Chicago Daily Herald

It was almost 1 a.m. when Alex Reinbrecht dozed off in the passenger seat. The sugar high from the Mountain Dew he consumed had finally worn off.

Naperville Unit District 203 officials are defending their decision to continue boosting retiring teachers' state-paid pensions even as they blast the state for not paying its bills.

Construction workers have begun reassembling the pieces of the historic Little Dipper in its new home at Six Flags Great America.

There's no tax increase in the budget Gov. Pat Quinn will propose today. Instead there are state cuts to education, health care for poor, old people and potentially as much as $11 billion in borrowing.

The Arlington Heights Teen Center will close April 30. On a 7-2 vote the village board refused to budge Tuesday night and fund the center at any level for the budget year that starts April 30.

The Aurora Regional Fire Museum has gotten some new toys and Curator David Lewis can't wait to show them off this summer.

After gaining approval from the Buffalo Grove village board, the new dance club at eSkape entertainment center now faces another hurdle.

Naperville Unit District 203 has inked a new contract with its teachers union that calls for average pay increases of 2 percent for the next three years.

Some Elgin city management employees are in line for pay raises under a new salary schedule that will be considered by the city council on Wednesday.

As expected, the Community Unit District 300 school board on Monday laid off more than 100 teachers to cope with almost $6 million in delayed state payments.

Dollars desperately needed to pay employees and fix roads. A gold mine of information. A tool that determines if a town warrants more elected representatives.

Brad Hawk has a bird's-eye view of what he calls "a perfect financial storm." The former superintendent of Central Unit District 301, retired since last summer, has spent recent months working as a consultant, helping school administrators try to work through budget crises.

Taxpayer-supported pension funds in the Chicago region for police, firefighters and teachers, among others, have amassed an $18.5 billion deficit, according to a top civic organization pushing reforms.

A former landfill site annexed into Buffalo Grove has a village board member concerned about odors from the property and other possible environmental hazards.

On the 2009 Prairie State Achievement exam, juniors in 66 high schools across Cook, DuPage, Kane, McHenry and Lake counties crushed the state average in reading by 20.5 points, and 25.2 points in math out of 200 possible.

During his first run for governor in 2006, Republican state Sen. Bill Brady told the Daily Herald his favorite song was Neil Diamond's "I Am... I Said." More than 94 percent of Chicago area Republicans picked someone other than Brady in the seven-candidate Feb. 2 primary.

Attending Palatine's annual state of the village address last month, Hoffman Estates resident Don Grau was bewildered by a chart listing 47 other suburbs with water rates higher than Palatine's.

Locked in a custody dispute with his ex-girlfriend over their infant son, Johnny Borizov is accused of convincing a friend to kill her and other family members in a murderous plot that left three dead in an upscale Darien neighborhood.

When Jim Oberweis lost what many people considered a Republican seat to Democrat Bill Foster in 2008, the dairy magnate never believed he didn't have the backing of local Republicans. In his eyes, he'd beaten state Sen. Chris Lauzen in the primary and never finished worse than second in any election.

Two weeks ago, Kristin Good of the Mutual Ground domestic violence shelter was speaking to fourth-graders about staying safe.