The theater shootings in Aurora, Colorado—just miles from Columbine, and coming after NIU and Virginia Tech—have gun control back in the news again. Similar incidents led to the 1994 assault-weapons ban, though it was not particularly good or effective law. Public policy is difficult, but that’s not a reason for hopelessness.
THIS WAY OUT?: The Final Exit Network president has helped 14 gravely ill people end their lives. Now, at 81, the Highland Park resident faces a terminal illness himself
For the weekend, two of the best articles I’ve read in awhile—about a teen killer from rural Indiana, and the isolated subcultures of GLBTQ life in in Boystown.
Did Barack Obama actually say that “if you have a business, you didn’t build that business”? It seems to depend on your ideology and/or how you diagram sentences. Either way, it’s not a very interesting question.
From 2005 to 2009, Chicago’s percentage of fatal pedestrian crashes involving hit-and-runs was twice that of the national average. This year the percentage is very high. Stopping crashes is one thing; how do you stop behavior after a crash?
Why don’t Chicago drivers stop at crosswalks? The previously confusing law was only changed in 2010, and habits are hard to break. New crosswalk signs, however, make it completely explicit.
The murder of a 62-year-old immigrant in West Rogers Park is the latest victim attributed to a “game” of random street violence—one that’s also cropped up in St. Louis and London.
His thoughts on the Red Line shutdown, union negotiations, and his political future
The frequency of the old cliche “Chicago-style politics” spiked after Barack Obama’s rise to the White House—and it’s getting hauled off the shelf again by the Romney campaign.
BONE COLLECTORS: The Evanston pit master takes us on a cross-city search for real Chicago ribs
