A week’s worth of developing stories, odd events, and signs of the times, culled from the desks, inboxes, and wandering eyes of the editors.
Tony Hu is Fine
After a series of FBI raids on his chain of Lao restaurants (Yunnan, Sze Chuan, Shanghai, etc.) wherein federal agents searched computers and seized paperwork, shutting down the restaurants in the middle of the lunch rush, big-shot Chinatown chef and mogul Tony Hu has reassured his hordes of loyal customers with a profound statement of positivity. “I am fine,” said Hu in a recent email to DNAinfo. Now we can all rest peacefully knowing that the namesake of that delicious Chef Tony’s Chicken wasn’t harmed by those pesky government officers who went snooping into his totally legitimate restaurant operation. No word on the future of said operation, but Hu did indicate that he would be hiring an attorney.
Non-endorsement of the Sun-Times
Longtime Sun-Times political reporter David McKinney has resigned, and the Sun-Times has endorsed Bruce Rauner for governor, as if things could get any worse. The endorsement, which broke Sun-Times’s own three-year no-endorsement policy, came after a borderline-defamatory attack on McKinney by the campaign, which alleged that McKinney’s wife, Ann Liston, was working with a PAC to defeat Rauner. In his resignation letter, McKinney traced the issue to his work on a piece “focused on litigation involving the former executive, who alleged Bruce Rauner, while a director of the company, threatened her, her family and her future job prospects.” He was attacked by the Rauner campaign and, for some reason, placed on leave. We have to tell it straight: it is a great lapse of integrity in Chicago journalism.
Dyett Lives
CPS announced Friday that it would initiate a formal request for proposals for an open-enrollment high school to replace Dyett High School, on the northern edge of Washington Park. Slated for closure in 2012, Dyett now serves only thirteen seniors who take a number of classes online. The Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO) has been fighting to keep the school open since the closure decision. According to KOCO organizer Jitu Brown, the Coalition to Revitalize Dyett High School has presented a proposal for the Dyett Global Leadership and Green Technology High School—which includes a “full academic plan”—both to Alderman Will Burns and CPS officials, but none were willing to commit to it. The announcement of the RFP comes weeks after eleven KOCO activists were arrested during a sit-in at City Hall, but also, interestingly, during the heat of election season.
Capone Lives Too?
People are always trying to get a peek inside Barbara Hogsette’s house in Greater Grand Crossing, and she just can’t take it anymore—even if Al Capone did once live there. The six-bedroom house is far too expensive for the retired CPS teacher to maintain, but she’s had a hard time trying to sell it. Capone bought the home for only $5,500 in 1923 and lived in it for eight years before being sent to prison for tax evasion, and a petition has been started to preserve the building and turn it into a museum.