Four potato chip manufacturers recently settled a lawsuit with the State of California and agreed to reduce the levels of a carcinogen found in starchy foods over the next three years. The carcinogen, acrylamide, is produced naturally in starchy foods when baked or fried at temperatures over 120° F. What we've had trouble wrapping our heads around was: how to reduce those acrylamide levels while still baking or frying potatoes. So we called a few......

Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan is suing Lester Cohn of Pure DV Productions in Gurnee for unsatisfactory work, and for holding footage of the artist hostage. Cohn was hired by Corgan to take video of the singer while on a solo tour between 2003 and 2005. Now Corgan claims that the parts of the recordings he's seen are unprofessional and substandard, and wants to abort mission. Per the Trib, …Cohn allegedly has provided only a......

James Iha and D'Arcy are suing Virgin Records for digital royalties. No word yet on if they also plan on suing Billy Corgan for being a weenie.......

Leona's and its sister restaurant Hop Haus is not going away anytime soon, but three former employees might. Deborah Mort and her sons, Louis Mort and Christopher Morris, are being sued by majority owner Leon Toia for allegedly bilking the company of $1.3 million. The alleged theft, which Toia claims in the suit happened between December 2002 and March of this year, includes the brothers stole cash from Leona's; Deborah Mort took checkbooks from Toia's......

Janet Weiss, student of yoga, filed a lawsuit yesterday against Wendy Sadler, teacher of yoga, after receiving "severe and permanent injuries" during one of Sadler's classes. Weiss attended a yoga class at Northbrook YMCA taught by Sadler who apparently "grabbed and maneuvered her" and now she's hurt forever. Weiss is also blaming the YMCA for not reviewing Sadler's qualifications before hiring her. Sadler trained at the Himalayan Institute. That's in Pennsylvania. Not in the mountain......

According to Crain's Chicago Business, three doctors are suing Cook County for employment discrimination. Three doctors who were laid off amid widespread layoffs at Cook County’s health system last year are suing the county, claiming officials ignored their seniority in making the job cuts. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Chicago, also claims the county “has a longstanding practice of underpaying and overworking black and female physicians.” Two of the plaintiffs, orthopedic surgeon......

Show of hands from those who didn't see this one coming: new Bronzeville hotspot Rosscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles, which has been getting atrocious reviews for its service and long wait lines from customers who might mistake them with the more famous Los Angeles eatery, just had a trademark infringement lawsuit filed against them Tuesday by the latter. In the lawsuit, Roscoe's House of Chicken and waffles contends that, besides the similarity of name,......

Those of us who grew up in Chicago are used to watching Michael Jordan dominate on the court. Yesterday, MJ dominated in court as the Illinois Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in a case brought by Karla Knafel against the basketball superstar. Knafel, with whom MJ had an affair, sued Jordan claiming that he had promised her $5 million in return for her silence and not filing a paternity suit against him after......

Just when it seemed like the CPD was getting its act together (atcha, J-Fed!), a local man who was acquitted of murder is now suing the police, alleging that they tried to beat a confession out him, while also soliciting his wife for sex. Robinson was arrested in September 2004 on a domestic battery charge, and over the course of three days he was allegedly beaten by detective Jack Boock in an attempt to force......

Well, the hits just kept on coming for one Mr. Christopher T. Turner of South Carolina. Last February, he checked into the Drake, where he was staying while on a business trip. He decided to have a little whiskey from the minibar, but when he drank the mini bottle of Dewar's White Label Scotch Whiskey, he says it tasted like urine. Turner contacted the director of sales about the tainted whiskey, and a fight ensued......

The long-threatened lawsuit challenging the city's bottled water tax was finally filed in Cook County Circuit Court yesterday, five days after the tax went into effect. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit seek to have the tax rescinded on the grounds that state law trumps home rule municipalities with regard to taxing food products that are consumed off-premise. The plaintiffs note that while Chicago taxes soft drinks, bottled water is not a soft drink and should be......

Who knew "celebrity" golf tournaments could be such a flustercuck? Not Caddyshack star Cindy "Lacey Underall" Morgan. She hosted a 2006 event, which was supposed to benefit the Illinois Military Family Relief Fund, turned out to be a disaster. A giant no-money-making, friendship-ending, lawsuit-generating disaster. Morgan says only about 100 people played golf, that the Caddyshack cast members who did show (Bill Murray and Chevy Chase weren't there) left early, and now she's on the......

Alderman Howard Brookins Jr. of the 21st ward was hit with a lawsuit this week that claims he owes $41,819.18 in back rent for the Loop offices of his law practice. Brookins didn't know about the suit until the Sun-Times contacted him. Sounds like a fun phone call: S-T: Hi, this is a reporter from the Sun-Times. Brookins: [dryly] Grand. S-T: I'm calling about the lawsuit. Brookins: The what? S-T: The lawsuit? That your office......

Wonder where "celebrities" shop in Chicago? Expensive places. Ask Ellie gives some tough-love advice on how to get over a work crush. "This is getting beyond a crush to an unhealthy obsession." Burn, lady! How about something a little nicer? Sheesh. If you've been working on writing an episode of CSI or Bones (which...is secretly great), have we got a mystery-solving method for you: A Canadian scientist uses isotope analysis on teeth and bones......

Autopsy results released yesterday in the death of Gefery Johnson revealed that the 42-year-old Gresham resident died of cocaine intoxication and not from being shocked by a taser while being arrested by police. In August, police responded to a domestic disturbance call at Johnson's family residence, where he "became really combative with police" and resisted arrest. Police subdued Johnson with pepper spray and the taser. He was pronounced dead at St. Bernard Hospital. Johnson's death,......

About 40 local Red Cross volunteers are in California helping evacuees. Look, Chicagoist loves dolls as much as anyone--and there may or may not be a few American Girl dolls in our staff's past--but you've got to be effing kidding about the reaction to a 9-year-old losing her Marisol doll when it fell off a Delta jet. Parents, the words you're looking for are: "Marisol learned an important lesson about atmospheric pressure, and now......

From the "things are tough all over" department: As if the folks at Jays didn't have enough to worry about with its recent bankruptcy filing, now two former executives of parent company Ubiquity Brands filed a lawsuit Friday claiming that they were fired in a corporate restructuring "without cause". Former Chief Financial Officer William McManaman and Chief Information Officer Gary Rietz claim their terminations are a violation of the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection......

At a press conference yesterday, West Side religious leaders praised interim police superintendent Dana Starks's decision to disband the SOS unit of the CPD. And Mayor Daley said Starks proves the police department can clean itself up, no outsider necessary, although he has yet to name an official superintendent. Stark has been on the job since August, when his predecessor Phil Cline resigned. Daley claimed that "in all professions, there's always a code of silence,"......

State Rep. Edward Acevedo (D-Chicago) is no stranger to the long green. As one of the chief sponsors of HB 429, the wine shipping bill that aims to bring Illinois in compliance with the 2005 Supreme Court ruling in Granholm v. Heald by limiting the ways consumers can obtain wines, Acevedo received $7,500 in campaign contributions from the Associated Beer Distributors of Illinois for carrying their water. Turns out that Acevedo is also the litigious......

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a lawsuit against Dr. James Orrington, DDS, alleging religious and sexual harassment. The suit, filed on behalf of ten employees — 9 women and 1 man? 10 women? — claims the South Side dentist required employees to recite passages from Scientology literature before he'd give them their checks. Three employees were fired after they lodged a complaint with the EEOC in 2005, and another two were fired after......

You'll remember the story of Dave Warwak, the middle school art instructor in Fox River Grove who put down the paints, chalks and paste to passionately talk to his students about the virtues of the vegan lifestyle. If by "passionately" we meant "beat the kids over the head about how all hot dogs are sketchy-assed." When he was busted for doing that, he took the concept of "keeping it real" to Chappellian levels, demanding that......

It took 51 calls to 911 and 26 minutes for the police to arrive at a brawl in Durkin Park in July, and now that the city has released tapes of those calls, things sound even worse. Calls started coming in before anyone got hurt. "They look like they're ready to get down — they've got bats and clubs and everything" is bad enough, but the urgency escalates until one caller is pleading, "He's not......

Protest over national vs. regional chains, the never-ending debate over the place of cars and bicycles in our metropolises, professional sports scandals, remembering a solemn day, and being issued a search warrant - it all happened across our sites this week! Another banner week at Chicagoist started off with daily reports from food writer Lisa Shames on her attempt to eat only locally grown and raised foodstuffs all week as part of a farmers market......

Number one place not to smoke weed/hash: work. A longtime Cook County employee was busted in the stairwell of the County Building on Wednesday for allegedly smoking hash. New allegations of brutality by Chicago police have surfaced. In his lawsuit, one man claims he was beaten during a traffic stop. In that vein, two hundred people attended a town hall meeting on the city's West Side Wednesday night to complain about police misconduct and......

Former WKQX-FM 101.1 radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller filed a lawsuit Tuesday against his former employer, saying radio officials disparaged his show and blocked him from getting other work. We are getting pretty sick of the cell phone drivers, but we are always amazed at the cell phone bikers (not in a good way). Yesterday, an 19-year-old woman who was struck and killed by a garbage truck on the Northwest Side, was apparently talking......

Drama at Columbia College is par for the course, with lots of creatives going there to get their degrees. However, we don't think they want this kind of drama. Professor Reid Hyams contends that his recent firing from Columbia College was due to pressure from other faculty members and was out of line with school policy, because it was his first offense. He's filed a lawsuit which contends that his credentials (e.g., has been involved......

It never ceases to amaze Chicagoist how grown men can so quickly revert to childish behavior when Bears tickets are involved. A few months back, we wrote about the dispute between two DuPage County lawyers who were taking their disagreement over season ticket seat licenses to court as their longtime friendship disintegrated. Even family ties can't keep grown men from taking disputes over permanent seat licenses to court. Lawrence Cohen is suing his nephew Norman......

Having dealt with liquor wholesalers and spirits marketing companies for as long as we have, the past few years have been an interesting time frame. We've seen companies throw insane amounts of money (in some cases overpaying) to acquire high-profile spirits brands for their portfolios. No amount of money spent so far may come close to what Deerfield-based Fortune Brands Inc. may have to shell out in order to maintain the distribution rights to Absolut......

From a public relations standpoint this has not been a banner couple weeks for the Chicago Police Department. First, the Reverend Al Sharpton opens a Chicago office for his National Action Network in order to address the issue of police brutality in Chicago. Days after Sharpton opened his office, 42-year-old Gefery Johnson died from injuries sustained after police Tasered and forcibly arrested him. Days after that, 18-year-old Aaron Harrison was shot to death by police......

We painfully remember a certain teacher at our high school that was completely and utterly against giving out passes to students to use the bathroom. Our syllabus at the beginning of the course had an entire page dedicated the many ways he planned on not letting miss days, let alone minutes, of his Marine Biology class. Which, on more than occasion, included watching Hawaii 5-0. We shit you not. The class, what we like to......