Extra, Extra

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Nov 18, 2008 12:00AM

• Chicago firefighters are battling a blaze in a 15-story high rise this evening, located at 1170 W. Erie St. The building is next to the Kennedy Expressway so rubberneckers are creating even more congestion than usual.

• A woman is suing the University of Chicago Medical Center and a surgeon after she contracted HIV and Hepatitis C as a result of receiving infected organs. The woman is allegedly one of four people to receive organs from the infected donor during January 2007 and all four have been diagnosed as HIV positive.

• Sears is shutting it's Schaumburg Great Indoors store early next year due to "poor performance." Three other stores across the country are also being closed.

• A Woodbridge man who crashed his single-engine plane into a nearby yard as he approached a landing strip in Downers Grove is still in jail after being charged with flying under the influence.

• Showing where their priorities are, Alds. Isaac Carothers (29th) and Walter Burnett Jr. (27th) are doing everything they can to save the "jumping jacks" (or as I always called them, bouncy castles) from being eliminated from Mayor Daley's 2009 budget. Apparently, many residents would be furious to see them removed from block parties. Of course, residents would also probably be pretty pissed if they lost their jobs or there was no garbage service because the city ran out of money.

• Berwyn's Vlasta, The International Queen of Polka, has been inspired by Barack Obama's election to write a new polka (with audio of the song).

• "When the fuck did Robin Williams go Chicago Hipster on us?"

• Your internet time-waster, Obamaist version. [via Boing Boing]