The best vs. the worst, you decide

10/27/2010

Chicago faces the best and worst of times. The state of Illinois is $13 billion in debt and can no longer pay its bills. Mayor Daley has papered over a $650 million city government deficit with one time revenues. He has left a $1.5 billion annual structural deficit for the next mayor to solve.
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Distressed property bargains create glut in chicago housing market

The Home Front

10/27/2010

The Great Recession has put for-sale signs on a large number of distressed properties in the Chicago area, and as a result this could also be the year of unusual real estate bargains, experts say.
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Payton faculty to use Intel prize money for education across Chicago

10/20/2010

The faculty at Walter Payton College Prep plans to use prize money to give students from across the city a taste for their brand of learning. Payton, a mathematics, science and language academy on the Near North Side, enjoys a reputation as one of the most sought after selective enrollment high schools in the city.
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Community mourns shopkeeper

Tales of kindness fill the corner during vigil for murdered owner of Munchies Market

10/20/2010

The mysterious shooting death of Bassam Naoum has left the friends the Cabrini-Green community mourning and looking for answers. Naoum, the owner of Munchies Market at 950 N. Orleans, was gunned down by an unknown assailant at his store at around 9 p.m. on Saturday night.
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Finance issues for Chicago Spire

Tallest tower financing questioned after $77 million foreclosure suit filed

10/20/2010

As the financing scheme for the long-awaited Chicago Spire sits on the brink of collapse, Chicagoans may again have to postpone their hopes of the country’s tallest building, and some of the funding perks that went along with it.
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Double down

10/20/2010

A Dunkin Donuts on the 1900 block of N. Clybourn was held up by armed robbers twice in one week. At around 2:30 a.m. on October 14, a man came into the store ordered an ice cream.
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Table-side hocus pocus

Heart of the 'hood

10/20/2010

Al James strolls up to a table at O’Donovan’s Pub & Grill, and immediately starts working his magic. He reaches into his bag of tricks, pulls out a deck of cards, and poof! Kids young and old are spellbound as he begins his table-side hocus pocus.
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Rescues of the week

10/20/2010

Kimmie Lou is a gorgeous, 3-year-old American Bulldog-Boxer mix. This sweet girl was living a lonely life on the streets before finding her way to PAWS Chicago where she has been given a chance at finding a loving home to call her own.
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The foreclosure freeze

The Home Front

10/20/2010

The mortgage foreclosure moratorium — the financial boondoggle created by banks too big to fail — could take hundreds of thousands of potential resale homes and condominiums off the market while Congress, state attorney generals and the courts sort out the mortgage mess, experts say.

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Why marathoners run

Experts suggest challenge and endorphins

10/13/2010

"Why am I doing this?" Karen Williams repeated the question thoughtfully over an iced tea at Potbelly Sandwich Shop. The 53-year-old DJ with 93.9 Lite FM spent the past 20 weeks running five to 20 miles a day in preparation for her first marathon. Williams was one of 38,000 runners braving a grueling 26.2 mile course at Sunday's 33rd annual Chicago Marathon.
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