Last month, dozens of new civil suits alleging phone hacking were brought against News of the World, the now defunct British tabloid owned by News Corp., headed by Rupert Murdoch.Improprieties at News of the World stem back to 2005, but accusations and revelations have been steady

When Chicago Fire Department Fire Commissioner Robert Hoff resigned earlier this year, Mayor Emanuel chose another longtime Chicagoan to lead the department. Jose Santiago has some 33 years with the Chicago Fire Department, but that might not have been the case without some prodding from his “fire buff” friends decades ago.

When roughly 60 foreign dignitaries complete with their own security teams descend on Chicago all at once, what does that mean for life in the city? That’s a question we’ll put to Tom Kasza Thursday afternoon on Afternoon Shift.

Back in January, the anti-consumerist website Adbusters had high hopes for mass protests in Chicago right around this time. We try get a better sense for what kind of protests we might expect during and leading up to the NATO summit on May 20 and 21.

Remember Rachel Dratch? If the answer is no, “Debbie Downer” might ring a bell. The comedian spent seven seasons with Saturday Night Live. She tells WBEZ about her new book Girl Walks into a Bar...Comedy Calamities, Dating Disasters, and a Midlife Miracle, and talks about how the roles she’s had access to since SNL have been limited.

Jimmy Santiago Baca has won loads of awards for his writing—the Pushcart Prize, the National Poetry Award and the International Hispanic Heritage Award, just to name a few. But Baca didn’t learn to read and write in school. In fact, nobody taught him. He taught himself while serving time in prison as a teen.

We may be home to the third-largest African American population in the United States, but some—like the Chicago Tribune’s Christopher Borelli--say African Americans are missing from leadership roles in the kitchen.