One of Chicago's newest aldermen, Bob Fioretti (2nd) is taking heat from one of the city's older hotels. The 14-story Congress Plaza Hotel, designed and built to accommodate visitors to the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, has been embroiled in a strike with UNITE HERE Local 1 since June 2003. According to Crain's Chicago Business, the hotel, owned by Albert Nasser Shayo, a Syrian globe-trotting businessman with residences in New York, Argentina, and Switzerland, who......

An Alderwoman from Illinois' second largest city has been sending letters to lazy citizens asking them to take their Christmas decorations down. Second Ward Alderwoman Juany Garza's beef is simple, "They didn't do that in Mexico," she said. "I don't remember my mom leaving the Christmas ornaments up the whole year." Aurora is almost one-third Mexican, so south-of-the border traditions matter there, we guess. And now the Christmas lights issue has become a big deal.......