Jim Thompson

Dear House Speaker Michael Madigan, May we call you Mike? Mike — we know you are aware of Wednesday's date, May 29. Friday marks the scheduled end of the Illinois legislature's spring session. Three workdays. As you know, we support your...

Illinois Republican leaders on Saturday choose a lobbyist and Rosemont trustee to serve as state party chairman following several hours of closed door talks. Jack Dorgan's selection follows the resignation of former chair Pat Brady, who came under...

Illinois Republican leaders Saturday chose a lobbyist and Rosemont trustee to serve as state party chairman after several hours of closed-door talks. Jack Dorgan's selection follows the resignation of former chairman Pat Brady, who came under fire for...

-------------------- The Twenty-Year Death A Novel Ariel S. Winter Hard Case Crime: 672 pp., $25.99 -------------------- Noir is, first and foremost, style. It's like kabuki, or, more to the point, the blues — a folk art defined by its...

Former Sen. Art Berman will draw a state legislative pension of $209,520 this year, highest among his peers and more than three times what he made as a lawmaker. Former state Rep. Judy Erwin will collect $167,523, a pension spiked by a high-paying...

When Chicago aldermen floated a proposal in 1987 to boost their city pensions dramatically, Mayor Harold Washington's administration dismissed it as an arrogant ploy that lacked even a cursory cost analysis. Three years later, the proposal still didn't...

Concrete that once blocked fish from swimming up the Patapsco River to spawn has a new life as home for aquatic creatures at the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay. Water cannons blasted chunks of the demolished Simkins Dam off a barge Wednesday, completing...