Matthew Mager, a 29 year old who lived on the 1400 block of West Lill Ave., was riding along with a group of cyclists this morning when he was struck by an SUV at the intersection of Lincoln, Damen and Irving Park. Mager was rushed to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, but he could not be saved. According to Officer JoAnn Taylor, who was on the scene, it looked "like the bicyclist may have disregarded......

Does it even seem that great? Photo by Icarus the Bright. Well, when it rains it pours. Today, it's raining awful people and practices, so let's get all the coverage done at once, and then we'll try to chase it with some puppies or some such after this. To the jerk cave! Is Drew Peterson going to be on Fox's awful lie-detector show The Moment of Truth? Christ, is that show ever boring. Anyway,......

There are good ideas and there are great ideas. Doctors at Loyola University Medical Center have devised a way to make sure surgical sponges don’t get lost in people anymore. Hooray for medical technology! They’re going to put bar codes on the sponges, and a nurse will scan the sponge before it goes in and the system will tell the nurse if any sponges have been left inside. That all seems a little too complicated.......

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,......

Happy 80th birthday, Alderman Bernie Stone! All the other aldermen threw him a surprise party today. Squee, cutest city council meeting ever. Police are looking for a silver or white four-door car with a red door on the drivers side because it may be linked to Amadou Cisse's murder. John McDonaugh has quit his gig as president of the Cubs and was named president of the Blackhawks today. According to the press release, McDonaugh will......

First, you're diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, and then you wait months and months on the UNOS list (along with about 100,000 other Americans) for an organ. But your case is rare; you actually get the transplant you need. Hurray! Unless you're one of four transplant recipients in Chicago whose new organs gave them HIV and hepatitis C. This is the first time in more than 20 years that donor organs have transmitted the virus.......

Loyola University Medical Center started testing all incoming patients for that drug-resistant staph germ that's been going around. Our version of a spa is where George Ryan's going to prison. Jesse Jackson Jr. throws a "tea party" style photo op, dumping bottled water in the Chicago River. Big talk for a man who opted not to run against His Elective Majesty for Mayor. Does El Cubanito make the best Cuban sandwich in town? You'll......

Add to the preparations plan for future marathons: Hand out more maps and make sure emergency personnel use them. The AP and Sun-Times are reporting that the ambulance driver carrying Chad Schieber, the runner who suffered cardiac arrest and died that morning, made a bad situation worse. The driver couldn’t find the UIC Medical Center’s emergency room entrance, passed by Stroger Hospital, and took the patient to the nearby West Side VA emergency room where......

The Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center site is being considered for redevelopment as the Olympic Village, moving the proposed site west off the lakefront. Colliers Bennett & Kahnweiler Inc. has already received bids on the land, which Medline Industries Inc., Michael Reese's parent company, is trying to unload. The hospital is in discussions with Cook County to form a potential partnership, although no formal agreement has been reached yet. Among the benefits of moving......

As we briefly noted in the Extra, Extra last night, two homeless men were shot in Uptown over the span of 24 hours last week. Sadly, early on Monday morning, yet another person was added to the list of those who have been murdered in recent days in the neighborhood. To give a recap of the tragic violence that has occurred: Phillipi Larrnarri, 32, was sleeping on a park bench when he was shot in......

"'Cause it's Friday, you ain't got no job ... and you ain't got shit to do." Well, you can go check out the New Orleans Social Club at Millennium Park. If you aren't, here's some stuff in the news. Buckingham Fountain is slated to undergo a complete overhaul in autumn 2008. Near West Side businesses get $1.5 million in TIF money intended for keeping manufacturing jobs in the area. Does Manny Flores have the......

We completely forgot to mention that this weekend is the annual Fiesta del Sol in Pilsen. Now in its 35th year, proceeds from Fiesta del Sol benefit the Pilsen Neighbors Community Council. Over the course of the PNCC's history, they've helped in the formation of Benito Juarez High School, Alivio Medical Center, and today is a major lobby for immigration reform and provides college scholarships for deserving students. Fiesta del Sol is the largest non-smoking,......

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. Conveniently for Murray, they are done right here......

As some would say, God, or what have you, works in mysterious ways. Some might call those ways cruel and unusual. Others might shrug their shoulders and say, "Que sera sera." (Those people are usually Portuguese or Hitchcock fans, we surmise.) Whatever's behind the Fickle Finger of Fate, it pointed straight at Cardinal Francis George on Saturday when he fell during a pre-Easter blessing ceremony and fractured his hip. Cardinal George, an archbishop so famous......

While we were reading a story on the recent study linking Alzheimer's to loneliness, there was a moment when, had you been watching, you could have pinpointed when our hearts broke. It wasn't that the Chicago-area study did link the two conditions that really got us, but the questions that led up to that preliminary conclusion. Basically, Rush University Medical Center surveyed more than 820 people who were 80 years old or above for a......

University of Illinois-Chicago basketball coach Jimmy Collins, who took a leave of absence from the team less than two weeks ago, is expected to undergo surgery this morning to repair an abdominal aortic aneurysm. The surgery comes just a day after Collins was admitted to the hospital after results from tests performed last week identified the aneurysm. The surgery will be performed at the University of Illinois Medical Center. According to a release by UIC,......

We interrupt our gingerbread-baking schedule to give you the following stories: In a horrible but entirely preventable tragedy, a Metra train struck a minivan in Elgin on Friday afternoon, killing two adult sisters and an infant. Witnesses said the van tried to circumvent the lowered crossing gates. The train dragged the Dodge Caravan for approximately 150 feet. Five more van occupants, a third sister and four children, were taken to area hospitals; one of the......

We might not have gotten a shiny new game console this weekend, but we have crime to comfort us: A 58-year-old patient at Provena Mercy Medical Center in Aurora died in a police shootout on Saturday. Johnnie Russell holed himself up in his room in a 4.5 hour standoff with local police, at one point taking a 71-year-old fellow patient hostage. Russell eventually opened his door and fired a shot; police opened fire in kind.......

Since Chicagoist started replacing red meat with veggies and tofu some seven years ago, folks back home have always thought us a bit crazy. Five years later we’d show up to Easter dinner only to have family members shocked that we still wouldn’t partake in the ham-eating. Thankfully for us, the teasing and concerns about our diet were never nearly as bad as those for our vegetarian, not to mention vegan, friends. But now the......

Remember back when you were a kid, and your school had safety drills out the wazoo? Fire, tornado, nuclear blasts (for the baby boomer Chicagoist readers - we know you're out there) ... oh, the fun that was had. The safer of you might also remember being told to make up an emergency plan with your parents in case of, well, emergency. Chicagoist vaguely recollects lessons of home blueprints, exit routes, even rope ladders......

Apparently, Chicago emergency rooms aren’t the best places to go if you think you’ve been infected with a biological agent. Chicago ER doctors don’t know which of five likely bioterror weapons would cause specific symptoms. Yikes! Not that we want to rile up any hypochondriacs out there, but the Tribune reported 36 Chicago physicians and 37 doctors-in-training at Resurrection Medical Center missed more than two-thirds of the questions about chemical weapons and more than 50......

What is it that drives people to be stupid? It’s something Chicagoist often wonders about. Perhaps stupid comes from the same place that drives the rest of humanity to do more productive, or at least less illegal, things – family, fortune, fame, hormones. Maybe the road to stupid is paved with good intentions. After all, it’s a pretty heavily traveled road, and traffic can make anyone crazy. A couple from north suburban Winthrop Harbor faces......

The Trib's 2nd largest shareholder, the Chandler family, threatened to try to get rid of CEO Dennis FitzSimons if he doesn't split the newspaper and broadcast companies or sell the company by the end of the year. Also by the end of the year, and as an effort to reduce costs, United is eliminating at least 1,000 salaried and management jobs. This guy woman in Bloomington bought a house and found the remains of......

Cook County Board President John Stroger has been moved from Rush University Medical Center to the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago as he continues to recover from his stroke. Not a lot of details about his condition and recovery have been released, but his son, Alderman Todd Stroger, says his father's impatience and improved speech and mobility is a good sign. We're very happy to hear Stroger is on the mend. But CBS 2 has a......

The voice that breathed velvet soul is now silent. Smooth voiced Grammy-winning singer and Chicago native Lou Rawls passed away this morning after being hospitalized in Los Angeles for treatment of lung and brain cancer. Mr. Rawls was introduced to music by his grandmother and the gospel strains of church. He started singing professionally in the mid-'50's with the L.A.-based gospel group the Pilgrim Travelers, whose contemporaries the Soul Stirrers featured at that time the......

The Chicago Police Department is making this column easy, supplying two more genius crooked cops this week. Plus, Jackass wannabes in Portage, a driver with a death wish, and a robber who made his last mistake doing things the hard way: On Monday, a Chicago police officer was charged with possession and intent to distribute 24 kilos of marijuana. On Tuesday, two Portage, IN high school students were suspended for bringing a stun gun to......

The local news is buzzing about the newborn boy found abandoned in a backyard in the suburbs. Melrose Park police report that neighbors found the child on Tuesday evening after the poor kid had been out in the cold for ten to twenty minutes, wrapped in nothing more than a woman's bathrobe. While the child (named Jesus Noel) is being cared for at Loyola University Medical Center, the police are looking for clues regarding the......

Can someone explain to Chicagoist how it is that a doctor needs to be told that before shipping off someone's organ to be placed in the body of another person for use - as opposed for giggles - he or she needs to EXAMINE IT FIRST? Isn't that sort of, oh, a given? Apparently not. On Monday, a Cook County jury awarded the family of man who died as a result of the diseased heart......

At around 6:30 Tuesday night, an automobile ruined an Amish family's otherwise "simple" time. The family was riding in their horse-drawn carriage near Cuba, Illinois in Fulton County when a driver crashed his car into them and fled the scene. A Life Flight helicopter moved the father and one daughter to O-S-F Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria. Other family members were transported to Graham Hospital. That must have been quite a relaxing surgery......

#1 Cubs fan Ronnie "Woo Woo" Wickers was hit by a car yesterday near the intersection of Clark and Addison. While the Cubs are currently on the road, when not Wooing, Ronnie makes money washing windows in the Wrigleyville neighborhood. Robert Kregas of Hillside was cited with striking a pedestrian after hitting Wickers while backing out of a parking space. Wickers was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center. While he was treated and released,......