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As you've certainly heard by now, The Dark Knight broke all kinds of box office records over the weekend, earning $158.3 million.

In my story about a program used to ease overcrowding at the Cook County Jail, I mentioned briefly that the John Howard Association, a jail watchdog group, has some new numbers out.

Salman Rushdie was at the Chicago Public Library last week to read from his new novel, The Enchantress of Florence.

As you may have heard on the radio this morning, Chatham Food Center founder Leonard Harris recently sold his store. That marks the end of an era for the region since Chatham Food Center was the last full service grocery store in Chicago that was black-owned.

Did you know that Ira Glass took it upon himself to give Liz Phair's band some pointers after seeing an early show of theirs at the Metro? Yeah, me neither.

When I first hosted the Louder Than a Bomb finalists here in 2005, I couldn't have been more impressed with these remarkable young writers. Never having heard slam poetry before, I was struck by their confidence (not so sure I could have done that when I was 15 years old).