Liar, liar, half-man half-goat sculpture on fire! Turns out the Art Institute's "Faun" sculpture is a big fat forgery. The sculpture is not in fact the work of French post-impressionist painter Paul Gauguin but is instead a fake, made by Shaun Greenhalgh, whose family has been running an international art forgery business from England for the last 17 years. The Art Institute bought the statue from a private dealer in 1997, and the dealer......

Chicago has been selected as the host city for the 2008 Barclays Churchill Cup finals, the biggest international rugby tournament in North America. The Tournament will kick off in Ottawa, Canada on June 7th with several dates across Canada before converging on Chicago for the final day of matches. Teams from the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland will compete in the event on June 21 at Toyota Park. Last year, Toyota Park played......

Wow, it's been hours since Al Sharpton was in the news, so here we are today with a new round of Sharpton headlines. He held a press conference outside the Mayor's office this morning demanding that the City effectively treat its police brutality issues--or Sharpton will campaign against Chicago's Olympic bid. He also urged aldermen to reject Daley's nominee for police superintendent Jody Weis's because Daley selected Weis without input from the black community. Psst,......

To the shock of no one, being an astronaut is amazing. So says Lombard native Daniel Tani, who's currently on his second mission in space. Tani's living in the international space station, building and repairing ... stuff, and taking spacewalks that make him think about how fragile the earth is. You can watch some video updates here. We recommend the Thanksgiving one — wait until they go through all the different astronaut food they eat.......

Another casualty from yesterday's deadly fire: The mother of the two little boys who were killed in the fire also died this morning. Dennis Quaid and his wife filed a suit against Chicago-based pharmaceutical giant Baxter International today saying the company was negligent by marking different strengths of medicine in too similar packages. (It appears Baxter has relabeled the products in question.) Quaid's infant twins were accidentally given the blood thinner that was 10,000......

Mayor Daley has finally announced his pick for new police superintendent: J.P. “Jody” Weis, an FBI agent who was most recently the head of the Philadelphia field office. The City Council still has to approve the appointment, but given that Ald. Isaac Carothers, chairman of the City Council's police committee, says "maybe going to the outside might bring a fresh look — a guy who knows no one and owes no one,” is anyone worried?......

Yes, that's a CPD horse in a Santa hat. If Chicagoist staffers put together a list of the Sexiest Men Alive, Anthony Bourdain would be waaaaay high on the list. Like, Ron Huberman high. Bourdain is reading at the Borders at 830 N. Michigan tonight at 7 p.m. Is it gross if we say "delicious"? Maybe? OK. Everybody's got a hobby ... but whittling instruments out of vegetables and playing them in an orchestra?......

In the mood for a beer and debate about the war tonight? Considering some of our comment threads on politics, we thought so. Globally Occupied Attention (GOAt) presents a discussion titled Could a Draft Cool Talk of the War? at Schubas tonight. The army is running thin on volunteers, even with clever ad campaigns and more recruitment incentives. Is it time for a draft? And if the draft is reinstated and politicians' children are at......

Lonely phone calls, dying and dead relatives, a literary classic, and a reexamination of the Middle Eastern conflict took the prizes at the 2007 Third Coast International Audio Festival competition. The jury turned much of their lives over to their headphones, listening to 225 entries in search of the best English-language radio docs. Winners received a trophy/sonic instrument, a national platform for their work, and some cash to help support their future work. The radio......

This week's listings kick off this evening at Merchandise Mart with "Chill: an International Wine & Culinary Event" sponsored by Luxehome and Wine Spectator. Proceeds from the event benefit the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago. The event runs from 5 - 8 p.m. Chicago Professionals for Youth is committed to improving the lives of local underprivileged youth through literacy and mentoring programs, college preparation, job training and career skills assistance. Saturday they're hosting......

Oh, look, it's time for another sensationalist story about the internet. Let's see... sexual predators on the web? Nah, that's too played out. We know: Hate speech! Let's get to it. Trib says: "It might come as a surprise to the soldiers who defeated fascism in World War II, but the United States has become a refuge for Nazism and other brands of extremism over the last decade. On the Internet, that is." We say:......

Got the itch to do something fun tonight, given the unseasonably warm weather? We feel you. Options: One of Chicagoist's favorite charities, Mustaches for Kids, has its kick-off get together tonight at Jake Melnick’s Corner Tap, 41 East Superior St. The "growing season" starts Nov 19, so tonight's get-together is all about planning and making pals. 'Stachey! The International Interior Design Association has its Bizarre Bazaar in the Teknion Showroom on the 10th floor of......

Steppenwolf’s Broadway offering went dark this weekend thanks to the Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employee strike, now in its third day. August: Osage County, a rousing critical favorite and the company’s best received show in a long time, was in its second preview week at the Imperial Theatre, drawing 800-900 patrons per night to the 1,400 seat house. In a move largely overshadowed by a certain other strike, the stagehands......

Select Media Fest 6 (warning: flashy link) kicks off tonight and runs through November 17. Public Media Institute’s celebration goes sci-fi, transforming their exhibition space into the CPS1 space colony. This year’s interstellar gatherings include a Saturday night film screening at the Hideout, the SANDWITCH zine’s Sunday night launch, and weeklong discussions of democracy at Loyola. A festival pass is $25 and no program costs more than $10. Dance Chicago continues through early December at......

The Greenbuild Expo started this morning at McCormick Place with a keynote by none other than Al Gore's president, Bill Clinton. Greenbuild 2007 brings 18,000 building professionals together for education sessions, lectures, tours of Chicago's greenest buildings, and a huge number of booths featuring new products and technology. Greenbuild says they chose Chicago because of the city's legacy of great architecture and Mayor Daley's dedication to all things green. (During his reign, the city has......

The November 10 dinner at Bonsoiree sponsored by the International Wine and Food Society's Northern Illinois Chapter we listed a few weeks back is now sold out. Shaw's Crab House will be serving Nantucket Cape Scallops beginning this month. The highly regarded scallops are only available for a limited time. Cyrano's Bistrot has just added a early bird/pre-theatre fixed price special for autumn. enjoy an appetizer and entree or entree and dessert for only......

Giving new meaning to the phrase "money's too tight to mention", a memo from Illinois Department of Central Management Services acting director Maureen O'Donnell set a November 16 deadline for all state agencies to opt out of all bottled water contracts. From the memo: "As Chief Procurement Officer, I am charged with continually seeking ways for the State of Illinois to reduce its expenditures. I am therefore requesting that all State agencies cease purchasing bottled......

Two Ugandan boxers and one Armenian boxer have disappeared from the AIBA World Boxing Championships. Phillip Adyaku, 25, and Sharif Bogere, 19, of Uganda were reported missing yesterday morning, and Vachagan Avagyan, 25, has been missing since Wednesday night. Also missing? Their luggage. Police don't consider them missing persons because there's no evidence of foul play. Ready to drop the d-bomb? It's possible the athletes have defected, and it wouldn't be the first time......

Chicago Calling, a collaborative festival linking Chicago-based artists with international friends and counterparts, continues tonight and Saturday, the exclamation point to Chicago Artists Month 2007. The festival as exchange program is perfect for an age where Skype, Google Talk, and unlimited wireless plans have dissolving the distance between us and our European, African, and Asian friends. If you’re commuting through the Thompson Center tonight, stop by the front plaza to hear Jennifer Karmin’s “Beast Poem,”......

We can't help thinking "superbug" makes it sound awesome, like a superhero, superfly, Super Mario, etc. Either way, There are two more cases of drug-resistant staph infections in Naperville. The City Council passed a new ordinance today that governs 4am bars: The bars are now required to have security cameras, better exterior lighting and "adequately trained" security guards/bouncers who attend CAPS meetings. Not a great day to be BP. Metra joins the CTA in......

Now that the Chicago International Film Festival is over, we can finally turn our attention to some homegrown cinematic delights. Currently showing at the Siskel for a week-long run is Joe Swanberg's dramedy Hannah Takes the Stairs. A microbudgeted movie shot in Logan Square, it's been taking the festival circuit by storm and garnering write-ups in the New York Times. Despite his movie's acclaim, Swanberg himself, according to a new article in the Reader, is......

Yesterday's big storm? Well, not as big as we had thought it would be. But 2,300 ComEd customers are without power on the South Side, there was some property damage downstate, and an 11-year-old on the West Side was struck by lightning. He's listed as being in good condition. Maybe they should take him to UIC's Lightning Injury Lab? We cannot recommend this reading list highly enough. What happens when people are struck by lightning?......

Before we go to the listings, we want to bid farewell to the Tribune's Kevin Pang, who's heading over to the Tempo section. But he leaves the food beat with a profile of Peter Engler, the city's foremost expert on mother-in-law sandwiches, street food and other south side cheap eats. Shaw's Crab House concludes this year's edition of their "Royster with the Oyster" festival with their annual tent party at their Hubbard Street location tonight.......

As the CIFF winds down, the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival kicks off. Over the next ten days, kid-friendly films from around the world will be shown at seven different area theaters, from Bronzeville to Lincoln Square and even Wilmette. Some showings feature a full-length film, but most are a thematically assembled collection of shorts.There will be actors on site to read the subtitles for movies directed towards those nine and under. How thoughtful is......

Dear CIFF, We've got some beef with you. Here's a little list of pet peeves about this year's festival (summed up nicely by Phil Moreheart of Facets): screenings changing times and/or venues without staff knowledge; understaffed box offices; sound drops, framing issues that obscured subtitles, and even simple tasks like turning the theatre lights off before starting the movie. But what happened Monday night at the Malcolm McDowell event was the last straw.......

Of the grassroots congressional campaigns this season, Mark Pera's race to unseat 3rd District Congressman Dan Lipinski is among the more notable. According to the Pera campaign, they out-raised Congressman Dan Lipinski during the 3rd quarter, $100,000 to $75,000. Even more telling was where the money came from: Pera's nearly 850 contributions came from individual donors, while just one of Lipinski's 74 contributions was from inside the district ($100 from a single contributor in Brookfield).......

This is part of Chicagoist's continuing coverage of the Chicago International Film Festival. A plot summary of Ermanno Olmi's One Hundred Nails doesn't really capture its charm. It's a simple parable about a young philosophy professor who becomes so disillusioned that he snaps. After committing a particularly poetic act of vandalism (which we won't spoil for you), he flees to the countryside, where he appropriates an abandoned hut on the edge of the Po River......

This is part of Chicagoist's continuing coverage of the Chicago International Film Festival. We had high hopes for Bela Tarr's new opus The Man from London. He's something of a rising star on the film festival circuit, thanks to his long, intricately choreographed takes, usually 8-10 minutes of the camera slowly gliding around a space, taking in details. A Tarr film is akin to a waltzing glacier. But that masterful technique fails him in his......

This week's Free Shit column in the Reader points us to what sounds like a really fun event: Head over to Blick (42 S. State) today between 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., and they'll give you a free scarf to decorate. It's part of the Fashion Focus festivities, and students from the International Academy of Design & Technology will be on-hand to help you with your embellishment endeavors. Sounds like a good lunch hour to......

First item on the agenda is a month away, but a classic case of the early bird getting the worm. The Northern Illinois Branch of the International Wine & Food Society is sponsoring a seven-course dinner November 10 at Bonsoirée. Bonsoirée will do the cooking; IWFS is bringing the wines. Cost is $120 per person, and advance reservations (highly recommended) can be made here. This weekend is going to be a cold one to ride......