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    Will Guzzardi

    Will Guzzardi

    Logan Square community organizer

  • How To Help The Surviving Baby Of Slain Pregnant Teen

    Charinez Jefferson, a 17-year-old with a big smile, was walking with through the Marquette Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side Tuesday night when a man?ran up to them and started shooting. Jefferson also had a one-year-old child who is in the care of her family. Now, a local organization that deals with violence against women and children is rallying the community together to help Jefferson's surviving babies.

  • Cops: Suburban State Senator Involved In Domestic Incident

    A freshman Republican in the Illinois State Senate was involved in a domestic incident with her husband Tuesday night, according to the Lake County Sheriff's Office. Suzanne "Suzi" Schmidt represents an area in Chicago's north suburbs, including her home in Lake Villa. "At approximately 6 p.m., sheriff’s deputies were summoned by [Schmidt's husband] Robert to the Schmidt residence, where they took statements from both Suzanne and Robert regarding a verbal argument that resulted in this domestic call out," the sheriff's office said in a press statement,?reprinted by the Northwest Herald.

  • Man Claims Murder Of Grandmother, Teen Was Self-Defense

    A man accused in the 2009 murders of three members of his fiancee's family, stabbed to death in their suburban Chicago home, apparently told police he killed the family while defending himself. In court on Wednesday, portions of D'Andre Howard's police interrogation were played for the first time. According to investigators, Howard, now 23, had fought on the night of April 17, 2009 with his fiancee, Amanda Engelhardt.

  • After Years-Long International Custody Battle, Father And Daughter Reunite

    Three and a half years ago, Michael Sanchez went to visit his two-year-old daughter Emily at her mother Nigia Machado's apartment in Berwyn, Illinois. The couple had split, but they'd arranged a custody agreement where he could see Emily two days a week and every other weekend. Instead,?according to NBC Chicago, he found a note from Nigia saying she'd fled, and taken Emily with her.

  • Man Who Stole, Swallowed Diamond Ring Gets 12-Day Sentence

    Wilfredo Gonzalez-Cruz was performing repairs at a couple's home in Cicero, Illinois when the husband approached him and said that his wife's ring had gone missing. Gonzalez-Cruz had apparently?stolen the ring and stashed it in his shoe. Cicero police took Gonzalez-Cruz to MacNeal Hospital in Berwyn, where X-rays revealed that the ring was in his stomach,?NBC Chicago reports?(see photo).

  • Authorities Believe Up To 20 Geese Have Been Poisoned In Chicago Parks

    At least 20 geese have been found dead in two parks on the city's Southwest Side, and authorities believe they may have been poisoned. According to ABC, eighteen of the geese were found in McKinley Park, in the neighborhood of the same name. At least two more were found in McGuane Park, in nearby Bridgeport.

  • State Finds 'Substantial Evidence' That B&Bs Discriminated Against Gay Couple

    An Illinois state panel says it has found "substantial evidence" that two businesses discriminated against a gay couple looking for a venue for their civil union ceremony. Mark and Todd Wathen, like many same-sex couples in Illinois, were excited at the prospect of legal recognition when?the state passed its civil unions law this winter. The partners, who live in downstate Mattoon, Illinois, began looking for places to hold their civil union ceremony.

  • Durbin Weighs In On Marquee Congressional Primary Race

    Thanks to?the recently-completed redistricting process, Illinois's Congressional delegation is in for a big shake-up in the 2012 elections. A number of incumbent Republicans have been drawn into unfavorable districts, setting up a feeding frenzy among Democrats to try and unseat them. Setting up for the biggest Democratic primary battle is?the Eighth District, where former Veterans Affairs official and Congressional candidate Tammy Duckworth is running against recent state comptroller candidate Raja Krishnamoorthi.

  • Rahm Emanuel Moving To Settle Burge Torture Lawsuits

    Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel believes it's time the city closes the book on one of the ugliest and most notorious chapters in its history: the Jon Burge torture cases. During his tenure at the Area 2 violent crimes unit, former police commander Burge is believed to have personally administered and overseen?the torture of hundreds of suspects, extracting confessions from mostly young black suspects. Burge was?sent to prison earlier this year?relating to the torture allegations.

  • 'We Are Wisconsin': Launch Party For New Book On Protests

    After working in D.C. politics -- for former Speaker Pelosi, for Organizing for America, for the DNC -- she was disheartened by the results of the midterm elections, and found herself in London this winter. There, she fell in with the leaders of that season's protests against England's harsh austerity measures, delivered by a recently-elected conservative leader, Prime Minister David Cameron. As they prepared for a major rally in England, reports began coming in of a movement afoot in Madison, fighting the harsh anti-union laws of another newly-minted conservative leader, Governor Scott Walker.

  • Will Chicago Teachers Take A Strike Vote? And Can It Pass?

    First, the state legislature?passed a law?cutting into teachers' abilities to negotiate their contracts, modifying tenure and opening the door for a longer school day and year with no guarantees of additional pay. Then, new Chicago Public Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard?revoked their scheduled four-percent pay raises?for next year. Now, Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis is suggesting that teachers might bite back.

  • WATCH: R. Kelly Heads Up Children's Back-To-School Parade

    Over the weekend, the Bronzeville neighborhood on Chicago's South Side played host to?the 82nd annual Bud Billiken Parade, the oldest and biggest African-American parade in America. Serving as the parade's honorary grand marshal was a very popular -- and not uncontroversial -- Chicago celebrity: R&B superstar R. Kelly. Born Robert Sylvester Kelly, the multi-platinum superstar grew up on the South Side, bouncing from housing project to housing project before enrolling at Kenwood High School.

  • Cops: Man Threatened To Put Pipe Bomb In 2-Year-Old's Bedroom

    A suburban Chicago man appeared in DuPage County Court Friday on explosives charges, with authorities claiming that he threatened to bomb the bedroom of a two-year-old child. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, police first began investigating Bryan Roehr when they received a tip from the child's mother. Roehr claimed that the woman owed him money, and he allegedly said that the child's room would be a "good place" to plant a pipe bomb if he wasn't repaid.

  • Man Accused Of Stabbing His Mother When She Offered Him A Sandwich

    A 27-year-old man is in custody on Friday after allegedly stabbing his mother repeatedly when she offered to make him a sandwich. Alexander Georg of suburban Naperville, Illinois, is charged with the attempted murder of his mother, whose "bone-chilling screams" alerted the neighbors to the crime. The victim had just picked up her son from Edward Hospital's Linden Oaks behavioral health facility in Naperville, where he had been checked in following a domestic incident at the home.

  • First-Day Attendance Up At Early-Start Schools

    It looks like a massive publicity campaign, including a?door-to-door outreach by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and schools chief Jean-Claude Brizard,?paid off. Attendance at the first day of Chicago's early-starting schools was up to 88.1 percent this year, from 86.8 percent last year. The 88.1 percent figure is the highest that Chicago Public Schools has recorded for Track E schools since it began tracking the data more carefully several years ago.

  • Change In Trash Collection Could Erode Classic Chicago Politics

    The method by which the city of Chicago collects garbage seems like the most esoteric of municipal concerns. At stake is one of Chicago's most time-honored political traditions: the sovereignty of the alderman over his ward, and his direct relationship with his constituents as the guy who gets things done. Call your alderman, goes the traditional Chicago wisdom.

  • Nice Cream, Tough State: Regulators Threaten Life Of Small Business

    In many ways, Nice Cream is the quintessential small-business success story. Laid off from her job with the Chicago Public Schools, Kris Swanberg decided to try her hand at artisanal ice-cream making. Using hand-picked fruits, organic local milk, and a certain culinary genius, Swanberg started making tiny batches of inspired flavors, which she started selling at the small, independently-owned Green Grocer on Chicago’s Near West Side in October of 2008.

  • New Details On Boy Who Disappeared After Mother's Suicide

    Authorities have released new details in the disappearance of young Timmothy Pitzen, who has been missing for three months in a case that only gets stranger and more disturbing as time goes by. On May 11, Amy Fry-Pitzen, Timmothy's mother, checked her six-year-old son out of the Greenman Elementary School in suburban Aurora, Illinois, 40 miles west of Chicago. On Thursday, authorities released new information about the case, but are still apparently far from locating the missing boy.

  • 'Severed Foot' Found In Lake Actually Not So Scary

    A 13-year-old boy was out fishing on tiny Lake Marie in north suburban Antioch, Illinois when his line snagged on what he thought was a big catch. The Antioch Fire Dive Team, the Lake County Sheriff’s Marine Unit and the sheriff’s Criminal Investigations Division began combing the murky water, using special sonar equipment brought in for the purpose. Lt. Christopher Thompson of the Lake County Sheriff's Office said that the boy made the right decision in alerting the authorities, given how realistic the prop was.

  • Quinn Moves To Abolish Controversial Legislative Scholarships

    Illinois Governor Pat Quinn has used his veto pen to abolish the state's controversial legislative scholarship program. On Wednesday, Quinn used his powers of "amendatory veto" to rewrite a bill passed by both houses that would have reformed the scholarship program. The change comes on the heels of news that?federal investigators are probing?a former legislator's use of the program to give scholarships to four children of a major campaign donor.