Results tagged “harvard”

Weird story out of Harvard, IL today. Skyler Hall, 21, has pleaded guilty to an April incident in which he beheaded the statues of Jesus and Joseph at St. Joseph Catholic Church using a lead pipe. He's been fined $500 and has to pay the church $7,185 to pay for the damages which also includes damage he did to a statue of the Virgin Mary. Beheading a statue of Jesus? That's rough.

When we were kids, we got some reward for good grades, like $1 for every A. With $5 or $6 in our pockets after a good report card, we felt like Richie Rich. But it's nothing compared to what some Chicago Public School students are getting now for their high marks Private donations and Harvard University education research laboratory are funding the "Green for Grades" program which awards 1,650 freshmen in 20 CPS schools for earning high grades.

Last week, it was announced that one of the U of C Law School’s biggest superstars, Cass Sunstein, will be leaving for Harvard in the fall. Sunstein attended Harvard as an undergrad and for law school, and he later clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall. He’s been on faculty at the U of C for 27 years, and during that time he has written and edited at least a dozen books. Now, he's going to Harvard to "head a new program at Harvard on risk regulation," according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

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.

). Even less fun is rotting away in a cell for almost 26 years for a crime you didn’t commit. Now imagine that the key to your freedom was sitting the entire time locked in a box in a lawyer’s office, who couldn’t reveal it due to attorney-client privilege. That’s exactly what happened to Alton Logan. Logan, now age 54, was arrested in 1982 for the murder of a security guard at a south side McDonald’s in a robbery gone wrong. He was identified by witnesses along with Edgar Hope. A few days later, as police were hunting down Andrew and Jackie Wilson for an unrelated murder of two officers, a raid on Andrew’s suspected hiding place turned up a shotgun that tested positive as the gun used in the McDonald’s shooting. But since only two men were involved in the robbery and police conveniently had two men already in custody, charges were never filed against Andrew Wilson in that case. You might remember Wilson -- his allegations of being tortured by Jon Burge and two detectives started the snowball that led to Burge’s firing and a $1 million award by the court. But the plot twists even further -- public defenders Dale Coventry and Jamie Kunz, representing Wilson in the police shooting, received word that Hope was claiming Logan had nothing to do with the McDonald’s murder, and was pointing the finger at Wilson. When Coventry and Kunz confronted Wilson he admitted to being the trigger man. Wilson agreed to allow the lawyers to prepare a notarized affidavit of his confession, but it could only be revealed after his death. The affidavit has sat sealed in a metal box in Coventry’s office ever since. Andrew Wilson just died in November of last year -- Coventry and Kunz have now come forward with the new information, and Logan’s attorney is motioning for a new trial. Logan’s case is an example of how our justice system is for the most part effective, but far from perfect. The evidence to help exonerate someone in prison is just sitting around next to back issues of the , and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Even if Coventry and Kunz didn’t care about reprimands and losing their license for breaking the attorney-client privilege, because of that privilege the affidavit would be inadmissible, anyway. At least that’s our hope, as the thought of these two men sacrificing Logan just for the sake of their careers is unfathomable. Can any of our law degree toting readers confirm this? [Trib]

Hair Fairies – The Head Lice Helpers," a national delousing agency, to Lincoln Park. Our natural first reaction to this sort of news was, of course, horror at the thought that Chicago might be in the midst of a head lice epidemic (not true), which then gave way to curiosity.

If you were looking for some new books to cuddle up with for the oncoming winter, the Chicago Book Festival is here to help. There's an events booklet available at libraries and bookstores and a PDF online. Much of the information is on readings in the city that happen anyway, but we are excited about the extra discussions for this fall's One Book, One Chicago, Arthur Miller's The Crucible, which we haven't read since high...

Seattlest watches as a S.L.U.T. is born and Seattle Flickr users go nuts over a local art installation. A restaurant critic demands a Diner's Bill of Rights over a gnat next to her drink, and, in lieu of a Portlandist, Seattlest debates with itself over the identity of the Northwest's crown jewel. Seattlest also joins the guys from Fantagraphics for an ill-fated gun party in the woods. Bostonist got a crash course in what not...

There's so much going on across the Ist-a-Verse that it's almost impossible to keep track these days. Fortunately, we do it so you don't have to! Londonist took a walk through Oliver Twist's London, thanks to a gorgeous map layer for Google Earth. They also caught up with modern-day fictional London, with the Fantastic Four and 28 Weeks Later. It was a week of insanity over at DCist. They started the week off with...

We suspect that it would be relatively fantastic to see again after years of blindness. Just ask Robert Murray. He lost his sight fifteen years ago after a chemical splashed into his eyes while on the job. In the years since, Murray has had two failed cornea transplants, and things looked (no pun intended) relatively hopeless until he found out about a new development, artificial cornea transplants.

In this day and age of the media destroying politicians, it's become par for the course for the press to dig up something embarrassing about a candidate to try and discredit them. In some cases, it's worked (like with Jack Ryan). In others, it hasn't been so effective (remember the breathless media reports that Dubya had a DUI? We didn't think so.) Barack Obama isn't immune to this either. First it was the erroneous and now discredited charges that he had studied in a foreign-sounding and America-hating radical Muslim madrassa in Indonesia. Even when they aren't making this shit up, nothing seems that damning: Tony Rezko owns a vacant lot next to the Obamas, and they make him build a fence between the two parcels of land. How about the intern that Obama's office hired for the summer that was connected to Rezko? And then yesterday, we get word that an investor helped Obama raise a bunch of money when he was running for the Senate. Even the right-wing media has tried to stir up discontent with op-ed pieces that stretch really hard to connect dots that are tenuous at best. To the right wing of this country, Barack Hussein Obama must seem like some kind of fantastical leftist wet-dream. No matter how you try to pick the guy apart, he remains popular, and nothing seems to stick to him.

Starting this Sunday, Snake Punch Union will play for 3 Sundays at The Playground Theater. Nicky Hilton is getting sued by a Chicago development group for breach of contract. Interficio (Mobile Assassins) are coming to Chicago. Knowing our luck, we'd be targeted by someone with a real gun! What else could we sell to make some money for the city? Oh, how about Midway airport? On March 25 from 2 p.m. - 5 p.m.,...

Some of you may be thinking we should just let Festivus go. Seinfeld hasn't been on for many years and afterall, it's just a television show. First of all, we're a little offended by the "just a show" sentiment. Seinfeld brought our friends and families together in comedy and both reflected on pop culture and produced many popular catchphrases. But enough about Seinfeld. This is a time to celebrate Festivus and regardless of the...

The older we get, the happier we are that high school is behind us, especially the stress and uncertainty of senior-year college decisions. When Chicagoist was applying to college, the tell-all sign of acceptance was the large, thick envelope in the mail. The small envelope, of course, contained a rejection letter.

Even though temperatures are dropping and the temptation to curl up under the covers all evening is at an all-time high, Americans are doing a bit better in getting their heart rate up. Earlier this week, NBC-5 reported Illinois, in particular, has made the most fitness progress overall, according to a report from the United Health Foundation.

Even though more women graduate from law school than men, the Sun-Times reports only 17 percent of the partners at top law firms are women. The reasons behind this are multi-faceted, we’re sure, and probably range from family responsibilities to workplace biases.

Mayor Daley and Governor Blagojevich are asking lawmakers to increase the state’s minimum wage by a dollar, to $7.50 an hour. Illinois’ wage of $6.50 an hour (signed into law by Blago three years ago) is already higher than the federal minimum of $5.15 an hour. Despite the Democrats holding the governor’s seat and a majority in the General Assembly, one state representative thinks it will be a tough bill to pass, which is both...

Man, we did some stupid things in college: we learned how to smoke the righteous ganja with our dorm-living boyfriend, we drank grain-alchohol till we dirty-danced with most of Lamda Chi, hell, we even dinged a car and giggled, ‘cause SoCo’s made us hilarious, (or weepy, depending if it was chilled or not).

Adding one more dimension to the already incredibly complex realities of terrorism, museums and other institutions that keep historical artifacts may have to hand collections over as compensation for victims of suicide bombings in the Middle East.

The student paper at NIU has jumped into the controversy by running the cartoons this week.

Railing against winter depression, working hard for the belly laughs, imbibing enough to make their Second City forbearers proud, legions of talented performers and commendable administrators take over Theatre Building Chicago tonight through January 15 for the 5th Annual Chicago Sketchfest. Squeezing ninety troupes over eight nights, the festival boasts one of the most impressive lineups outside Aspen. They’re savvy enough to host tonight’s League of Chicago Theaters’ Theater Thursday event, featuring pre-show beer and appetizers at an area restaurant and mingling with the performers. Click here for tonight’s ticket info (just promise you’ll come back, ok?).

As Hurricane Rita gains steam and takes aim at Texas, the Bush administration is still reeling from the criticisms of its failures and slow action in the tragedy that is Hurricane Katrina. Last night Senator Barack Obama addressed the 35th annual legislative conference of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and condemned the President’s response to Katrina and his efforts, or lack thereof, to deal with poverty honestly in this country. In response to Bush’s...

We hope you'll forgive us but just this once we're going to cut to the chase and present what we think is the most important element to this entire story: The dumbest, most asinine, most trite thing ever to drip from the lips of any corporate drone and show up in print: In response to criticism that the food they market to children is unhealthy and therefore a contributing factor to childhood obesity, McDonald's, according...

Hey, next time your heading out to your car don't forget your hand-free listening device. You'll want to practice getting used to wearing it because it may soon be what you'll need to use your cell phone while driving.

On Saturday Keyes 2004 campaign manager Bill Pascoe handed in the campaign's third-quarter report to the Federal Elections Commitee. In seven weeks the campaign raised $1,349,679.83. Pascoe is especially excited that 97% or $1,309,015.83 of the contributions were from 20,176 individuals.