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Chicago Local News by Mark Brown of the Chicago Sun-Times
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Metering is ON

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Mark Brown biography

Mark Brown is a local news columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times who writes about everything from political corruption to family life. Roger Ebert once called …Read More

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Mark Brown: Rahm vs. Quinn: Who’s in charge?

For most of its 24-year history, the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority — landlord to the Chicago White Sox — has intentionally maintained the lowest of profiles. The agency’s aversion to publicity was in furtherance of its informal mission, that being first and foremost to keep …

  • A little good news for Obama after bad week

    No sooner had Barack Obama finished flubbing his first debate with Mitt Romney than I saw Republicans gleefully speculating that a bleak September jobs report would complete a one-week reversal of fortune in the presidential race and put their man ahead. Looks like they’ll have …Read More

  • Cellini sentence another step forward for honest government

    There were two almost mythical figures in Illinois politics when I started working for this newspaper 30 years ago: Eddie Vrdolyak in Chicago and Bill Cellini in Springfield. They were different in many ways — “Fast Eddie,” the charismatic Chicago alderman who attained star status …Read More

  • $395,000 a week on a Duchossois yacht

    As Chicago’s foremost connoisseur of the sport of kings, Arlington Park racetrack impresario Dick Duchossois has long lived a royal lifestyle befitting a man of his considerable means. Now you, too, can enjoy the most visible trapping of his wealth by chartering a private cruise …Read More

    • Brown: Does DePaul really need a new publicly subsidized arena? No

    If you took a sheet of paper and started drawing up a list titled, “What Chicago Really Needs,” I’ll bet you could fill both sides and never even consider writing down: Another publicly subsidized sports stadium/arena. Yet, we are now told that just such a facility is under consideration by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the McPier Authority.

    Aldermen act shocked by pension mess

    From the reaction of Chicago aldermen Monday, you would have thought most of them had only just learned for the first time about the city’s looming pension crisis. Worse yet, you would have thought the City Council had no role whatsoever in putting city employees, …

  • Power of persistence: Pair to pull off vet parade

    Cristopher De Phillips and Laurie Ipsen were watching television last February in the kitchen of their apartment at Ogden and Grand when they got it into their heads that Chicago should hold a parade to honor veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. De Phillips, …Read More

  • $5 gets you a meal with President Obama?

    Most of the polls seem to say the election is trending in Barack Obama’s favor and I don’t have any reason to believe otherwise, except maybe one: the urgency with which the president keeps inviting me to dinner. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m flattered …Read More

  • Day 2 of protest at construction site leads to one arrest and plenty of tension

    For the second straight day, an 87-year-old retired Chicago businessman disrupted a South Side construction site Tuesday with his demand that more blacks be put to work. If he has the stamina to keep it up, somebody is going to start taking him seriously. This …Read More

    • Decades after helping elect Chicago’s first African-American mayor, Edward Gardner pushing for diversity on job sites

    What do you if an 87-year-old African-American man in a dingy nylon windbreaker and pink ball cap hobbles onto your construction site with the aid of his cane, parks himself in the middle of traffic and declares he wants all the work stopped until more …

    Does ACT predict teacher quality?

    Brown: What are CPS teachers ACT scores? Who cares …

    Teachers deserve to be heard

    The Chicago Teachers Union strike is over but the fight for the future of public education in America may just be hitting its stride. The seven-day strike by the CTU aroused national passions over the place of public employee unions in our weakened economy and …

    Bargainers, Delegates need to get on the same page

    The Chicago Teachers Union backed Mayor Rahm Emanuel into a corner with its first strike in 25 years, but as its House of Delegates prepares to vote Tuesday on whether to end that walkout, you’d have to say the union has boxed itself into the …

    Brown: ‘You’re showing yourself to be a union out of control’

    Some people just don’t know when to leave well enough alone. Apparently, such people comprise a majority of the Chicago Teachers Union’s House of Delegates. Memo to Teachers: You did as well as you’re going to do, folks. Declare victory and get back in the …

  • Mark Brown: Despite wounds, mayor will eventually claim victory in teachers strike

    The Chicago Teachers Union gave Mayor Rahm Emanuel a black eye this past week, no doubt about it. The teacher strike caught Emanuel flush, knocked him off stride for a week and will leave a mark. Just remember, though, black eyes heal. To belabor the …Read More

  • Teachers appear to be the winner

    If the point of going on strike is to get a better deal than you would have received without it, then the Chicago Teachers Union is already a pretty clear winner this week in its confrontation with Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his school board. If …Read More

  • It’s time for a little give and take

    As a union member from a union family whose grandfather was shot and wounded by company goons in a railroad strike, my sympathies are with the teachers in their walkout against the Chicago Public Schools. That doesn’t mean I agree with them on every point …Read More

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