WBEZ 91.5 Chicago

It was hard-ball politics, Chicago style.On this October 24th in 1899, the City of Chicago took over the independent Town of Austin - and Austin didn't like it one bit.The people of Austin had wanted to keep their community of 4,000 separate from the big, bad city.

Crew shortages have caused transportation officials to cancel seven commuter trains on Metra's Union Pacific West line, which runs from Elburn to Chicago, according to the Associated Press.Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis tells AP that the lack of engineers isn't due to labor strife.  Instead

Updated on 4/7/11 at 11:06amVoters throughout Chicago's suburbs cast ballots in more than two dozen races for mayor or village president.  But amidst budget pressures and uncertain economic times, the response from voters in most communities was: stay the course.That wasn't true in eve