The new LR 13000, en route to Whiting to work on its $3.8 billion expansion, is so big that you can hang regular-size cranes from it to make a crane mobile, or just use it to lift massive refinery towers. Read more
A recent study by the University of Chicago's Cultural Policy Center suggests that America built too many museums and theaters over the past couple decades, or at least spent too much money on them when times were better. Read more
A new study breaks down child poverty by county in Illinois: following national trends, the highest rates are found in far downstate Illinois, where Alexander County's rate doubles that of Cook County. Read more
During the recession, perhaps the most crucial question is: where'd the money go? A lot of it is sitting in corporate accounts, due to major changes in tax and regulatory systems, and a big demographic wave of boomers putting away money for their own futures. Read more
The latest from the Chick-fil-A hawks: Mayor Bloomberg gives the thumbs down, and how to ban Chick-fil-A without violating the First Amendment. Read more
No one doubts that teen pregnancy makes rising out of poverty more difficult, and teen pregnancy is more frequent where income inequality is high. But how much is cause, and how much is symptom? Read more
Why is America so much more violent—in particular, so much more homicidal—than other developed countries? One vein of history and social science suggests that its roots are in the South, and the British borderland culture that it originated in. Read more
Joe Moreno's stance against Chick-fil-A, and his announcement that he'll use aldermanic privilege to block a Logan Square location, makes national news... and gets bad reviews, even from passionate supporters of gay marriage. Read more
The intensive drought has become more intense, nowhere more than in Illinois—in the span of a week, most of the state went from severe drought to extreme drought, the worst decline in the 12 years the USDA has been using its current monitoring system. Read more
This year has been unusually hot and dry, approaching records if not breaking them. And that heat pervades everything, from roads, to nuclear power plants, to food prices, to traffic fatalities. Read more
