaurants applied to participate for the five-day festival, prompting the city to extend Tuesday’s deadline until Friday.

How Girl Scouts helped her ‘become person I am’

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 02:15:32 -0600

On Mar. 12, 1912, widowed socialite Juliette Gordon Low founded the American Girl Guides — later the Girl Scouts — with 18 girls in Savannah, Ga. Its mission: Building self-reliance and citizenship. In 1917, the first African-American troop was started. The Girl Scouts stayed segregated until a strong ’50s integration push led the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1956 to call it “a force for desegregation.” Barbara Wilbourne, 82, of Savannah, joined one of the first African-American troops there in 1941. Her original pin, membership card and a vintage photo of her as a troop leader (accompanying this article) …

Substitute teacher fired for duct-taping Naperville student’s hands

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:23:32 -0600

A veteran Indian Prairie School District 204 substitute teacher was fired for ordering a student at Graham Elementary School in Naperville to bind his own wrists with duct tape, authorities said.

South Side gang ‘wannabe’ gets 75 years for murder of 10-year-old girl caught in crossfire

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:55:59 -0600

A South Side man was sentenced to 75 years in prison Tuesday for the murder of a 10-year-old girl caught in gang crossfire. Raymond Jones, 22, was described by Cook County prosecutors as the gang banger “wannabe” who stored the .380 semiautomatic used in the 2008 Labor Day crime. Killed in the fatal shooting was Nequiel “Nee-Nee” Fowler. Nequiel was walking with her younger blind sister when she was hit once in the chest from a gunshot coming from an alley in the 8700 blocks of South Exchange and South Escanaba avenues. Jones’ co-defendant Antoine Lacy, the Latin Dragon who …

State House OKs property tax cap for suburban homeowners

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 07:51:15 -0600

In a potential election-year gift to homeowners and businesses, the Illinois House Tuesday voted to block suburban governments from increasing property taxes when overall property values decline.

State’s attorney: Releasing Koschman transcripts would ‘undermine’ case

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 02:14:39 -0600

Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez is fighting an effort by the family of David Koschman to make public transcripts of witness interviews related to Koschman’s homicide case. “The wholesale disclosure of the information that the petitioners request would disrupt the ongoing criminal investigation and further undermine an already dim prospect of any future criminal prosecution” of Richard J. Vanecko, a nephew of former Mayor Richard M. Daley, Alvarez said Tuesday in an 11-page filing. Lawyers for Koschman’s family want to review the interviews — conducted by Chicago Inspector General Joseph Ferguson’s office — before they respond to Alvarez’s attempt …

Police question brother in shooting of autistic boy, 14

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 01:30:36 -0600

A 15-year-old boy was shot to death on the South Side Tuesday afternoon and one of his brothers is in police custody, family members and police said.

Taking issue with Rick Santorum

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 02:15:20 -0600

Rick Santorum. That, believe it or not, is the first time the name of the current darling of the Republican Party has appeared in my column. I tend to draw back from politics, out of disgust, mostly, but also because so much is said about it by so many all the time. What’s to add? Why spit into that fast-flowing Niagara of vomitous rhetoric? Besides, it’s all so transitory — turned out, there was no need to think about, write about, celebrate or condemn Herman Cain — he flared for a few weeks, then vanished. Does anyone mourn his passing? …