• Ald. Bernie Stone (50th) is in no hurry to retire and announced he'll seek reelection next year.
• A bomb threat created a bit of havoc in the Loop this morning but no explosive devices were found.
• Citing a long list of issues, the Art Institute of Chicago has filed a lawsuit against Ove Arup & Partners International for what they claim is shoddy work on the Modern Wing.

Officials report that over 250,000 gallons of oil (or just shy of 6,000 barrels) have been recovered so far from the site of last week's oil leak in Romeoville though a rep from the EPA says it's still too early to say exactly how much oil spilled. It's been enough to spike gas prices across the region, though. Enbridge reports that the pipe has been repaired and the oil flow will begin again by Friday which should help ease the issue. What won't be eased is the pressure President Obama is putting on companies like Enbridge for oversight of the nation's pipelines, citing the Kalamazoo River oil spill and last week's natural gas explosion in San Bruno as examples. Here's a quick overview of Enbridge's violations. more ›

In case you missed it over the weekend, Josh did an excellent job updating us on the situation in Romeoville involving a leaking oil pipeline and breaking down the tomfoolery involving the culprit, Enbridge Energy. This morning, crews continue to work in Romeoville, closing in on the source of the leak which, as you may recall, Enbridge insisted was shut down less than an hour after the leak was reported last week. The EPA has given Enbridge a new deadline of noon tomorrow to stop the leak. There's no solid estimate given of how much oil has leaked thus far but Sam Borries on-scene coordinator for the EPA, said around 7,000 barrels of oil and water have been recovered. Average gas prices across the Midwest have increased six cents a gallon since the leak was reported last week. more ›

Cleanup continues at the scene of Enbridge Energy’s latest Midwestern oil spill in Romeoville, where an undetermined amount of oil leaked from a massive pipeline this week. Saturday, vacuum trucks diverted from the company’s recent spill in Michigan’s Kalamazoo River posed quite a contrast with work crews digging up the pipeline by hand. EPA has given Enbridge until Monday at Noon to end the flow of oil as 200-600 barrels continue to spill hourly (despite company claims that it was stopped Friday). more ›

Here's some sunshiney news for your sunshiney (whoops) Friday afternoon: the oil leak in Romeoville? Yep, still seeping oil, according to the EPA. In a press release, the EPA said, "Contrary to published reports, EPA has determined that while the spill is being contained, the release of oil from the pipeline has not stopped." This contradicts Enbridge's claims that the oil leak had been shut down within an hour of the leak being reported. The EPA was to hold a press conference this afternoon to outline deadlines for Enbridge to clean up the spill. Meanwhile, some EPA devices that were stashed at a school were misidentified as "suspicious device." Oops. Oh, and oil prices in the Midwest are going up with the pipeline shut down. Double oops. more ›

To call it in an "oil spill" in the same sense of the Gulf of Mexico disaster is hyperbole, but one can't help but ignore the fact that a spill in Romeoville that occurred yesterday is from a pipeline run by Enbridge, the same company who's in charge of the pipeline that spilled 800,000 gallons (~19,500 barrels) along the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in late July. Officials estimate around 2,000 gallons of crude oil may have spilled from a pipeline in suburban Romeoville yesterday, a rate of 50 gallons per minute with the leak taking 40 minutes to close. more ›

Four men ranging in age from their early 20s to 30s died this morning when their car crashed and flipped over in Crest Hill, officials said. The names of the four men have not been released, but a family member of one of the deceased informed officials that they were all friends who had grown up together in Romeoville. more ›

Some sad news to start off the Friday morning. Army Spc. Kyle J. Wright, 22, of Romeoville was killed in Afghanistan earlier this week according to his family. Wright - a member of the 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division based in Washington - died when the vehicle he was driving struck an improvised explosive device (IED) near Kandahar. [ABC 7] more ›

The last time we checked in with the Asian carp, Congress had voted to allocate $6 million to help fight off their invasion, with the money going towards building permanent barriers and studying ways to get rid of the fish. On Friday, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources announced that it would dump Rotenone, a dangerous fish-killing chemical, into the canal between Romeoville and the Lockport Dam next month. more ›