The Hill reports:The Sierra Club disclosed Thursday that it received over $26 million from natural-gas giant Chesapeake Energy Corp. between 2007 and 2010 to help the group’s campaign against coal-fired power plants.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:The cash-strapped Chicago Public Schools system spends tens of millions of dollars annually on a perk that few other employers offer: cash to departing employees for unused time off.Since 2006, the district paid a total $2…

The New York Post

Fox News reports:No one has been punished “yet,” Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday in a contentious hearing on the role of the Justice Department in “Operation Fast and Furious,” about which Holder insisted once more he only heard about in the…

Reuters

Chicago News Cooperative reports:Cook County employees take nearly twice as much paid sick leave as other state and local government workers across the country, according to statistics compiled by the county.In the fiscal year that ended Nov. 30, 2011,…

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:By his 28th birthday, Michael A. Alvarez — whose family is close to influential Chicago Ald. Richard Mell — already had worked for three powerful politicians: Richard M. Daley, Rod R. Blagojevich and Barack Obama.Now, …

NPR

The Blaze reports:We’ve covered the Catholic Church’s ongoing battle with the Obama administration over contraception health care mandates for quite some time. Over the weekend, though, the stand-off took an unusual turn, as Catholic churches acros…

Gary North