Business to pols: Shape up

Illinois is losing the hearts and minds of the people who put people to work here.

• CEOs weigh in

Mission's end

Virtually all U.S. troops will leave Iraq by year's end, nearly nine years after the first American bombs struck Baghdad.

The phone that talks back

With the release of the iPhone 4S, Apple has put artificial intelligence in the hands of millions. Meet Siri, the voice-activated software...

Gadhafi's death and culling dictators

"I am not going to leave this land. I will die here as a martyr. … All of you who love Moammar Gadhafi, go out on the streets,...

Thinking inside the box

We were expecting a more inspired budget from CTA President Forrest Claypool.

No pressure but … America's house is on fire

Too many TV talking heads, on too much caffeine, have predicted that the U.S. will endure a public debt debacle akin to what for two years...

$18 million, little oversight

There's a lot to be outraged about in the 201-page report on George E. Smith's largely unsupervised management of more than $18 million in...

No. Because you're broke.

Near the close of the spring legislative session, the treasurer of Illinois spoke hard truth to the people of this state. Dan Rutherford...

Sears, schools and jobs

Is Sears about to abandon Illinois?

CLASS dismissed

The picture keeps getting darker for the Obama administration's health care reform program. Last Friday, one big part of it got eliminated...

'Start over!'

• If Chicago gets a city-owned casino, only the Illinois Gaming Board — and not Chicago's own City Hall, with its temptations to...

Dr. Raju's to-do list for Cook County health system

Dr. Ramanathan Raju has been CEO of Cook County's health system for barely enough time to learn employees' names and figure out where his...

Casualties of a labor war

Last week a state labor board ordered a hearing on a Chicago Teachers Union complaint that school officials illegally "threatened and...

Pension Pollyannas

The stock market has been a losing deal in recent years. Long-term Treasury bonds are paying about 3 percent a year. Rates on 30-year...

'Pension Reform First'

While we're on the ample topic of audacious stubbornness and denial among Illinois legislators:

Better not to know?

A respected government panel just told American men something they may not want to hear and may find hard to believe:

Not so simple

As you might expect of a former CEO of Godfather's Pizza, Herman Cain has a flair for marketing. There are lots of ways the federal tax...

Metra's other CEO

The Metra board's agenda for its meeting Friday includes consideration of whether to extend the contract of George Avery Grimes, the...

Life in the occupied zone

We interrupt today's Occupy Wall Street protest march for a brief public-service announcement:

Putting Chicago into detox

Last winter Chicagoans elected — by a landslide margin — a new mayor who had promised them tough actions to rescue their City...

• Emanuel uses his political capital to push for sacrifices in budget

The boondoggle that won't die

House Speaker Michael Madigan says he's guarding the sanctity of the state constitution, but he's actually protecting a cherished...

• Madigan blocks Quinn attempt to ban legislative scholarships

Chicago loses an innovator, Robert Galvin

It is fitting that the passing of a great business innovator coincides with Chicago Ideas Week, an event meant to bring together creative...

• Robert W. Galvin, 1922-2011

The quiet war erupts

For years, Iran has quietly waged war against the U.S., allying with and arming this nation's enemies. Now that war has come to U.S. soil.

When pension officials enable corruption

In print or online Wednesday, this newspaper's latest expose of rampant public pension abuse ought to stir your fury, and your sympathy:...

• Head of Chicago pension fund tried to collect an unearned union pension

The Ripper's secrets

What kind of murder mystery is so dark that its secrets can't be revealed … even 123 years after the crime?

Chicago's 'park deserts'

Thanks to its lush, accessible lakefront, Chicago has the best front yard of any major city in the nation. But its backyard is marred by...

• Cramped Chicago: Half of city's 2.7 million people live in park-poor areas

Marathon Mom

A lot of new moms describe their labor as a marathon. For Amber Miller, that's not an exaggeration.

• Marathon runner talks about running with baby on board

No miracles

Chicago has tried cutting-edge school reform after reform. In the 1990s, Paul Vallas ended social promotion and championed high-stakes...

Music Row? Make it go.

When it comes to great American music, the Second City might as well be called the Seventh City.

Occupational therapy

Confronted with the spectacle of thousands of people across the country holding protests to show their disgust with the financial industry...

What others are saying

One remarkable facet of Occupy Wall Street is how focused the protesters are on student loan debt. … Many college grads have good...

Freeze

In an impassioned speech at the United Nations recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Palestinian President Mahmoud...

Give 'em a ticket

Cook County spends $78 million a year to arrest, prosecute and jail people for possession of marijuana, the Reader's Mick Dumke and Ben...

iSad

For many Americans, the years 2001-2010 were the roughest decade in memory. Our nation endured terrorism and war, temporary boom and lasting...

Shuffle on, Chicago Bears

On Friday, many of the coaches and players from the 1985 Chicago Bears...

Thank you for your donation

If you think Chicago's tax increment financing program is nothing more than a scheme to use your tax dollars to subsidize rich developers,...

A terrorist's due

When a U.S. missile obliterated a car carrying Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen last week, it marked the end of his career as a vocal advocate and...

A terrorist's due

When a U.S. missile obliterated a car carrying Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen last week, it marked the end of his career as a vocal advocate and...

Obama could lose, but who could win?

President Barack Obama says he's the "underdog" in 2012, and now he's got the numbers to prove it. Only 42 percent of Americans are happy...

Grant Park's still a mess

Lollapalooza stretched out over Grant Park for three days in August. After 270,000 fans (plus countless gatecrashers) traipsed around 115...

Jobs in, jobs out

You've seen this movie before: On Tuesday, the same day Ford Motor Co. agreed to add a third shift and at least 1,100 jobs at its Chicago...

Urgent work for the veto session

The income tax hike that Gov. Pat Quinn and Democratic legislators engineered in January is taking an extra $7 billion or so per year from...

• Selling out Illinois

Selling out Illinois

Selling out Illinois. We used that headline a year ago when news broke that Gov. Pat Quinn had cut a craven deal with AFSCME, the state's...

• Urgent work for the veto session

The consigliere of Illinois

Oct. 27, 2006: In the cold, bluish light of a Chicago courtroom, political insider Stuart Levine admits his role in pay-to-play...

The brat ban

After a Pennsylvania restaurant made headlines this summer by banning children under age 6, the Yahoo! Shine website asked its readers: "Are...

Not so Easy

For Cinderella, Dorothy and Carrie Bradshaw, the shoes worked.

Whiskey a go go

Prohibition "converted (the Constitution) into an instrument for regulating the private lives of the people ... We knew of the millions...

Keeping a Chicago casino honest

Currently only certain city agencies are overseen by the inspector general. IG oversight should be expanded to include...

What others are saying

Let's take a closer look at the 49.9 million (medically) uninsured. The Census reports that 9.5 million of them, about 19 percent, have...

What others are saying

From clan to clan, culture to culture, there's one tall tale nearly all parents tell, and they tell it repeatedly: "We do not have a...

Get ready to pay the Durbin Fee

Sen. Dick Durbin must be forgetting that once you've dug yourself into a deep hole, you'd best stop shoveling.

Lasting consequences

The current economic malaise will be remembered as one of the most widespread in our nation's modern history. The recession and sluggish...

Moving to community care

We suspect Gov. Pat Quinn isn't entirely serious about his threat to shut down seven state facilities and lay off 1,900 workers to close...

Was Einstein wrong?

If the speed of light is a constant in the universe, as Albert Einstein famously predicted, then so is this: Researchers always will try...

Bring on the ideas race

From the untouchable (dissolving tax increment financing districts) to the unthinkable (tolls on Lake Shore Drive) to the merely unpopular...

Fed vs. Fed

Not sure what it will take to get this economy moving again? Don't feel bad. The U.S. Federal Reserve isn't sure, either.

What others are saying

Throughout his career as an attorney and law professor in Los Angeles, the Cubs meant everything to (Chicago native Steve Hirschtick). &#...

Not a CLASS act

Remember how President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders reassured Americans who were leery of their massively expensive health care...

Selling our souls to Mark Zuckerberg

When Mark Zuckerberg stood on stage last week to introduce Facebook's latest upgrades, the social media mogul essentially offered this...

The storm over disaster aid

Some 13 percent of Americans approve of how Congress is doing its job, while 83 percent disapprove. Nearly 22 percent of Americans say the...

Crack down on reckless cabbies

Before the accident that killed an 86-year-old woman crossing Sheridan Road, cabdriver Mohammed Ahmed had been cited nine times by Chicago...

• Some cabbies pile up tickets — but stay on road

Plow 'em under: Time to end farm subsidies

You're worried. We're worried. Who isn't worried about the sluggish economy?

Chicago wellness: Shape up, save money

Chicago's police union walked right into a barrage of doughnut jokes last week by declining to sign on to the city's new wellness program.

Yes, this is corrupt.

As Chicago's 1991 municipal elections approached, Mayor Richard M. Daley was consolidating power for his first re-election campaign. In...

The honor roll grows

Teachers at 13 Chicago public elementary schools across the city have landed on our honor roll. They have voted to expand the...

• Schools with longer days

Greek toast

From a financial standpoint, Greece is toast. And the sooner European bankers admit it, the better for everybody—including President...

This doesn't help

The two most visible figures in the U.S. debt crisis, House Speaker John Boehner and President Barack Obama, are busy playing 2012 politics....

The wrong jobs formula

Elizabeth Warren is a staunch Democrat who recently left the Obama administration to run for the Senate in the unusually liberal state of...

The Solyndra saga

We know the Obama administration can't get enough of renewable energy. We know it can't get enough of "shovel-ready" projects for soaking up...

The wrong stimulus

President Barack Obama didn't use the S-word even once Thursday evening, but his American Jobs Act proposals to grow U.S. employment fully...

Vacation elation

Do vacations make us happy for long? According to studies published in recent years, not really. Not only are the positive effects of...

The fourth revolution

"I was surprised by the level of incoherence in the system."

Get this done

Sunday dawns in Washington with a chance that, by nightfall, President Barack Obama and congressional leaders will cut a grand deal to...

Stop this train

The Obama administration has showered Illinois with about $1.6 billion for high-speed rail and other upgraded service, part of its vision...

Power outage: Libya war shows limits of War Powers Act

Under the War Powers Act, President Barack Obama had until Friday to get congressional authorization to continue U.S. military operations in...

Daley's decades

"… And as we enter this new season, it's time to leave behind old setbacks, disappointments and battles. Because in the campaign...

Obama gets in the game

At a press conference Feb. 15, President Barack Obama defended his reluctance to offer a long-range plan for curbing the federal debt. To do...

Obama's case for war

One of the main problems with the Obama administration's policy on Libya has been its confusing incoherence. Americans have been given...

Ticketgate

By now you're probably familiar with the plight of Mark Geinosky, who got 24 bogus parking tickets in 14 months. The Tribune's What's Your...

• Jon Yates' "What's Your Problem?": Two years later, ticket case keeps ticking

Marital spat

Attorney General Eric Holder surprised many people, and provoked a few, when he said the administration will no longer fight in court to...

Tacking right

President Barack Obama had been readying himself for Tuesday night's State of the Union address since the Nov. 2 election, the electorate'...

Low blow

After watching a race between horses, dogs or Pinewood Derby cars, spectators don't ascribe the outcome to the superior character of the...

Curb free rides …

Rod Blagojevich didn't do the math before decreeing that senior citizens should ride the buses and trains for free. His only calculation was...

… for e-tailers, too

It's nostalgic to recall the early days of e-commerce, when forcing online retailers to collect sales tax would have threatened their...

Call the health vote

Republicans swept to control of the U.S. House in November with a bold promise that resonated with voters: "We are here because we heard the...

Just a Quinncidence

On Wednesday this lame-duck legislature quacks its last. Don't be astonished if, in coming months, you read exposes about exiting...

Sounds of silence

Back when we were in fourth grade, Miss Luhman had a very effective method for controlling a class that grew too rowdy.

Speak up

In 2005, a judge deemed Seung-Hui Cho "an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness," and ordered him to undergo mental...

The Davis file

With all the talk of financial crises in Illinois governments, it would be easy to overlook the $1 million that Chicago Public Schools and...

Drop this lawsuit

Hard to imagine United Airlines and American Airlines filing a joint lawsuit against Chicago if their booster-in-chief weren't retiring in...

Mayor Chainsaw

Different times call for different mayors. Mediator, manager, uniter, developer, good cop, bad cop, salesman, visionary … in 21 years,...

Lockdown, pay up

Here's something to digest with your big new Illinois income tax increase:

Tequila uprise?

Many Latinos have grown frustrated by the failure of Democrats and Republicans to craft a comprehensive reform of national immigration...

What others are saying

We have a news media that is psychologically ill-informed but politically inflamed, so it naturally leans toward political explanations....

Freedom falters

This week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got a chilly reception when she told a conference of Arab leaders in Qatar of the urgent...

Snarl of the Tiger Mom

Abusive? Hypercompetitive? Dictatorial?

Shake, shake, shake

If Gov. Pat Quinn really wants to vacuum up all the money he possibly can for the state, he needs to take more careful aim.

Obama's challenge

Barack Obama showed a talent for political strategy in 2008, upending the favorite, Hillary Clinton, in the Democratic primaries and...

Bedbug U.

Good night, sleep tight. Try not to think about those bloodsucking little Cimex lectularius pests, coming soon to a mattress near...

In Illinois, bilingual learning for non-English speakers now starts in preschool

With his navy slacks and dress shirt still creased from his mother's iron, 4-year-old Edenzoe Diaz reported for his first day of preschool...