When dogs attack
When Stanley Lee heard the cries of a jogger under attack by two pit bulls near Rainbow Beach Park, he didn't hesitate: He grabbed a...
Get the full story >>Abuse and reform
The realization that Illinois' public pension system is broken — and gradually approaching broke — now has Illinois' top...
Get the full story >>Go for Iran's 'oil jugular'
Last week, Iran threatened to choke off oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz if the European Union delivers on its vow to embargo...
Get the full story >>The challenge for 'Landslide Romney'
We won't predict any presidential nomination other than Barack Obama's. The guy's chance of emerging from primary season as the Democratic...
Get the full story >>Speaking of free marketeers …
Everyone knows Congress has its share of wheeler-dealers, but stock traders? Yes, maybe more than we thought. Media reports have raised...
Get the full story >>Detention hour
From the uproar over new legislation covering the detention of terrorism suspects, which President Barack Obama signed Saturday, you might...
Get the full story >>Peanut butter alert
Food banks and pantries — and, of course, parents — understand the advantages of peanut butter. It's easy to transport, store...
Get the full story >>Pirates in the House
Democrats and Republicans in Congress may not have much in common, but most agree on one thing: It's illegal and immoral to pirate...
Get the full story >>Play now, pay later
Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to play football. Not if you believe the claims of more than 120 retired NFL players who have sued,...
Get the full story >>Badge of honor
Chicago's MacArthur Foundation, which funds the famous genius grants, is pushing another genius idea: Digital merit badges.
Get the full story >>Post-Christmas lights
If you're a procrastinator, you may not have put up the Christmas lights on your house until a few days before the big holiday. And if you...
Get the full story >>Trouble at DCFS
He was 4 years old, barely. When relatives saw Crescencio "Christopher" Valdez on Thanksgiving, he had a swollen eye and bruises and he...
Get the full story >>8.8 billion hours of federal paperwork
That clipping has to be somewhere on this desk. Maybe it's under the Do It Right Now pile. No, there it is, its little headline protruding...
Get the full story >>How not to fix the immigration system
Crops don't get picked. Chickens don't get plucked. Kids don't go to school. And the line at the Department of Motor Vehicles is really,...
Get the full story >>Gerrymandering Illinois
One panel of federal judges called Illinois' new congressional map "a blatant political move to increase the number of Democratic...
Get the full story >>While we're at it …
Illinois lawmakers have forgotten promises they made three years ago, after the arrest of then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich exposed the state's...
Get the full story >>Medicare and Mediscare
What was the biggest political lie of 2011? Lots of competition there.
Get the full story >>Merry Easter!
Blame it on the recession. Blame it on Facebook. Blame it on the 44-cent first-class stamp. This is the year a lot of people we know decided...
Get the full story >>As Christmas dawns
What is this day, this Christmas, that dawns with a chorus of joy? What river of love and magic speeds the message from that moment of...
Get the full story >>Are you there, God particle?
If you were hoping last week to learn one of the greatest secrets of the cosmos, you'll have to wait a little longer. Scientists said they...
Get the full story >>Exploiting Kim's death
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il drove his country deep into starvation and isolation while stockpiling cognac and fine foods for himself...
Get the full story >>Reforming health reform
When President Barack Obama's health care reform was making its way through Congress, Republicans and other opponents registered plenty of...
Get the full story >>A clear winner
How do Republican presidential candidates form a firing squad? They stand in a circle. At least that's been the joke among Democrats...
Get the full story >>You, Molaro, Burke and $3 million
Which gouge most enrages you? Is it the injury Bob Molaro inflicts on you and every Illinois taxpayer? Or is it the spiteful insult from his...
Get the full story >>What others are saying
The funniest thing I heard this season was right after Ndamukong Suh went all stompy stompy on Evan Dietrich-Smith, when Troy Aikman said,...
Get the full story >>Judges getting tough in 'State of Corruption'
Your selfish and corrupt actions negatively impacted the trust that the citizens of Illinois place in their government. … I find it...
Get the full story >>Never too early
Illinois should learn on Friday if it has snagged up to $70 million in the latest Race to the Top competition. Keep your fingers crossed.
Get the full story >>Stop cheating Social Security with payroll-tax cut
As 2011 draws to a close, how fitting that Congress is fighting over money — again. Late Wednesday, a push to extend a payroll-tax...
Get the full story >>Why the Tribune wouldn't hand over its notes
William Cellini's defense attorneys didn't need a subpoena to learn what's in Annie Sweeney's notebook. All they had to do was read the...
Get the full story >>Reasonable doubt exists in Holly Staker slaying
Juan Rivera has spent nearly two decades in prison for the 1992 sexual assault and stabbing murder of 11-year-old Holly Staker in Waukegan....
Get the full story >>British PM risks isolation to protect financial services
British Prime Minister David Cameron bills himself as a "euro-skeptic," but "closet Chicagoan" might be a more apt description.
Get the full story >>Sposato puts kids on hold
Ald. Nicholas Sposato, 36th, has spent the last few weeks thinking about his future. His political future. The City Council is wheeling...
Get the full story >>More bets like Mitt's would improve the debates
Everyone seems to agree that when Mitt Romney challenged Rick Perry to bet $10,000 during Saturday's GOP debate, he committed a major gaffe....
Get the full story >>Four reporters may have saved pension abuse legislation
We don't expect the perpetrators — a slew of Democrats in the Illinois House — to confess. But let's all remember what they...
Get the full story >>The terrible cost of dropping out
American educators and parents spend years drumming a message into teenagers: Don't quit school. You won't find a job. You'll wind up in...
Get the full story >>Taxpayers get soaked by layers and layers of gov't
"Kill the townships, the regional school superintendents, the county recorder, the state comptroller, half of the school districts in...
Get the full story >>Good ideas won't be enough
Chicago's ethics ordinance isn't getting the job done. It wasn't meant to, if you want to know the truth. See No Evil, Hear No Evil...
Get the full story >>What others are saying
When European and North American banks teetered on the brink of meltdown in 2008, requiring bailouts and extraordinary central...
Get the full story >>The Soldier Field fiasco
Friday, Sept. 28, 2001. Standing on turf near an end zone, Mayor Richard M. Daley defies critics of reconstructing Soldier Field to...
Get the full story >>Teacher report cards
For years, Chicago Public Schools principals followed a Lake Wobegon standard when evaluating teachers. Virtually every teacher was above...
Get the full story >>Zagel and the next crooked pols
"He was corrupt when he took the oath of office. He was corrupt until the day he was arrested."
Get the full story >>Crime up, prosecutions down
We write a lot about public corruption. Let's talk about corruption outside of government.
Get the full story >>When a judge matters
Wednesday dawns with expectancy and, for federal convict Rod Blagojevich, dread. He returns to a huge courtroom with warm wood paneling...
Get the full story >>Charter schools under the microscope
More than 14,000 students fill charter school waiting lists in Chicago. The biggest reason for that: Parents believe their kids will gain...
Get the full story >>WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING
Pain seeps from the cracks in retired Rhode Island teacher John Corsetti's voice as he laments what is happening to his pension: His check...
Get the full story >>Governor, sign this pension abuse bill
For decades, Illinois politicians have used public pension systems as their private slush funds. They've used those honey pots to provide...
Get the full story >>What's it going to take?
Between 1989 and 1995, a son, daughter and nephew of a single lucky constituent all were awarded state university tuition waivers by a...
Get the full story >>What others are saying
So it's all Grover Norquist's fault. Democrats and the media are singing in unison that the reason Congress's antideficit supercommittee has...
Get the full story >>Stop shopping. Read this.
Like many of you, we spend much of the day peering intently at a computer screen. We are focused. We cannot be distracted from the...
Get the full story >>Stop these corrupt betrayals
Recall your reaction — ours traversed the short distance separating disgust from fury — to the Tribune front-page headline of...
Get the full story >>WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING
Households that considered themselves comfortably middle class, and looked forward to a comfortable and secure retirement, find themselves...
Get the full story >>Rewarding the best principals
Back in August, Chicago Public Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard told us his plan to overhaul the school system started not only in the...
Get the full story >>Runaway train
Thanks to years of budgetary excess and a protracted economic slump, there are many states that face serious fiscal crises. Then there are...
Get the full story >>Obama's energy crisis
The White House decision to back a California-based maker of advanced solar panels with a $535 million loan guarantee in 2009 looks...
Get the full story >>Republican comedy hour
Casey Stengel, who managed the New York Mets in their inaugural 1962 season, when they set a record for losses, once said ruefully, "I've...
Get the full story >>Talking safety
Andrew Wegrzyn piled into a Jeep with a bunch of friends a few weeks ago for a three-block trip to a restaurant. He didn't bother with a...
Get the full story >>Chicago's deal of the day
For a city with, at best, a mixed reputation as a hub of business innovation, Friday is big. The deal of the day? The scheduled initial...
Get the full story >>In plain sight
After Abraham Caudel was charged with sexually assaulting his 14-year-old daughter eight years ago, he hopped a Greyhound bus, crossed...
Get the full story >>What others are saying
(The dog evidently) became an evolutionary inevitability as soon as humans met wolves. Highly social wolves and highly social humans started...
Get the full story >>The big chill
The report cards for Chicago schools were nothing to take home to mom and dad, either. And yet, what's consuming the Chicago Public...
Get the full story >>What others are saying
Punctuation arouses strong feelings. You have probably come across the pen-wielding vigilantes who skulk around defacing movie posters and...
Get the full story >>We owe, we owe
President Barack Obama unveiled a modest initiative this week that's aimed at one of the most persistent drags on the U.S. economy....
Get the full story >>The scholarship game
For years, Illinois lawmakers have made a game of dodging an up-or-down vote on the scandal-ridden General Assembly scholarship program....
Get the full story >>Failing grades
If Illinois politicians could be ousted by a no-confidence vote, there would be a lot of empty offices in Springfield.
Get the full story >>Making Chicago, and Illinois, competitive
Remember the Pepsi? In 2009, the CEO of a Massachusetts company that builds recycling equipment focused the convention industry on Chicago's...
Get the full story >>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,...
Get the full story >>Thinking inside the box
We were expecting a more inspired budget from CTA President Forrest Claypool.
Get the full story >>'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...
Get the full story >>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...
Get the full story >>Greek toast
From a financial standpoint, Greece is toast. And the sooner European bankers admit it, the better for everybody—including President...
Get the full story >>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....
Get the full story >>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...
Get the full story >>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...
Get the full story >>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...
Get the full story >>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...
Get the full story >>The fourth revolution
"I was surprised by the level of incoherence in the system."
Get the full story >>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...
Get the full story >>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...
Get the full story >>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...
Get the full story >>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...
Get the full story >>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...
Get the full story >>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...
Get the full story >>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'...
Get the full story >>Bedbug U.
Good night, sleep tight. Try not to think about those bloodsucking little Cimex lectularius pests, coming soon to a mattress near...
Get the full story >>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...
Get the full story >>CPS report card shows many schools struggling
By Chicago Public Schools' own reckoning, about a quarter of its elementary schools and more than 40 percent of its high schools are...
Get the full story >>Move it, Washington
Looking closely at your 401(k) has been painful lately, and it's going to get even worse.
Get the full story >>The education president
Rhode Island's Central Falls High School faces a world of problems. Not quite half of the freshmen class of 2005 went on to graduate last...
Get the full story >>Price controls?
In anticipation of the bipartisan health care summit he has called for Thursday, President Barack Obama said last week that he was asking...
Get the full story >>A call to arms
With the new year that begins Friday, you and every other Illinois voter can begin to sweep your state and county governments clean, or...
Get the full story >>Obama's decision
"We must never forget. This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are...
Get the full story >>Reform? No.
"We will not be part of any agreement which limits contributions from everyone except legislative leaders and political...
Get the full story >>Obama vs. Fox
When President Barack Obama made the rounds of the network talk shows last month to pitch his health care plan to the American people, Fox...
Get the full story >>The revolution of 2010
Some people eager to open presents scribble daily X's on the calendar as their birthdays approach. Not us. Since mid-2008, we've instead...
Get the full story >>Promise a veto
For all their talk last spring about making government more transparent, lawmakers flatly refused to subject themselves to the rules of...
Get the full story >>'First, let's protect us!'
Democratic leaders of the Illinois legislature know this much: Their inflated claims of passing bold ethics bills during their spring...
Get the full story >>Obama's Peace Prize ...
Americans are often sharply divided on President Barack Obama, but most of them, across the political spectrum, probably wouldn't take issue...
Get the full story >>