At yesterday's forum for Chicago's mayoral candidates, Carol Moseley Braun and William "Dock" Walls got into a bit of a tiff as the night was coming to a close. When each candidate was asked why they were running for mayor only after Mayor Daley announced that he was retiring, Walls accused Braun of being "broke and corrupt." Braun fired back, asking Walls why he was running for mayor and thereby questioning his motives running for office. more ›

Tonight is the mayoral candidate forum on educational policy sponsored by the Illinois Policy Forum and Northside Democracy for America. One notable candidate won't be there, but if you're a policy wonk, curious about how the other 15 or so candidates would fix the school system, or just want to spend some time online listening to moderator Andy Shaw make them squirm, the Better Government Association will be live streaming the forum starting at 7 p.m. more ›

What was supposed to be a forum for the four remaining Democratic candidates for Cook County Board President turned into a Player Hater's Ball as the incumbent, President Todd Stroger, was a no-show, opening the flood gates for the remaining three candidates - Terry O'Brien, president of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th), and Cook County Clerk of Courts Dorothy Brown - to unleash some verbal attacks on Stroger. The S-T provides a sampling of what each candidate said about Stroger. As for Stroger's absence? His campaign manager, Vincent Williams, originally told the Sun-Times, "I haven't spoken to the president today, so I don't have an answer." However, this morning, Williams issued the following statement (via email) on behalf of the Stroger campaign: more ›

There were a pair of debates last night of interest to voters with the approaching primaries in February. Of particular interest to local voters is the The Hispanic American Construction Industry Association (HACIA) Cook County Board President forum. ABC 7 has video of the complete forum that you can check out here. The participants were current Democrat candidates Pres. Todd Stroger, Ald. Toni Preckwinkle, and MWRD Pres. Terrence O'Brien, Green Party candidate (and former No Games Chicago leader) Tom Tresser, and only one Republican candidate, John Garrido. more ›

• A Naperville man has been charged with trying to bribe a "city agent," who the Sun-Times reveals to be Ald. Ike Carothers.
• GOP candidates for governor aren't the only ones debating tonight; the candidates for Cook County Board President will participate in a forum that gets underway at 6 pm. You can view it live online at ABC 7.
• Two men have been arrested in the shooting death of DePaul student Francisco “Frankie” Valencia from last weekend.

Chicago's journalism elite gathered together Thursday afternoon for yet another group therapy session, this time bringing Carl Bernstein and our beloved editor-in-chief, Marcus Gilmer, into the mix. Covering a sweeping range of topics, the central theme was the future of the news industry. Conclusion? Doom. Oh, and there's no agreeing on life-saving measures. It wasn't that we didn't have the most brilliant minds of the old guard in the conference room at the Newberry Library for the IFC's Make Media Matter series - Bernstein was joined by editors Gerould Kern (Chicago Tribune), Donald Hayner (Chicago Sun-Times), Tran Ha (RedEye) WBBM-TV news director Jeff Kiernan, columnist/editor/host Carol Marin and WVON's Cliff Kelley - it's just that the old guard doesn't know what's going to happen and the new guard, represented only by Marcus and Ha, can't predict the future of their industry. more ›