* Not making rent

Only once this year has Suburban Cook County Regional Office of Education - headed by Supt. Charles Flowers - paid rent to Westchester Public School District 92 1 / 2 , according to documents received from the district through a Freedom of Information Act request.

From July 2008 to June 2009, Flowers’ office should have paid $41,150 for the space at 10110 Gladstone Street in Westchester, which is leased from the school district. It has only made good on $24,004. The regional office shares the building with MacNeal School, a private school affiliated with MacNeal Hospital that services special education students, which also rents from the district.

* Panel advances FBI expansion at O’Hare

The FBI has had a full-time presence at O¹Hare for more than 30 years, but the agency occupied so little space, it paid no rent. The office included only 400 square feet.

The new 10-year lease — with a five-year renewal option — calls for an expansion to 1,693 square feet at a rent of $90 per square foot. The rent would be adjusted upward at an annual rate of three percent.

* 2 FutureGen partners drop out of coal project

Just two weeks after the federal government revived plans to build the FutureGen power plant in eastern Illinois, two of the experimental coal plant’s financial backers said Thursday they are withdrawing.

The exit of American Electric Power Co. and Southern Co. leaves the nine power and coal companies that are still part of what’s known as the FutureGen Alliance searching for new partners to help cover building and startup costs they expect to reach roughly $2.4 billion.

* Greencorps Chicago job program gets $700K grant

Chicago’s green jobs initiative will receive a $700,000 grant from the Wal-Mart Foundation.

The city’s Greencorps Chicago program was selected for the grant by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

The program provides environmental jobs for between 40 and 50 people that last at least nine months. The jobs focus on eco-restoration, community gardens, plant distribution, landscaping, electronics and hazardous waste recycling and weatherizing projects.

* Court OKs Hartmarx Sale to British Firm

The roughly 3,500 employees of a Chicago-based menswear maker are breathing easier. A federal court has approved a sale of Hartmarx Corp. to owners who say they’ll keep most of the company intact.

* Joliet’s Empress Casino reopens 3 months after fire

* Thousands welcome Empress reopening

* Health care sole bright spot in area jobs figures

State figures showed health care and social assistance is the only industry that has added jobs in the Springfield area since May 2008. In fact, the 16,000 people who work in the health field in Springfield fall only 1,200 short of the number working for state government, still the largest local employer.

* Local layoffs add more pain to jobless picture

Aurora companies that have experienced layoffs include Fluid Air, Olsson Roofing Company, Luse-Stevenson Co. and Andy Frain Services, Cooper said.

Two Geneva companies have had layoffs — Catom Trucking and Burgess Norton Manufacturing.

A Plano company, National Tractor Parts, also laid off 80 people recently, according to Cooper’s office.

According to an Illinois Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act Report, U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Brands in the DuPage County section of Aurora laid off 72 employees.

These layoffs come at a time when one of the area’s largest employers, Caterpillar, finished its planned 1,400 layoffs at the Oswego Township plant for this year.

* Chicago metro jobless rate hits 26-year high

Unemployment in metropolitan Chicago has reached a level not seen since August 1983.

The seasonally unadjusted jobless rate rose to 10.7% during May in the Chicago-Naperville-Joliet area, up from 9.9% the prior month, according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security.

There were 185,900 fewer people employed in the metro area last month compared with the same month in 2008. That figure, the highest among the 12 Illinois metro areas reported, suggests that the recession continues to hamper the local labor market.

Chicago-Naperville-Joliet’s May jobless rate was the second-highest, behind Rockford’s 13.4%. Kankakee-Bradley was third-highest, at 10.6%.

* Unemployment rising again in Illinois metro areas

The Rockford metro area, which includes Winnebago County and part of Boone County, had the highest jobless rate, 13.4 percent, a 1.3 percentage point increase from April and just shy of the March high of 13.5 percent.

Boone County, where the Chrysler plant in Belvidere has been idled intermittently, had the highest single-county unemployment rate at 13.7 percent.

* Unemployment hits 10% in Peoria

* City Council aim to shield taxpayers from Olympic risks

The City Council is mapping plans to hire an independent insurance analyst at taxpayers’ expense to comb through the $1 billion in private insurance policies being lined up by Chicago 2016 to shield taxpayers from any risk beyond the $500 million the City Council has already pledged.

Chicago 2016 Chairman Pat Ryan said this week he needs 45 to 60 days before he’ll be ready to outline the carriers, costs and conditions of the insurance.

But after a closed-door briefing with Ryan Thursday, Ald. Joe Moore (49th) insisted that the information be delivered to aldermen in time to conduct an independent risk-assessment analysis prior to the International Olympic Committee’s Oct. 2 vote.

Aldermen also intend to hire their own experts to verify Chicago 2016’s construction budget and the Olympic committee’s representation of surpluses generated by past Olympics to make certain “they’re not cooking the books,” Moore said.

* Chicago aldermen demand Olympics money details after private meetings

* Community Group Wants Oversight on Chicago 2016 Olympic Spending

Communities for an Equitable Olympics, or CEO 2016, wants oversight on those public dollars.

* Hold the Mayor, City Council Accountable on Olympic Spending

* Costs get county called on carpet

Taxpayers are footing the bill for the new, brilliant blue carpeting in the lobby of the Cook County building. But officials don’t want them treading on a giant logo woven into it.

So blue velvet roping cordons off the single Cook County seal that faces the County Building’s entrance at 118 N. Clark.

A copy of the invoice shows the county paid $1,633.33 for logo work. Another $800 is on the invoice for variety of carpet colors, but it’s unclear whether those are for the logo.

* RTA OKs $67 million in spending cuts

The amount of public funding that Chicago-area transit agencies can expect to receive this year was slashed by $67 million Thursday.

The move by the Regional Transportation Authority board, in a 9-0 vote, was expected in order to bring transit budgets in line with declining tax revenue.

The CTA will need to reduce spending by $35 million for the rest of the year; Metra, $19 million; and Pace, $7 million. In addition, a $6 million cut was ordered for Pace’s paratransit program serving people with disabilities.

* A longer wait for your bus is better than no bus at all

The inevitable is here: CTA service cuts. The Regional Transportation Authority, the CTA’s parent, voted Thursday to reduce the CTA’s budget by $35 million. That’s on top of a $155 million hit the CTA already absorbed in April.

CTA President Richard Rodriguez says he’ll first look in-house to reduce costs but it’s doubtful that will be enough. That leaves only a few other options: route eliminations, reduced bus and train hours or longer wait times between buses and trains.

Thankfully, Rodriguez seems more interested in reducing service than eliminating it. On Wednesday, the new CTA chief mentioned the possibility of increasing the time between buses to 15 minutes from five to seven minutes on some routes.

* Pace could raise fares for disabled riders: chair

RTA Chair Jim Reilly suggested that Pace could raise fares for paratransit riders to $3 across the region to deal with funding problems.

Reilly’s comments came as the RTA board considered reserving $25 million in federal capital funds from CTA, Metra and Pace to pay for service for the disabled. The decision on reserving the money was deferred until next month.

Currently, riders pay $2.25 in the city, $3 in suburban Cook County, and $2.50 in the collar counties to ride on paratransit, which provides van pick-up for riders who cannot take regular transit services due to their disabilities. The real cost of the service, which is federally mandated, is about $40 a trip.

* RTA delays move on paratransit stopgap

* Metra invests in past and Kentucky

Metra could have spent millions of tax dollars in Illinois, but instead is spending the money in Kentucky.

The public transit agency has a contract to spend $87 million with Progress Rail of Mayfield, Ky., over the next three years to rebuild 40 of the diesel locomotives in its fleet of 144.

Back in May, I wrote about the National Railway Equipment Co. of Illinois, which has three plants in Illinois, including one in Dixmoor, and claims to be the largest distributor of remanufactured locomotives in the country. National Railway also has a plant in Kentucky.

That company has launched a new division, N-ViroMotive, to build new, environmentally friendly locomotives that would reduce pollution and noise, cut fuel costs and meet new U.S. EPA guidelines for emissions.

* City beefing up police presence for Taste of Chicago

The enhanced security measures, which include live surveillance feeds near the festival, were in part influenced by President Obama’s successful election night rally in Grant Park, said Weis, who was grilled by aldermen last year after four people were shot just as the crowd dispersed after the Taste’s July 3 fireworks.

The mayor also lambasted Weis for the violence in a one-on-one meeting.

“He was trying to say, ‘We did everything we could to control the problems.’ The response from Daley was, ‘Like hell,’ ” a source had told the Sun-Times at the time.

Weis said the department is learning from past “mistakes” and will keep a vigilant eye on “troublemakers.”

* Cops reveal ‘Taste’ security plans

* Even cops losing their jobs in recession

In Chicago, with a police force of about 13,000, the number of vacancies has climbed to more than 400 since January 2008 because the department is not hiring to keep up with the number of officers who leave. The city could be down 800 officers by the end of the year, said Mark Donahue, president of the police union.

The danger of one-person squad cars was seen last summer in Chicago when Officer Richard Francis, riding alone, responded to a disturbance involving a mentally ill woman. During a struggle, the woman allegedly grabbed Francis’ gun and killed the 27-year veteran.

* CPS to test teens for STDs

Approved by the Board of Education this week, the pilot education, testing and treatment program will be run by the city Department of Public Health in six high schools at no cost to CPS.

Participation by the schools and students — 11th- and 12th-graders are being targeted — will be voluntary, CPS officials said.

The program, in development for over a year, is based on the most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics, for 2007, which showed Cook County notched 12,338 reported gonorrhea cases, or 233 per 100,000 population. The county notched 30,881 chlamydia cases, or 583 per 100,000 population — second only to Los Angeles County.

* Chicago alderman has concerns about proposed downtown dorm

A proposed 37-story downtown dormitory is facing resistance from a key alderman, who fears that the privately financed venture would turn into apartment housing with no university control.

* Peoria County Battles Budget Shortfall

* Ardis: Revenue sources needed to patch budget

PEORIA —A combination of budget cuts and revenue increases is needed to patch a $10 million deficit next year, Mayor Jim Ardis told a group of business people on Thursday.

* The people, illnesses behind lawsuits against Crestwood and its use of a tainted well

* Highland Park, Elgin consider restrictions on pit bulls

* Attorney General sues Wheeling travel agency

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a lawsuit Thursday against a Wheeling tour company, saying the firm canceled trips but didn’t refund its customers.

Madigan’s suit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, alleges that Cosper & Cosper Group Tours and its owners, William and Gayle Cosper, have accepted nearly $24,000 from vacation planners for scheduling guided tours throughout the country. The suit claims the couple repeatedly failed to pay refunds to consumers when those tours were canceled.

William Cosper, reached at his office on Thursday, denied Madigan’s claims.

* Illinois Attorney General sues tour guide company

* Taste is the place for perfect pairings of food and music

* Energy Festival this weekend in Carbondale

* Peterson trial witness list: 805 people

Saying Drew Peterson’s attorneys were attempting to simplify disclosure evidence into “CliffsNotes,” prosecutors thwarted the bid Thursday but will have to pare an 805-witness list down to the 50 most likely to testify.

* Kids expect to set LEGO world record

* John Callaway memorial service on Sunday

A memorial service for John Callaway, the veteran Chicago radio and television newsman, is set for 3 p.m. Sunday in Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, 5850 S. Woodlawn Ave.

* Services are Saturday for soldier killed in Afghanistan

* East Peoria soldier promoted posthumously