Metropolitan Family Services Receives Generous Donation from AHR Expo
Metropolitan Family Services, one of Chicago area’s most established providers of programs and counseling to help low-income families, received nearly $12,000 from AHR Expo, the world’s largest air conditioning, heating & refrigeration expo and conference. The award will be used to upgrade HVAC systems to improve operation and efficiency at Metropolitan’s Midway Head Start facility, [...]
Board of Education Approved all School Closings and Turnarounds Amid Public Criticism
The Chicago Board of Education unanimously voted Wednesday, Feb. 22, to close 17 Chicago Public Schools following hours of emotional testimony urging the board to do otherwise. The board views the decision as an opportunity to help 7,500 students in the low-performing schools. The board’s decision came just hours after an emotionally charged public hearing [...]
Electronics Recycling Now Required – Here’s How at Columbia
Electronics Recycling is required by law owing to legislation that took effect January 1, 2012. Here is a list of the electronic devices must now be recycled. The following items cannot be thrown into the trash: Cable and satellite receivers, digital converter boxes Computers (laptop, notebook, netbook, tablet) and monitors Computer keyboards and mice DVD players [...]
Columbia College and Part-Time Faculty at the NLRB
Attorneys for Columbia College Chicago argued in a trial on Feb. 6 that charges by the adjunct faculty union were “much ado about very little” and “garden variety gripes.” Attorneys for the part-time faculty union, known as P-fac, argued that the college had violated federal labor law by cutting adjunct teaching hours without bargaining the reduction [...]
Review: A Slice of Heaven (and Hell) at LUMA
Whether you’re a believer or not, HEAVEN+HELL, a thoughtfully crafted exhibit that runs through June 30 at the Loyola University Museum of Art (LUMA) and Intuit, is bound to make you consider it, even if for just a moment. Even though most of the pieces are Christian-centric, the variety of materials and means of expression [...]
Chicago Reacts to Whitney Houston’s Death
Singer and actress, Whitney Houston has died at 48. Chicago publications and fans take to social media airwaves sharing memories, condolences, and their pain from news of her untimely death. [View the story "Chicago Reacts to Whitney Houston's Death" on Storify] Whitney Houston Has Died At Age 48 (chicagoist.com) Video: The Most Touching Whitney Houston [...]
Don’t Let Florists Wilt Your Valentine Plans
Valentine’s Day means big bucks for florists, and this year the Better Business Bureau serving Chicago and northern Illinois warns that complaints filed against florists increased 47 percent to 588 complaints in 2011, compared to 2010′s 398. “When buying flowers consumers should be especially careful when making the purchase online or over the phone,” said Steve J. Bernas, [...]
Substance Abuse, Domestic Abuse
When Felicia Simpson was married to a man who was beating her, she said she took on his habits. “For me to deal with what I went through, I smoked cigarettes and I drank heavily. Not wine, I drunk whisky. [I would] just wake up in the morning [and drink],” she recalls. “He woke up [...]
Hi-Tech Sunscreen: Healthy or Harmful?
In scenes of Caddyshack, The Adventures of Pete & Pete and even SpongeBob, there are times when the characters’ noses look painted white, an effect of the ingredients in their sunscreen. But why don’t sunscreens still do that today? The answer is in nanotechnology. Nanotechnology – commonly defined as the ability to work with and [...]
Review: Dermacolor, Shades of Perfection
Have you tried to mask some sort of blemish, birthmark or discoloration with an inexpensive foundation or concealer you found at your local drugstore. Or perhaps you splurged on a higher end product hoping for a better quality makeup. While these commercial products can be good for sheer coverage, they likely did not provide the [...]
Oriental Medicine: Part of Chicago’s Medical Options
More than 2,000 years ago, the Chinese created special remedies to cure diseases and pain in the body. These practices became known as Eastern or Oriental medicine. “To put it simply, Western medicine is mechanistic while Oriental medicine is energetic,” Alan Uretz, 51, said. “Western medicine views the body as a machine; you fix and [...]
Illinois Doctor Connects Physical Fitness and Academic Performance
Physical fitness can affect academic performance, said Charles Hillman, a kinesiology and health professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, lecturing at the University of Chicago in December. Recent experiments conducted on children from 3rd to 5th grades have shown that children and adults who are physically fit and maintain healthy diets perform better [...]
Mind the Information Gap: Health Insurance Changes in the Offing
Image via Wikipedia For the first time, the government will require that every citizen purchase health insurance or obtain it from another source, such as an employer. Recognizing that lower income families won’t be able to afford policies on their own, subsidies will be available starting in 2014 to people with annual incomes between 133 [...]
Mind the Information Gap: Few Chicagoans Understanding Health Care Reform
Several weeks ago, Derek Malone sat outside Cook County’s Fantus Clinicin the brilliant fall sunshine, looking tired and discouraged. His stomach hurt and he felt dizzy. It’d been weeks since the 55-year-old had taken medications for his high blood pressure and intestinal ailments – prescriptions he says he can’t afford. “Ten dollars for a co-pay, [...]
Underground Sounds of the Windy City
Three underdog musicians from the Northwest Side aspire to be Chicago’s next Kanye West or Common. Wilfredo Berrios, 19, wakes up every day with the intention of creating new music and perfecting his other beats. He arrives to his studio on the corner of Belmont Ave and California Ave, sits in front of his computer, [...]
Add Your Storify Items to Chicagotalks Automatically
Are you using Storify.com to report, write, and follow what’s going in the world and in social media? Chicagotalks has a plug-in for that, and we hope you will try it out for yourself. You create your Storify.com curated item first in Storify. Remember to add your own words and don’t just sling together a [...]
Quarter Century of Shows and Metro Still Packs in the Kids
As you pass through the steamy, glass doors, you reach the bearded dragon (as I like to call him). His demands are irrefutable, and coming from the paintbrush mustache, seem somewhat intimidating. “Identification.” So you hand him your I.D before he puts the hurt on you. And then he may or may not ask you [...]
