Walgreen Drops Bid for City Contract After Employee Took Data

by DAN MIHALOPOULOS

A Walgreen Co. executive improperly took a competitor’s confidential financial data, forcing the drugstore giant to withdraw from the bidding for a lucrative contract to provide pharmacy services for the City of Chicago and most local government agencies, the Chicago News Cooperative has learned. Walgreens is out of the bidding for the contract, most likely worth [...]

Driven Young Man With a Basketball Mission

by DANIEL LIBIT

De La Salle and Foreman High Schools battled for the 4A state basketball sectional semifinals March 10 in a packed Maywood gym, but in many ways, the most interesting action was unfolding in the north bleachers. There, two rows up from the floor, Daniel Poneman held court in his usual fashion. Every few moments, Mr. Poneman [...]

Circus Acts Can Make Almost Anyone a Celebrity

by JAMES WARREN

To understand our era, you could go to Cook County Foreclosure or Eviction Court and inspect the damage of the greed, deceit and self-delusion found in the subprime mortgage debacle and related economic ills. Or you could just turn on NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice” Sunday and watch Rod R. Blagojevich and Donald J. Trump. The indicted former governor [...]

Transparency, in the Beholder’s Eye

by DAN MIHALOPOULOS

Mayor Richard M. Daley often asserts that he is as transparent as any other big-city leader. But testimony in federal court makes it clear that there are times that his answers to questions, or refusal to answer, can leave the public in the dark. The latest example came in the corruption trial of Calvin Boender, a [...]

A Delicate Balancing Act for the Black Agenda

by DON TERRY

What a difference hard times make. Until recently, most black discontent with the Obama administration — especially in Barack Obama’s hometown, Chicago — was largely kept in the family and out of the mainstream press, even as black business, civil rights and political leaders quietly grappled with and debated how best to support and challenge the [...]

As 50 Aldermen Strike a Pose, Exhibit’s Artists Take Full Advantage of Free Rein

by JESSICA REAVES

The paint is dry, the photographs are framed and the Legos have been arranged in an uncanny likeness of Alderman Ariel E. Reboyras. It is time to unveil the much-anticipated Chicago Aldermen Project: 50 Aldermen/50 Artists. The show, which opens its two-week run at 7 p.m. Friday at the Johalla Projects gallery, at 1561 North Milwaukee [...]

Chart: Compare the House, Senate and Reconciliation Bills

House Democrats have unveiled a package of amendments to the Senate version of health care reform legislation, aimed at bringing the Senate bill closer to the version the House passed last November. Compare the three bills.

Conversation: Still Unsolved, Gardner Heist Remains Largest Art Theft in History

Twenty years ago this week, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston was the site of the biggest art heist in history. Jeffrey Brown talks to Ulrich Boser, author of "The Gardner Heist" and who has been following recent developments in the case, to see if authorities are any closer to catching the thieves.

Around the Nation Roundup

Here's a selection of art and culture reports from local public broadcasting stations and national producers.

Friday's Art Notes

A roundup of arts headlines.

College Loan Overhaul Looms in Health Reform Package

A new measure allowing college students to bypass banks and receive college aid directly from the government could pass alongside the health reform bill. Jeffrey Brown talks to Jason DeLisle of the New America Foundation and Renee Mang of Sallie Mae.

Tiny Technology Holds Big Economic Potential

In the latest in a series of reports making sense of the economy, economics correspondent Paul Solman examines the small scale of nanosciences and the big impact they could have on the economy.