Demolition began Tuesday on the Hyde Park apartment building where President Ronald Reagan lived for about two years as a child.
Crews from Heneghan Wrecking Co. were out with cranes fitted with large metal claws to pick apart the building at 832 E. 57th St., where the 40th U.S. president lived with his parents in 1914 and 1915.

The University of Chicago bought the building in 2004 as part of a decade-long effort to buy all residential property immediately north of the hospital.
“The university plans to install a plaque at 832 E. …

Despite Chicago State University’s board finding that president Wayne Watson might have violated school policy, the Rev. Leon Finney said has no regrets about making the decision to hire him four years ago.
Finney, pastor of Metropolitan Apostolic Community Church on the South Side and a longtime political insider in the city, was chairman of the Board of Trustees for Chicago State University from 2008 to 2010. The board hired Watson in 2009 despite huge opposition from students and faculty.

“It was I, along with other board members, who chose Watson over …

It’s getting easier to get away with shooting people in Chicago.
Last year, gunmen who shot and wounded someone got away without criminal charges 94 percent of the time, according to a DNAinfo.com Chicago analysis of police data.
That’s even worse than 2011, when 91.5 percent of shooters escaped charges, according to the data.
 

 
 
In 2012, Chicago police cleared 211 aggravated battery with a firearm cases — 11 percent of the 1,893 incidents where someone was shot and wounded during the calendar year.
But of those cases, only 111 shootings — about 6 percent …

State Sen. Donne Trotter on Wednesday was busted for bringing a handgun and bullets through an O’Hare Airport security checkpoint on his way to catch a flight to Washington D.C., sources told DNAinfo.com.

 
Trotter, who last week announced he would seek the Congressional seat vacated by former Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., was charged with felony attempt to board an aircraft with a weapon, law enforcement sources said.
TSA agents discovered an unloaded .25 caliber pistol and a clip loaded with live rounds packed inside Trotter’s garment bag about 8 a.m. Trotter told investigators that …

From a August 2, 2010 statement by Ald. Helen Schiller
…we should be able to make sure that everyone has a place in the city, and when we do development … we should make sure that the people who are here today will be here when that is complete … my most singular perspective was to prove that that is possible. … we have to have a city that is not just inclusive about our diversity but is serious and honest about making sure that everyone has a place here…

 
From DNAinfo
The …