Fox News took out a full-page ad in today's Tribune—oh, so that's who still advertising in the Trib—ragging on CNN and its restructuring plan that includes reducing its Chicago staff to 9 from 12. [TVNewser]......

Photo by Kapgar More disturbing details are emerging today about Steve Kazmierczak: Police are saying that he tried to cover his tracks before the shooting spree. He removed the hard drive from his computer and took the SIM card out of his phone. And apparently the account his girlfriend gave CNN yesterday doesn't match with what she told the police. [NIU Police Chief] Grady said police still had hundreds of people to interview and......

AP Photo The Chicago Blackhawks honored the NIU victims last night with above decal, which they'll wear on their helmets again tomorrow night in St. Louis and Wednesday night here against Minnesota. And Ozzie Guillen and co. were wearing NIU hats at spring training. [Blackhawks, Uniwatch] Jessica Baty, Steve Kazmierczak's girlfriend, gave an interview to CNN in which she describes him as a nice, sweet guy. She says he was on Prozac to treat......

This is the first photo emerging of Stephen (we're also seeing it spelled Steven, but NIU announced it as a ph) Kazmierczak, the gunman in yesterday's shootings at NIU. Reports this morning were that a sixth victim had died, but that apparently was a miscommunication between all the hospitals: five victims and the shooter have died. According to NIU, the victims are Daniel Parmenter, age 20, last of Westchester, Ill. Catalina Garcia, age 20, last......

CNN is identifying the shooter as 27-year-old Steven Kazmierczak. Four of the victims have been IDed so far: Daniel Parmenter, 20, of Westchester; Catalina Garcia, 20, of Cicero; Ryanne Mace, 19, of Carpentersville; and Julianna Gehant, 32, of Meriden. [CNN]......

More reports out of NIU tonight: The shooter killed four women, a man and himself, and wounded another 16, 6 critically. The gunman's identity still hasn't been released, but he was an NIU grad student in sociology last year but was not currently enrolled. Residence halls at NIU are open, but all classes have been canceled. [CNN, Trib, Northern Star, NYTimes, NIU]......

Porn is like a money tree. If you need some cash, just go out and shake the silicone until a few hundred thousand dollars drop out. So how exactly can the nation’s foremost “gentlemen’s magazine” be losing money? Playboy announced a 4th-quarter loss today, losing $1.1 million compared with a $3.7 million profit at this time last year. Subscriptions are down, newsstand sales are off, TV revenue has dropped 10%, and apparently Scott Baio isn’t......

Barack Obama swept the Potomac Primary last night, bringing his winning streak to eight, and eclipsing Hillary Clinton in the delegate count, 1,059 to 956 among pledged delegates. John McCain continued his march to the nomination, winning all three states and adding to his already substantial delegate lead. Mike Huckabee came close in Virginia, doing well in rural areas and losing the state by less than 50,000 votes. He vowed last night to stay in......

An unrelated mystery has been solved as police investigate the Tinley Park murders. A con woman, evading police for years, was apprehended this weekend because police tracked down the owners of the cars parked near the Lane Bryant, where the fugitive Esther Reed had left her car, which was registered under an assumed identity. Reed, aka Brooke Henson among other names, disappeared from Washington State in 1999, and over the next eight years went through......

An unknown gunman went on a rampage inside a Lane Bryant store at Brookside Marketplace shopping center in south suburban Tinley Park earlier today, opening fire and killing five women. A police source is speculating that robbery was the motive, but the source had the same question we did -- why pick a clothing store to make your big score? Why the shooter targeted the store is anyone’s guess. “It’s not a place where you......

John McCain changed careers last night, from the candidate who was almost out of money (and the race) last summer to quite possibly the Republican presidential nominee. He's now the man to beat. The close but critical win in Florida gave him 57 delegates and a solid lead going into Super Duper Tuesday, (there are no superdelegates at the Republican National Convention). Hillary Clinton won the non-binding Florida race, a largely symbolic victory that featured......

UPDATE: It's not Stacy Peterson or Lisa Stebic. Police are telling the press that a government surveyor from Lyons stumbled upon a frozen and badly decomposed female body yesterday in a lot on the 3400 block of south Kedzie. The woman appears to have reddish-brown hair. Of course this set off speculation that it might be the body of Stacy Peterson, who, as we all know by now went missing back in October of last......

T Fish captured some more freaky shots of the Great Pit of Carkoon the street collapse on Montrose . And CNN has video.......

With lots of delegates and potential momentum going into Super-Duper Tuesday, Nevada's primary has been both contentious and significant this year. Earlier this week a federal judge settled a lawsuit brought by the Nevada Teachers Union that should have helped Obama. Instead, with more than half of the precincts reporting, CBS, CNN and other major news outlets are projecting Clinton the winner today. Mitt Romney was the big winner in the GOP caucuses, taking his......

Michigan defied the conventional wisdom yesterday, giving Mitt Romney 30 delegates to the national convention and his second primary win. After a short night that saw swift winner projections and prompt concession speeches, analysis turned to exit polls and voter turnout. Without much incentive to turnout and vote, Democrats handed Hillary Clinton a hollow victory, giving her about two-thirds of the vote and zero convention delegates. Dennis Kucinich earned about 4 percent of the vote,......

Goose Gossage is the lone Hall of Fame inductee this year. He should also be inducted into the mustache HoF, dudes. [MLB.com] McCormick Place will soon display O'Hare and Midway flight info. [Crain's] President Bush says he backs Chicago's Olympic bid. [CBS 2] After serving 21 years in jail for two murders he didn't commit, Herb Whitlock was finally released today. [Trib] A bunch of puppies (plus some adult dogs) seized from a decrepit trailer......

All the American Gladiators used take steroids, do drugs and make out with each other. Oh, Nitro, how could you? The revamped American Gladiators airs another new episode tonight, but we're going to be too busy playing the old-school Nintendo version to watch. God, we still can't beat The Wall. Mitt Romney wants to beat John McCain. So Romney's staffer put together a list of awesome stuff John McCain has done and said. Combining......

Last night marked the official beginning of the 2008 presidential season. The close of the Iowa Democratic caucuses saw Barack Obama with 37 percent, John Edwards with 30 percent, and Hillary Clinton in third place with 29 percent of the votes, with 99 percent of Iowa precincts reporting. On the Republican side Mike Huckabee was the big winner. In fact, last night was a night of few surprises. The big shockers coming out of the......

Today's big story--and no doubt one of the biggest stories in a long, long time--is that Benazir Bhutto, opposition leader and former prime minister of Pakistan, was assassinated this morning in a bombing that killed at least 20 other people. International leaders, including President Bush, are condemning the attack. No one claimed responsibility for the killing. But suspicion was likely to fall on resurgent Islamic militants linked to al Qaida and the Taliban who hated......

Long-time Republican Congressman Henry Hyde died early this morning at Rush University Medical Center. He was 83. Hyde served 32 years in the House before retiring at the end of last session, and he was recently awarded a Medal of Freedom. He's best known for his role as the chairman of the judiciary committee during the Clinton impeachment proceedings and for the Hyde Amendment, which bans Medicaid from funding abortions except in cases of rape,......

In Los Angeles, LAist most definitely celebrated Thanksgiving like no other. After all, one has to keep up all the energy to keep on walking the line at the Writers Strike and fighting the unfortunate return of the wildfires in Malibu, which single handedly destroyed over fifty homes within the first 24 hours. National outlets may be covering the fires, but CNN also found it is easier to buy a gun than fruit and......

Travel + Leisure, CNN.com and Headline News tag-teammed a really arbitrary survey of 60,000 people about the "best" cities. And we did pretty OK, so...awesome poll guys! According to the story, we have the best skyline and the worst weather. Worse than Minneapolis. Ouch, dudes. Ouch. We ranked first out of 25 cities in: best food and dining overall, best pizza, best home design shopping, best business trip (that's secretly fun), and sports' fan......

We hope some of you got a chance to go to something at the Chicago Book Festival last week, but if not, here’s your chance. Our take on the second week: Jeffrey Toobin, CNN’s senior legal analyst, discusses and signs his newest book The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, and maybe adds a few pointers for broke Chicagoists. Monday, Oct. 8, 6 p.m., Harold Washington Library, 400 S. State St., Cindy......

Got a second? Good! Because we want to thank the advertisers on Chicagoist this week: CNN.com, who has a surprising amount of video on their site (including one of a couple with sextuplets). StopBigMedia, which is rallying to prevent monopolies in the local media. Busted Tees, which is having a buy three, get free shipping sale right now. If you're interested in advertising on Chicagoist or the Gothamist Network of sites, head on over to......

So you think Chicagoist is sometimes too critical of the way Mayor Daley runs the city? Wait until the Reverend Al Sharpton gets settled in his new digs. The boisterous Gotham-based minister, with the pompadour that's fading away like a Neil Young lyric, is opening a Chicago chapter of his National Action Network this week, in part to add pressure to His Elective Majesty and Cook County State's Attorney Dick Devine to react faster to......

Chicagoist likes to think we work on a European schedule, taking the entire month of August to hang out with the Parisist staff on the French Rivieria sunbathing and making snotty comments about Americans. Sadly, our limited vacation days don't allow us to show off our pasty legs for much more than a week. Recently while some of us were on vacation, we posted, we checked e-mail like we were important, and we stayed in......

This is not a fun time to be a baseball fan in Chicago. Whether a White Sox or Cubs fan, you no doubt have that sinking feeling about your team's prospects for the postseason after they were swept this week. The Cubs lost 9-0 to the Florida Marlins on Wednesday, following a day full of meetings. The players held one. So did management. Didn't help, at least on Wednesday. The players felt they needed to......

This week, more than before, we have a veritable cornucopia of presidential news. After how many years of Southerners and Westerners in the White House, it seems only fitting that we dedicate this week's Hump Day Political News Roundup to all the cowboys that have ridden off into the sunset that is the Beltway. Let's take a look back: George W. Bush Is a Bad-Ass Cowboy. As his term dwindles away, his approval ratings circle......

As John Edwards buckles down and tries to keep his presidential bid moving forward while his wife deals with the return of cancer, the two other major Democratic players — Hillary and Barack — have been in the news lately for their stands not just on gay marriage, but the morality of homosexuality in general. After Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Chicago Tribune that "homosexual acts between......

At the after party at the Hideout for the 2007 Chiditarod, the teams that were beaten to a pulp by first-place winners the Corporate Dalliance knew one thing: This team cheated. They just didn't know how. One budding, future Pulitzer Prize-winning Northwestern student has posted a video expose of the ordeal that demonstrates the team's methodology, proving they always planned to play dirty. On a whim, Medill Journalism student Matthew Bigelow embedded himself with this......