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orruption convictions that include trying to sell or trade an appointment to President Barack Obama’s former Senate seat.

Blagojevich’s sentencing hearing began Tuesday, with attorneys discussing the sentencing guidelines with a federal judge. U.S. District Judge James Zagel is expected to hear arguments from prosecutors, Blagojevich’s attorney and Blagojevich himself.

The impeached state executive-turned-reality TV star has good reason to feel anxious at the two-day hearing. He faces the prospect of 10 or more years behind bars. If Zagel settles on a sentence of more than a decade, that would make it one of the stiffest penalties imposed for corruption in a state with a long history of crooked politics.

Prosecutors will ask Zagel to imprison the twice-elected governor for 15 to 20 years, arguing that he has not only shirked all responsibility for his crimes but repeatedly thumbed his nose at the U.S. justice system.

Blagojevich has already paid a price in public ridicule and financial ruin, the defense argues in proposing a term of just a few years. They also seem bent on an approach judges often frown upon at the sentencing stage: Continuing to insist their client is innocent.

Both sides could finish their pitches to Zagel during Tuesday’s hearing, which was moved to a large ceremonial courtroom to accommodate expected crowds. But Zagel says he’ll wait until Wednesday to pronounce a sentence — possibly so he can sleep on it.

The 70-year-old judge, who played a judge in the 1989 movie “Music Box,” must answer nuanced questions according to complex sentencing considerations, including whether any good Blagojevich accomplished as governor counterbalances the bad.

In describing the humiliation his family has faced, the defense cited Blagojevich’s appearances on NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice,” where he struggled to use a cell phone, and his wife, Patti, eating a tarantula on the reality show, “I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!”

After sentencing, Zagel will likely give Blagojevich weeks before he must report to prison. Once there, the man heard scoffing on FBI wiretaps about earning a low six-figure salary would have to take a prison job — possibly scrubbing toilets — at just 12 cents an hour.

Blagojevich’s sentencing comes just days before his 55th birthday and three years to the week of his Dec. 9, 2008, arrest.

The jury deadlocked in his first trial, agreeing on just one of 24 counts — that Blagojevich lied to the FBI. Jurors at his recent retrial convicted him on 17 of 20 counts, including bribery.

Legal experts have said Blagojevich needs to display some remorse when he addresses Zagel. But the big unknown is whether the often cocksure ex-governor will beg for mercy or yet again protest his innocence.

A flat-out apology isn’t always considered a must. If it isn’t sincere, it could only anger a judge.

The defense could call others to speak in court. But as Blagojevich became politically radioactive, longtime friends scattered, so it’s not clear who would be willing to speak for him now.

Wives often plea for leniency, but Zagel likely wouldn’t view Patti Blagojevich sympathetically. On FBI wiretaps, she was heard encouraging her husband’s bid to garner campaign cash or a top job in exchange for an appointment to Obama’s vacated seat.

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Smith’s attorney wants to have Smith tested to gauge her mental fitness for trial on first-degree murder counts in the deaths of the children, ages 5 and 4.

Authorities say the victims were killed in the family’s East St. Louis apartment. Smith later was arrested in St. Louis after hitting two pedestrians.

She has pleaded not guilty and is jailed without bail.

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Linda Walker, 45, was found hanging in her classroom by a coworker at Tri-C  Elementary School on Monday.

“Fortunately, our kids, staff and community is a tight, resilient group,” Carterville Superintendent Robert  Prusator said. “This is a day where everyone digs down and does a lot of work.”

Read more at the New York Daily News.

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Oklahoma ran out of money in just three days. Illinois cut its program to focus on offering heating money for the winter ahead. And Indiana isn’t taking any new applicants. When weighed against education and other budget needs, cooling assistance has been among the first items cut, and advocates for the poor say that could make this heat wave even more dangerous.

“I’ve never seen it this bad,” said Timothy Bruer, executive of Energy Services Inc., which administers the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program in 14 Wisconsin counties. The group has turned away about 80 percent of applicants seeking cooling assistance.

The sizzling summer heat comes after a bitterly cold, snowy winter in many places and at a time when unemployment remains stubbornly high.

The cuts began after Congress eliminated millions of dollars in potential aid, forcing state lawmakers to scale back energy assistance programs. The agencies that distribute the money are worried that the situation could get even worse next year because the White House is considering cutting the program in half.

Joyce Agee, a retired secretary from South Beloit, Ill., said she typically receives about $300 in utility assistance each summer and up to $600 for the winter to supplement her Social Security income. After running her air conditioner constantly, she’s worried about her next electric bill.

“I’ve cut back on what I eat so that I can pay my light bills and everything else,” she said.

The government provided $4.7 billion for low-income energy assistance for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30, down $400 million from the year before. The money is primarily used by states to help with heating bills in winter, which lasts longer and generates higher utility bills.

But dozens of states, particularly those in the South and Midwest, have traditionally used a portion of the money to provide help during the summer – especially for elderly people and those with medical conditions that could be fatal in high heat.

“Energy assistance helps vulnerable people. If they can’t turn their air conditioner on because they’re afraid to pay the bill, there’s documented cases of people dying over time. It’s totally preventable,” said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association, which is made up of state officials who give out the federal money.

The hot air mass that has plagued the Plains for days began spreading eastward Thursday, roasting residents of the Ohio Valley and the East Coast under a sizzling sun that made people sick, closed schools and prompted cities to offer cooling centers and free swimming.

Forecasters issued excessive heat warnings for a huge section of the country, from Kansas to Massachusetts.

Highs of 101 were predicted in Toledo, Ohio – just 2 degrees above a record set in 1930. Combined with the humidity, it could feel as hot as 115 across Ohio.

The weather is suspected of contributing to a number of scattered deaths. The Ohio Health Department said emergency room visits have been three or four times higher than usual this week, mainly because of heat exhaustion and heat stroke cases.

Since the recession began, requests for heating and cooling assistance have skyrocketed, with 8.9 million households nationwide receiving federal help this year. That’s up from 5.8 million in 2008-09.

Some states scaled back or canceled cooling assistance programs because they feared the government money would be cut further or would not arrive in time to help with winter heating bills.

The program was never meant to be the sole source of aid, but, Wolfe said, states are now “broke” and have few other options. Donations to social service groups that offer help have also dropped.

In Indiana, only those applicants who sought winter assistance were permitted to apply for help this summer. Federal funding arrived so late that state officials gave $100 to people who received winter utility money. That was double the normal amount, but it left nothing for new applicants in many places.

Illinois canceled its entire summer utility program because the money was already spent. About 70,000 households received aid in 2010, compared with 421,000 for the winter program.

Oklahoma officials doled out the entire $22 million for the summer program in just three days earlier this month.

“There’s always more need than we have money,” said Jeff DeGraff, a Louisiana Housing Finance Agency spokesman.

Michigan saw the biggest drop in its federal funding, which tumbled from $238 million to $38 million. Texas’ funding fell by $28.6 million.

The situation could get worse next year. President Barack Obama has proposed cutting funding for the program to $2.5 billion.

States are worried. A group of governors plans to send a letter to Congress asking lawmakers to maintain the federal funding at current levels next year.

“It seems like the wrong time to be cutting energy assistance,” Wolfe said. “People need help getting by. There are a lot of people right on the edge. To cut them now is cruel.”

In Rockford, Ill., which was especially hard hit by the economic downturn, 2,000 households that typically receive help to keep their electricity on must do without. City officials have been steering residents to cooling centers and trying to spread the word about how to avoid overexposure, he said.

“We don’t have a lot of other options,” said George Davis, executive director of Rockford’s human services department.

Mary Ware, a 62-year-old Chicago woman who suffers from high blood pressure and diabetes and requires dialysis three times a week, lives in a basement apartment with her son and daughter. She receives disability income but can’t afford air-conditioning.

She described her apartment as “miserable.”

“It’s very hot, and all I got is a box fan,” Ware said.

Officials in many states say they sympathize with those struggling against the heat, but they insist helping the poor in the winter has to be a priority because heating costs are higher, the season is longer and the demand for aid is greater.

That reasoning offered little comfort to the 30 people who had signed up Thursday morning to get energy assistance in Milwaukee, where applications have risen 20 percent since this week’s heat wave began.

“We’ve been making far more exceptions than we normally would for safety reasons,” energy assistance supervisor Sonya Eddie said.

Koyama Stokes, 31, of Milwaukee, received $300 to put toward the $600 she owes to keep her electricity on. She said she had to attend two funerals over the last month in Mississippi, and the trips broke her budget. She provides for her two disabled children and a niece and nephew using $1,500 in monthly Social Security payments.

She was thankful for the help she received Thursday but said deeper cuts in energy assistance would devastate her.

“I don’t think I could survive,” she said. “I can’t see my kids looking at me hungry.”

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On Friday, a ban that Gov. Pat Quinn signed into law in March took effect. It’s a quiet last chapter to the story of capital punishment in Illinois, which captured the attention of the world in 2000 when then-Gov. George Ryan imposed a moratorium. Ryan cleared death row entirely three years later.

After Ryan commuted the sentences of 167 death row inmates to life, prosecutors continued to seek the death penalty as they waited to see whether the moratorium imposed by Ryan would be lifted. Quinn has already commuted the sentences of the 15 men on death row to life in prison without parole.

Illinois has executed 12 men since 1977 when the death penalty was reinstated, the last one in 1999.

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Now, Startz is on trial and facing charges of battery and reckless conduct. Her lawyer Ira Goldstein said, “There’s nothing reckless here. What she did was intentional. [Powell] said he would accept the punch from her.”

Startz is 5-foot-5′ and weighs 142 pounds and Goldstein said, “She’s a young girl with no training in body building or karate or fighting or anything like that.”

Read The Whole Story

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ILLINOIS — The Illinois DREAM Act passed the state’s Senate by a margin of 45-11 Wednesday with wide bipartisan support. The act would establish a scholarship account to provide money for the education of students without legal status.

Huffington Post reports:

The state of Illinois doesn’t have the authority to grant citizenship. Instead, SB 2185 would create a “DREAM Fund,“ a scholarship account funded entirely by private dollars, to give out scholarships to students without legal status seeking higher education. It would also encourage counselors to receive training on education opportunities for undocumented students, and would open up college savings programs and prepaid tuition programs to all Illinois residents.

The bill will now head to the House where it awaits further voting.

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JOLIET, Ill. — A group of employees at a Illinois warehouse have filed a discrimination complaint over racist graffiti on the walls of their workplace, alleging that the management was notified but did not intervene.

Chicago Tribune reports:

The workers said the discrimination stems from racist graffiti, including swastikas and KKK signs, painted in the break room walls and in the men’s bathroom.

Angela McDonald, who works the third shift at the warehouse, said the graffiti appeared about eight to nine months ago. Since then, she and other workers have pleaded with managers to find the culprit or culprits and remove the offensive drawings, she said.

The charges state that the DB Schenker Company created a hostile work environment by not removing graffiti from walls and allowing confederate flags near the warehouse entrance.

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ILLINOIS — Some Chicagoans are heading to the suburbs to fill up their tanks, as gas prices continue to climb in the city limits.

According to the latest Lundberg Survey of fuel prices, Chicago has the highest gas prices in the country. While the average price of gas reportedly rose by 12 cents in the past two weeks, Chicago is well above the national average–paying about $4.27 per gallon.

Many Chicagoans are paying more than that, however. Chicagogasprices.com reports that a Northwest Side BP station is charging $4.69 per regular gallon, and prices remain in the $4.30-$4.50 range throughout much of the city.

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“That’s why I’m only putting 10-bucks in here and then going up to the suburbs in Lake County and put the rest, that’s my plan right now,” Chicagoan Mark Jacobsen told Fox Chicago.

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Prices in the suburbs range from $4.07 per gallon at the Costco station in Melrose Park to the $4.20 range in some southwest suburbs, according to Chicagogasprices.com.

President Obama discussed the issue of high gas prices in his weekly address, and told donors in Los Angeles that prices at the pump have quite an impact on his polling numbers.

“These gas prices are killing you right now,” Obama said at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, acknowledging that many Americans can’t afford new fuel-efficient cars and must drive older models.. For some, he said, the cost of a fill-up has all but erased the benefit of the payroll tax holiday that he and congressional Republicans agreed on last December.

Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk pitched some ideas for alleviating pain at the pump in Illinois last week. He said exploring natural gas supplies, speeding up the offshore drilling permit process in the Gulf of Mexico and easing federal regulation would bring down prices quickly.

“If the market saw Congress moving in this bipartisan direction, it would see larger supplies in the future and that would directly affect the futures market. The price of gasoline right now is artificially high because the markets see a constriction of supply,” Kirk said, according to WBEZ.

The Associated Press reports that the latest Lundberg Survey puts the average price for a gallon of regular gas at $3.88, as of April 22. The national average for a gallon of mid-grade is $4.02, and $4.13 a gallon for premium.

O’ FALLON, Ill. — An African-American man is being indicted for sending threats signed by the Ku Klux Klan to local officials.

Justin Lamar Kidd, 28, sent a letter to the police department warning that a complex would be burned down if “all the blacks” aren’t removed. Another letter to City Hall said “Get all the blacks out of O’Fallon before we start burning the(ir) houses down. KKK warning.”

READ MORE AT CHICAGOTRIBUNE.COM

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Derrion Albert

Chicago, Illinois– The mother of Derrion Albert stood in a cramped courtroom Tuesday and told the boy about to be sentenced in her son’s infamous beating murder that an apology wasn’t necessary. Cook County Juvenile Court Judge Colleen Sheehan sentenced the boy to a detention center until he turns 21, the maximum possible in Juvenile Court. With good behavior, he could be released on parole in November 2014, when he will be 19.

“There is no apology you could ever offer me that could make me forgive you,” said Anjanette Albert, choking back tears. “You helped steal not just a part of myself; you helped destroy a family.”

But moments later, the 15-year-old defendant responded very softly that he wanted to “extend his apologies” to the family of the Fenger High School sophomore — even if they didn’t want to hear it.

Read more at ChicagoTribune.com

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Following an interlude marked by Barack Obama’s ascent and disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s attempt to trade away his seat, democracy is at work again in the Land of Lincoln and Illinois has reverted firmly to type. The contest between Republican Mark Kirk and Democrat Alexi Giannoulias has played out in the crudest, nastiest terms, mixing the standard smears of modern campaigns with the state’s historic sense of cynicism.

It is Illinois politics at its most base and primal — and has resulted in a barn burner that is seen as the tightest Senate race in the country by one authoritative polling average. Kirk, who built a career as a rare GOP moderate in the House and became a favorite of New York Times columnist David Brooks, dresses one of his aides as a shark and sends him to Giannoulias press conferences to remind voters of the Democrat’s ties to mobster Michael “Jaws” Giorango. Giannoulias, who has adopted Obama’s style of speech, his mannerisms and a stated desire to “elevate” politics, is staking his hopes on convincing voters that Kirk is personally untrustworthy.

Some blame the flawed candidates for the almost ludicrously ugly contest. Others blame a national climate that has produced confrontation even in more demure states, like, well, anywhere. Senior Illinois Senator Dick Durbin — who has managed to stay largely out of the muck — told POLITICO that given the state’s “ethical climate,” voters are understandably easily convinced to think ill of their elected leaders.

“We’ve been battered pretty badly on the ethics front — we have one former governor in prison and another who’s been convicted of a felony,” he said. “You can understand there’s a lot of negative feelings and cynicism.”

Read entire article

Chicago elections board Chairman Langdon Neal said crews will work overtime to reprogram and retest 530 machines being used for early voting and an additional 4,200 destined for the Nov. 2 election. The mistake in the Green Party candidate’s name appears on a review screen that allows voters to double-check their selections and not on the screen where the vote is registered. It also is not on paper ballots, Neal said.

He said the board became aware of the typo Wednesday and called Whitney’s lawyer Thursday morning. But Green Party Chairman Phil Huckelberry said a party member found the mistake Tuesday and was brushed off by city election officials for a day.

“We don’t have any idea what affect that has had on voters,” Huckelberry said. “I think something needs to be done above and beyond what they’re doing.”

Not only has the mistake made Chicago a laughingstock, he said, but “our candidate … has been tagged with a name that really isn’t that nice.”

Early voting began Monday, and about 5,000 ballots have been cast, though that number includes military and overseas paper ballots that weren’t affected, election officials said. The mistake will continue to appear on early voting machines until the weekend, and a notice alerting voters about the problem will appear in the city’s 54 early voting locations until then.

Neal apologized for the mistake, which he blamed on a private vendor hired by the board. He dismissed allegations that the typo could’ve been intentional.

“No one at the Chicago Board of Elections or a vendor would ever do anything to, in any way, negatively affect the integrity of the election, the integrity of this office,” Neal said. “That’s our reputation and that’s our history.”

He estimated the mistake will cost in the “low tens of thousands” of dollars to fix.

Asked if election officials would spend the time – and money – to correct the mistake if it didn’t involve loaded racial language, Neal replied, “It certainly makes it more embarrassing.”

Whitney faces Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, Republican state Sen. Bill Brady and Libertarian Lex Green in the election.

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A 7-year-old boy was mauled to death by four dogs at the home of a neighbor in Illinois, according to news reports.

Residents told NBC’s News25 channel that the child, Jason Walter, his mother and brother would regularly visit the nearby home of Eric Shanklin in rural Marshall County, where the incident took place.

Sheriff Rob Russell told the NBC affiliate that the second grader at Northwest School in La Salle was attacked by a mixed-breed Shepherd and three pit-bulls in Shanklin’s driveway Wednesday morning.

Emergency services were called and the boy was taken to a firehouse at Varna, but he died before a helicopter arrived to take him to a hospital, the TV station reported.

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Pics Of The Week: 08.23.10

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Sheriff Russell told the news channel that the mixed-breed dog belonged to Shanklin and the three pit-bulls were owned by a person staying in a trailer on the property.

“The four dogs were indeed taken to the veterinary clinic where they were euthanized and taken down to Galesburg for testing,” Russell said.

Under investigation
Marshall County state’s attorney Paul Bauer told msnbc.com that the case was “still under investigation” and he was unable to say anything more about it.

Coroner Dave Lenz told the NewsTribune newspaper that a decision had been made to euthanize all four of the dogs which were at the scene, despite saying it had not been “determined which dogs participated, which dogs watched or which dogs ran away.”

Lenz added that Shanklin had said one of the dogs had “previously shown aggressive tendencies,” the NewsTribune reported.

Read entire article at MSNBC.com

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Blagojevich guilty.

Jurors in the corruption trial against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich reached a verdict on Tuesday, the court’s clerk said, two weeks after they began deliberating.

It was not immediately known what the verdict said, and attorneys and defendants were gathering in the courtroom.

Blagojevich adjusted his tie and held his wife, Patti’s hand as he arrived at the courthouse. Stepping off the elevator, he asked spectators to “say a prayer for us.” His brother, Robert, arrived a few minutes later, as did U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.

Earlier Tuesday, the jurors asked Judge James B. Zagel how they should mark the verdict form if they can’t reach a decision on a count. In the first part of the note, they also asked for a copy of the oath they took before deliberating.

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Zagel said in his response that they shouldn’t mark the form if they haven’t been able to reach an agreement on a count but should write a statement saying they couldn’t agree. Zagel told them they should not indicate how many were for or against conviction on the charge.

He also said he would provide a copy of the oath, which says: “Do each of you solemnly swear that you will well and truly try, and a true deliverance make, in the case now on trial and render a true verdict according to the law and the evidence, so help you God?”

Tuesday was the 14th day of deliberations – and the fourth note in as many days of deliberations. The succession of notes appears to signal at least some disagreement in the jury of six men and six women.

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Prosecutors asked the judge to include in his note an additional instruction that jurors should “make every effort to make a unanimous verdict.” Zagel declined – possibly hinting that he may be willing to accept a partial verdict and let jurors remain hung on some counts.

At least some observers say the request for guidance on filling out the verdict card suggests jurors may be near to announcing a decision.

“Because of the way the form is – I think they are struggling with how to mark it with a hung verdict,” said Joe Rice, the head of the California-based Jury Research Institute.

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He added that the request for the oath was unusual – something he’s never heard of a jury asking for before. He says it suggests there’s at least one dissenter on the panel.

“It is obvious they want to use the oath to sway someone in the minority on the jury and challenge them about whether they are honoring elements of the oath,” Rice said.

An attorney for Robert Blagojevich agreed.

“Someone is going to be read that card and accused of not following their oath,” Michael Ettinger, attorney for Robert Blagojevich, told reporters after the hearing. “Why else would they ask for that card?”

He added that he believes jurors have “gone as far as they can go.”

In a note sent to the judge last Thursday, jurors said they had managed to agree on just two counts, couldn’t reach a decision on 11, and hadn’t even deliberated on 11 wire fraud counts.

Zagel sent a note back saying jurors should deliberate on the wire fraud counts. But he didn’t say what action he might take if jurors weren’t able to reach a consensus.

His options include accepting a partial verdict, then declaring the jury to be hung on the undecided charges. That could result in prosecutors retrying Blagojevich on counts jurors couldn’t agree on.

On Monday, jurors had asked for transcripts of the testimony from former deputy governor Bradley Tusk and Zagel agreed to hand that over.

Tusk had testified that Blagojevich planned to hold up a $2 million grant to a school in then-U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel’s district until his Hollywood-agent brother, Ari, held a fundraiser. Tusk said he ignored a Blagojevich directive to deliver the message to Emanuel, saying he thought the plan was “illegal and unethical.”

Some trial observers saw the request for that testimony as a more hopeful sign for prosecutors. Notes toward the end of last week, though, seemed to offer the defense reason for optimism.

Blagojevich, 53, has pleaded not guilty to all 24 counts, including charges he tried to sell or trade Obama’s old Senate seat for a high-paying job or campaign cash. His 54-year-old brother, Robert Blagojevich, a Nashville, Tenn., businessman, faces four counts and also pleaded not guilty.

The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that a Bridgeport, Ill couple and their real estate agent has been charged with housing discrimination for refusing to sell a house to comedian, George Willborn. George Willborn is the co-host for the Michael Baisden Show.

The HUD complaint said the Willborns wanted to buy a five-bedroom home at 3300 S. Normal from Daniel and Adrienne Sabbia. It said that in January the Willborns accepted the Sabbias’ price of $1.7 million and prepared a final sales contract.

But the Sabbias declined to sign. HUD said that in an interview with an investigator, the agent for the property, Jeffrey Lowe of Lowe Group Chicago Inc., said Daniel Sabbia told him he would rather not sell to an African American. The HUD complaint names as respondents Lowe and Prudential Rubloff Properties, the firm with which Lowe Group is affiliated.

Read The Whole Story From The Chicago Sun-Times

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From SunTimes.com:

A south suburban man was arrested and charged with assault after he allegedlu refused to leave the Cook County Jail without his jail ID card and got into a scuffle with officers.

Delondre Walker, 26, of the 12400 block of South Racine Street was charged with misdemeanor simple assault, according to a release from the Cook County Sheriff’s office.

Also known as William Bell, Walker arrived at the jail on Friday night after being charged with possession of marijuana, and was released on bond about 11:30 p.m. Saturday, according to the release.

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As he left the jail and headed for the main gates, he asked an officer if he could keep his jail identification card but was informed that all clothing and IDs are property of the sheriff’s office.

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From the Huffington Post:

The unfathomable depth of the poverty in Pembroke Township, Illinois has been the subject of ten years of sporadic national media attention. Those years have brought flashy press conferences, failed government initiatives and little change.

Now, it seems the township will be passed over once again: after a devastating tornado ripped through the area last Saturday, Pembroke was not declared a “state disaster area” like so many other towns in central Illinois.

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn told The Daily Journal that Kankakee County hadn’t made a request on Pembroke’s behalf. And County Board Chairman Mike Bossert said that the damage “might not rise to the level required to make that designation.”

This kind of buck-passing and speculative half-commitment from the government is nothing new for Pembroke Township.

An hour’s drive south of Chicago, the mostly-black village officially has around 3,000 residents, though the town’s preacher and doctor speculate that another 2,000 people live in the nearby woods, where census takers never go.

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ELWOOD, Ill. — Vice President Joe Biden hailed America’s fighting men and women Monday as the “spine of this nation,” while President Barack Obama’s Land of Lincoln tribute in Illinois got washed out by a severe thunderstorm and high winds.

The president was expected to deliver the speech Monday evening after he lands at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington.

Biden made the more traditional appearance at Arlington National Cemetery on Obama’s behalf, saying the country has “a sacred obligation” to make sure its servicemen and women are the best equipped and best-supported troops in the world.

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“As a nation, we pause to remember them,” Biden said. “They gave their lives fulfilling their oath to this nation and to us.”

Obama had readied a similar message of gratitude for his appearance at the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Illinois, and actually had taken the podium to give the address when the skies opened up with a quintessentially midwestern late-spring downpour — thunder, lightning and high winds.

Under the cover of a large umbrella, he told thousands gathered before him that “a little bit of rain doesn’t hurt anybody, but we don’t want anybody being struck by lightning.” He asked people to return to their cars for their safety, and he retreated briefly to an administration building on the cemetery’s grounds. A few minutes later Obama boarded a pair of buses to greet military families that came for the event.

Within the hour, reporters who accompanied Obama to the cemetery in Elwood, Ill., were told the speech had been called off. The White House had released copies of Obama’s prepared remarks in advance of his talk, but they were pulled back when the event had to be canceled.

Before the storm hit, and in advance of his appearance at the podium, Obama had visited a section of headstones where two Marines awaited him. After laying a wreath, he bowed his head in a moment of silence, his hands tightly clasped. Then a lone bugler played Taps.

After leaving the cemetery, Obama met privately with families of veterans and service members currently living at the Fisher House in Hines, Ill. It serves as a home away from home for family members whose loved ones are getting treatment at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Hines, which is about 12 miles west of downtown Chicago.

At Arlington, Biden carried out the traditional wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknowns under a brilliant sunshine.

The vice president, accompanied by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the country’s service members are “the heart and soul and, I would, say spine of this nation.” He said taking part in the annual ceremony was “the greatest honor of my public life.”

Obama’s decision to appear in Illinois, rather than at the national burial grounds at Arlington, had been controversial, and some veterans groups criticized him for it, although he was not the first president to bypass the annual outing.

Paul Rieckhoff, founder and executive director of the group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said Arlington is the focal point of the nation’s and military’s attention on Memorial Day. “When he’s not here, it doesn’t look like he’s on the same page,” Rieckhoff said.

Rieckhoff said U.S. service men and women need Obama to use the bully pulpit to remind people that the holiday is not about going to the beach or barbecuing. “We think that he has an obligation to really bridge the divide between the military and the rest of the population.”

“We appreciate that the vice president is going to be here, but it’s not the same,” Rieckhoff said.

Jay Agg, a spokesman for the veterans group AMVETS, said the annual ceremony at Arlington is “the ideal place for the president to observe Memorial Day. However, his choice to honor our fallen at another national cemetery as other presidents have done is entirely appropriate.”

In an e-mail, Agg accused some people of using the day “as an opportunity to score cheap political points on the backs of our veterans and in doing so dishonor them and distract from the true meaning and purpose of Memorial Day.”

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From NYTimes.com:

The Supreme Court said on Monday that the N.F.L. is an “unincorporated association of 32 separately owned professional football teams,” not a single business, for the purposes of selling branded jerseys and caps.

The unanimous ruling in American Needle Inc. v. National Football League was a reversal of a controversial lower-court ruling and amounted to a defeat for the league, which had sought protection from challenges to its business on antitrust grounds, legal experts said. In effect, the court said the N.F.L. was still open to antitrust scrutiny, as it has been for years.

The case was brought by American Needle, an apparel maker from Illinois that lost its contract with the league when the N.F.L. entered into an exclusive 10-year, $250 million deal with Reebok in late 2000 to produce hats, jerseys and other league-branded merchandise.

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American Needle argued that the league’s deal with Reebok violated antitrust law because the N.F.L. was a collection of individually owned teams that compete with one another, not a single entity able to negotiate contracts on behalf of its teams. By striking a deal with Reebok, the league effectively conspired to stifle competition, the company argued.

American Needle appealed to the Supreme Court after it lost a federal court ruling that favored the N.F.L.

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From Politico.com:

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) has been subpoenaed by the defense in former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s corruption trial, adding the onetime Senate hopeful to a long list of federal officials Blagojevich’s team wants to put on the witness stand.

The former governor faces charges of a broad range of corruption-related offenses, including conspiring to sell the Senate seat left open when Barack Obama won the presidency. Jackson, one of several candidates for the Senate appointment, has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

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“Of course, I will comply with this compulsory order of the court and testify at trial, if necessary,” Jackson said in a statement released to POLITICO. “If and when I am called, I will tell the truth and say under oath what I’ve said again and again since this shocking scandal first broke. I did nothing wrong and never authorized or engaged in any scheme related to the then-vacant Senate seat.”

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From Chicago’s SunTimes.com:

A professor granted tenure by Northeastern Illinois University got his doctorate from a school the federal government later labeled a “diploma mill,” but the state university says it granted him the lifetime job security under a rule that allows “exceptional” teachers to be hired without a doctorate.

Given the glut of out-of-work Ph.D.s in recent years, that’s a rarely used provision. Northeastern Illinois officials said that only one of the school’s 280 other faculty members doesn’t have a doctorate.

The granting of tenure last year for Theophilus “T.Y.” Okosun, a professor of justice studies, has caused rumbles among faculty members at the 12,000-student public university on Chicago’s Northwest Side.

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Okosun got his doctorate from the now-shuttered Pacific Western University in Los Angeles. In a 2004 report, the congressional agency then known as the U.S. General Accounting Office said the school was unaccredited, offered degrees for a fee and didn’t require any classroom instruction.

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From ChicagoBreakingNews.com:

About 700 students gathered in front of Chicago Public Schools headquarters this morning to protest drastic budget cuts which they say they are already starting to feel.

“It started with JV sports, then they started cutting teachers – What’s next?” asked Somyiah Nance, a 15-year-old freshman at Whitney Young High School.

The students held signs that read “No to 37″ -the amount of students per class district officials say they’ll have to expand to – and chanted, “Save our schools.”

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The students, holding cameras and taking pictures with their cell phones, marched 14 blocks east on Jackson Boulevard from their school to CPS headquarters, 125 S. Clark St. They marched north to the Thompson Center to continue their protest. Police shut down several blocks on Clark Street between Monroe and Adams Street for about two hours for the protest.

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WATCH report here:

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20-month-old Cynia Cole (right) was fatally shot while sitting in a car in the Chatham neighborhood on the South Side Wednesday night.

From SunTimes.com:

A toddler who loved cruising around on her Big Wheel and holding the end of a jump rope died today after being shot in the head as she sat with her two young sisters in the back of her parents’ car Wednesday night in the Chatham neighborhood on the South Side.

The shooter apparently was targeting the girl’s father, police said.

Cynia Cole died just before noon at the University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital, a hospital spokesman said. Cynia — called “Coco” by her family — was just 20 months old.

The girl’s mother, Alberta Cole, said doctors had been trying to reduce swelling inside her daughter’s head.

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The toddler was a “feisty” kid, she said, who loved “Disney . . . Hannah Montana, Dora the Explorer . . .” and liked “to sing along.”

Police believe Coco’s father, Jerome Hendricks, was the intended target of the shooter, who fired on the family’s car as it sat parked in the 640 block of East 92nd Place.

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The sidewalk in the 900 block of North Avers where 17-year-old Robert Tate was fatally shot.

From SunTimes.com:

Robert Tate wasn’t ever going to snitch — not even when it came to his own murder, according to the Chicago Police.

Tate, 17, was shot in the chest as someone approached him on a West Side sidewalk on the evening of April 12, police say. Seeing that Tate was wounded badly and probably wouldn’t make it, an officer asked: Do you know who shot you?

“I know,” Tate told him. “But I ain’t telling you s—.”

That’s according to Harrison Area Police Cmdr. Anthony Riccio, who said the murder investigation is focusing on a possible shooter — even though Tate took his secret to the grave.

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“Unfortunately it’s almost a culture among the drug dealers and gang members, that code of silence, that ‘don’t snitch’ mentality that they not only have when they’re witnesses, but also when they’re the victims,” Riccio said.

But Tate’s mother Cynthia Washington doesn’t buy it.

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From BlackVoices.com:

Once again, a nightmare-like news story may turn out to be the product of real life insanity. Sources are now offering details about the murder of 4 people in their Chicago home: an adult woman and three children (including an infant) that occurred early Wednesday.

A man arrested after a woman and three children, including an infant and a toddler, were found shot to death in a Chicago home told police voices encouraged him to kill his family and he was sorry he had run out of bullets, a person close to the investigation told The Associated Press.

Those killed inside a brick home on the city’s southwest side early Wednesday included the suspected gunman’s wife, his 7-month-old son and his two nieces, said the person who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation. A woman and a teenage boy also were wounded and remained hospitalized.

The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office identified the dead as: 7-month-old Jahad Larry, 3-year-old Kelesha Larry, 16-year-old Keyshai Fields and 19-year-old Tawana Thompson Larry.

The person said the suspected gunman told police Allah had told him to kill family members. The man’s sister told reporters at a vigil outside the home that her brother had recently been reading passages from an Islamic text that led him to believe he should kill someone.

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Updated 04.14.10, 2:46 p.m., Family Massacred In Rampage On Chicago’s South Side

From WGNTv.com:

CHICAGO – Four people were killed and two injured this morning after a man went on a deadly rampage on the city’s south side.
Chicago police held an impromptu news conference this morning near the home of a deadly multiple shooting that left four family members dead on the scene and two others transported with injuries.

The shooting happened sometime after 4 a.m. at 7248 S. Mozart Street in the Marquette Park neighborhood.

WATCH VIDEO here:

WGN-TV has received new details in this story: Suspect beat up his wife who fleed from their home in Madison, Wisconsin and seeks refuge at suspects mother’s home in Chicago. His wife was pregnant. The suspect arrives at his mother’s home in Chicago and shoots and kills his wife, 7-month-old son and 16-year-old niece, who is also pregnant and another 3-year-old. Suspect shoots his mother, who later died at the hospital. Suspects 13-year-old nephew calls 911 and tells police of shooting in the house. The 13-year-old is then shot in the cheek on his face. He is now in critical condition at Advocate Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn. Suspects 12-year-old niece takes her 7-month-old brother and flees from the scene with suspect shooting at her. She gets away safely with 7-month-old brother. The suspects grandmother is in critical condition at Advocate Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn as well.

Eighth District Commander John Kupczyk told reporters this morning that among the dead, two were found in one bedroom, and two in another. He did not specify where in the bedrooms they were found.

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“This is a crime scene, a horrendous scene,” he said. “Something like this is pretty incomprehensible. We officers have families too.”

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There seems to be no shortage of horrific stories about neglected and abused children across this nation. After today’s heart-breaking news that the mother previously charged in the murder of Shaniya Davis, her 5 year-old daughter, was released, NewsOne is committed to telling the stories the mainstream news suppresses. To learn more about child abuse & neglect and what you can do to help in your community, click here. Also, click here to follow the Shaniya Davis tragedy. -NewsOne Staff

From HuffingtonPost.com:

Araceli Gutierrez of East Chicago, Ind. is facing felony charges of neglect after her 3-year-old son was found with cocaine in his sock.

Gutierrez left her son with her sister on January 22, according to the Post-Tribune of Northwest Indiana, and never said when she would be back for him. The boy’s aunt bathed him, and as she was dressing him in the clothes his mother left, she found a clear wrapper filled with white powder tucked in his sock.

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According to the Post-Tribune, this is not the first blemish on Gutierrez’s parenting record. In 2008, she was reportedly charged with child neglect when her son was found alone on a rooftop. Gutierrez was asleep in her apartment.

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Carlos Javier Ortiz

From ChicagoPublicRadio.org:

Last September, a young man incarcerated at one of Illinois’ youth prisons killed himself.

Suicides at the eight facilities run by the state’s Department of Juvenile Justice are rare.

But suicide attempts are not.

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In budget year 2009, the number of suicide attempts was at its highest level since 2005, before the department split off from adult prisons.

As part of our series, Inside and Out, WBEZ’s Adriene Hill reports.

You can look at the numbers for yourself and give us your thoughts atwww.wbez.org/insideandout.

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]]> http://newsone.com/446792/illinois-youth-prisons-see-more-suicide-attempts/feed/ 12 Illinois Youth Prisons See More Suicide Attempts (thumbnail) ionesfontaine Carlos Javier Ortiz http://newsone.com/435212/minor-earthquake-hits-illinois/ http://newsone.com/435212/minor-earthquake-hits-illinois/#comments Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:26:55 +0000 NewsOne Staff http://newsone.com/?p=435212 ]]>

CHICAGO — A small pre-dawn earthquake has hit northern Illinois, startling sleepy-eyed residents as far away as Iowa and Indiana, but no damage or injuries were immediately reported.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the 3.8-magnitude earthquake hit about 50 miles northwest of Chicago at 4 a.m. Wednesday. The USGS initially reported the magnitude as 4.3 but later downgraded it.

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USGS geophysicist Amy Vaughan says such quakes are rare in northern Illinois. She says the agency received reports from Wisconsin, Iowa and Indiana about feeling the ground shake.

Sheriff’s dispatchers near the epicenter in Kane County say they’ve been flooded with calls from startled residents. But spokesman Lt. Pat Gengler says no injuries or damage have been reported.

Residents reported being tossed out of bed and finding books and tools scattered across the floor.

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