Mark Brown
Columnist
Mark Brown is a columnist who specializes in politics and public policy issues.
Since the former Illinois House speaker was indicted under a law that’s been used to go after mob bosses, the charges involving ComEd have gotten the most attention. But there’s another big piece of the case.
It was a sweeping indictment that rolls up so much of what we recognize as longstanding, everyday Illinois politics (of the corrupt variety) and packages it into a racketeering conspiracy.
He should have known he shouldn’t be playing in certain sandboxes. Washington Federal Bank for Savings was such a sandbox, a playpen for scoundrels.
The retired Indiana University photography professor trained his lens on Chicago’s homeless. His new book reveals a side of homelessness that’s often hidden.
The nightmare-inducing 2000 sci-fi flop ‘Red Planet,’ starring Val Kilmer and Carrie-Anne Moss, has me thinking of an even wilder doomsday scenario / movie plot. Or is it?
In a new report, it says the Lightfoot administration and former Corporation Counsel Mark Flessner had no legal authority to agree to license the bar without lifting a 1995 moratorium.
‘No evidence’ of politics in state hiring, Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration says. But Noelle Brennan wants to know how the Illinois Capital Development Board hired two previously fired state employees and a son of an agency official.
Once a counterculture staple, it’s closing Jan. 31 after 52 years selling ‘smoking accessories.’ Owner Shelly Miller hoped legal weed might save the business. It didn’t.
Just because I’m sentimental and thrifty, my wife mistakes my tendency to hang onto stuff as some sort of sickness. Unfortunately, the holidays can expose such tendencies.