Lead Story: Let’s say you’re a minister who isn’t happy about the teachers strike (which, hey! is now over!). One might assume, being a man of God, that you’d offer to help negotiations or open up your church to host out-of-school children. But if you’re Bishop Larry Trotter of the South Side’s Sweet Holy Spirit Missionary Baptist Church, you protest the strike by staging a mock crucifixion using your four-year-old granddaughter. (ABC 7 notes that other men helped hold the girl up and that she wasn’t actually just “dangling” from the cross, so there’s that.) About his symbolic gesture Trotter said, “Our children are being neglected. Their hope is being crucified. Their education is being crucified and their future is being crucified.” He didn’t take sides, though, blaming everyone involved – Mayor Emanuel, the school board and the teachers union. Still, you have to admire the Bishop for sticking to the adage “show, don’t tell.”

Also: Just when you thought it was safe to move on, Jon Burge is back in our lives. Five new cases of alleged torture under the disgraced former police commander have been assigned to judges by the Illinois Torture Relief and Inquiry Commission. And there are still dozens more Burge-related cases for the commission to go through. The problem, as our own Rob Wildeboer reports, is that funding for the commission has been halted. David Thomas, former executive director for the commission, said the commission needs around $250,000 a year for the next three years to finish the job. Given the findings of previous Burge-related investigations – not to mention Burge’s own trial – and a number of other cases in Chicago in which the convicted were later exonerated, the state needs to fund the commission to finish the work if it ever hopes to fully escape Burge’s tainted legacy.                                     

And then: Because, as we’ve already seen this morning, nothing fuels calm, rational discourse like religion, a new study by a Harvard scholar claims Jesus may have been married. Karen King, Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School, shared the discovery, based on information written on a small piece of papyrus; the writing includes the phrase, “Jesus said to them, my wife.” Not surprising, this has a lot of people kind of upset because it doesn’t fit into the typical Western view of Jesus as a tall white, single dude with a long flowing beard (like any number of indie rockers out of Brooklyn). King also pointed out that historical evidence has failed to disprove Jesus’ long-disputed relationship status. Jesus couldn’t be reached for comment but the relationship status on his Facebook profile reads, “it’s complicated.”                                                              

RIP: Steve Sabol, president of NFL Films, at the age of 69 from brain cancer. Steve, along with his father Ed, helped revolutionize the way football games are filmed and presented. Most football fans are well acquainted with their Super Bowl recap films, but Sabol’s work went beyond that – his writing, production and creative oversight garnered him dozens of Emmy awards.

Elsewhere

• Fact-checking Mitt Romney’s now-infamous secretly taped speech.
• The Russians are hiding a boatload of diamonds in an asteroid crater because that’s what Russians do.
• Berlin doesn’t want you, hipsters.
• Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly will have a debate showdown available via pay-per-view on the Internet later in October.
• Reviews of the new iPhone are rolling in, which I’m sure will result in total agreement across Internet message boards.

Looking Ahead:

• The CTA’s new Express Bus service has a new name: “Jump.” Van Halen and Kris Kross will fight to the death in a cage match to determine whose song gets to accompany promo material.
• Chicago: one of the nation’s most digital cities.
• A fantastic interview with Muhammad Ali conducted by a New Trier High School student in 1967 has surfaced.
• A Chicago Police officer has been arrested on charges of accepting a bribe to dismiss a criminal case.

Sports

• Jay Cutler has sorta backpedaled on his treatment of offensive tackle J’Marcus Webb during the Bears drubbing at the hands of the Packers last week.
• It’s been such a bad year for the Cubs, even their fictional titles are being taken away.     
• The Toronto Blue Jays’ Yunel Escobar was suspended for three games for the homophobic slur he had written in his eye black in Spanish during a game on Saturday.
• The Chicago Baseball Museum is now a thing.
• Sox Watch: A win over the Royals keeps the Sox three games up on Detroit.                                           

Finally
How did Mars go from a watery, Earth-like surface to its current red desert state? By losing its atmosphere. And how did that happen? Watch below and learn.