In 1908, Chicago’s chief of police shot to death a Russian-born Jewish immigrant who had come to the chief’s Lincoln Park home. One hundred years later, Aleksandar Hemon, another European who has made Chicago his home, used that tale as a springboard for his acclaimed novel The Lazarus Project. Hemon followed in the path of several historians who had already taken on that same story—yet despite those combined investigations, the circumstances behind the immigrant’s death remain a mystery Read more
The arrest of Governor Rod Blagojevich in December cast a shadowy light on the relationships among four leading players in the Illinois Democratic Party—Blagojevich, Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, and David Axelrod. The new president and his two aides would like to minimize their dealings with the disgraced ex-governor. But the record tells a more complex story Read more
The 1974 murder of Daniel Seifert, a Bensenville businessman, unhinged his two sons and set them off on separate, troubled quests to avenge their father. After 25 years, they confronted the man behind his killing—Joseph “The Clown” Lombardo—not at the end of a gun, but in court Read more
The sixties radical stayed quiet during last year’s presidential campaign, but as a prominent education professor, he’s speaking out now about his prescription for fixing the public schools Read more
No one can say for sure why murders and violent crimes are on the rise in Chicago. But some criminologists are questioning why the new police superintendent, Jody Weis, is moving away from proven community policing strategies. Read more
President Obama’s new secretary of education takes the lessons of Chicago Public Schools to the big stage Read more
She’s confident and levelheaded, and she carries the nurturing legacy of a close-knit South Shore family, an experience she wanted to re-create in her own home. After years of resenting her husband’s political career, Michelle Obama found her voice and flashed her style on the road to the White House Read more
Lawyers for victims of two 20th-century terrorist bombings are trying to force the sale of a cache of 2,500-year-old Persian tablets currently on loan to Chicago's Oriental Institute. Read more