The Sad Saga of Bob Greene
When a woman from his past resurfaced, the columnist’s 33-year career crashed; then a family tragedy hit home.
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Dear Ann
An energetic self-promotor, Eppie Lederer was a natural as the wise and wisecracking Ann Landers, advice maven to millions. But her own family problems were harder to solve.
The Case Against Daley
Yes, he is popular and has done lots of good for the city. But Mayor Daley has plenty of shortcomings, too. If we were running for mayor, here is how we would challenge him.
True Believer
He has fought the Mob and helped impeach a President. But now Chicago attorney David Schippers is battling to prove a connection between Oklahoma City and the September 11th attacks. Is he the latest dupe in a grand, improbable conspiracy—or could he be on to something?
The Bully of Toulon
For years, a rough-hewn man named Curt Thompson threatened and intimidated his neighbors in the small farming community of Toulon, Illinois. Many complained about him, and a few filed charges, yet little was done, and residents learned to alter their lives to avoid him. Then one night, authorities say, a newcomer paid him a call, and the town’s worst fears came true
The New Face of the Law
Patrick Fitzgerald may have arrived in town as the new U.S. attorney in August 2001, but he didn't really arrive until April 2, 2002, when he stood before the television cameras and announced the stunning news: Gov. George Ryan's three-decades-old campaign committee was being charged as a "criminal enterprise" whose thirst for money had led … Read more
No Regrets
“Kill your parents!” urged sixties leftist Bill Ayers, whose father was the chairman of Commonwealth Edison here. In Ayers’s new memoir, Fugitive Days, he reconciles his militant past with his present identity: father of three, esteemed professor at UIC—and unabashed patron of the great bourgeois coffee chain, Starbucks
Heavy
By the time he died at 32 in 1958, Robert Earl Hughes of tiny Fishhook, Illinois, weighed more than 1,000 pounds, earning a place in The Guinness Book of World Records as the largest man on earth. Except for his neighbors and family, few people knew much about his life until recently, when an astonishing photograph sent the author in search of Hughes’s real story: Raised in a sharecropper’s cabin, trapped inside half a ton of flesh, this literate, companionable young man had dreamed of seeing the world. Aside from some carnival tours and one disastrous trip to New York, he never lived his dream. But in his short life, he found something else.
Ann Marie's World
Ann Marie Lipinski may be the most powerful journalist in Chicago. She climbed to the top of the Chicago Tribune masthead in February, becoming the first woman to edit the daily in its 154-year history. In a long career there, she’s already put her mark on the paper, promoting good writing (some say at the cost of solid reporting) and advancing her crew of literate colleagues (dismaying others on the staff). She’s got more plans, including a redesign. Still, can her vision lift the Trib?
Blizzard of 1979: Thoughts from Michael Bilandic and Jane Byrne
THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT: We asked Byrne and Bilandic how the snowstorm affected the February mayoral primary.