* Why won’t the state take Visa?

But Visa doesn’t allow for customers to be charged extra fees for using their cards in face-to-face purchases.

“Visa does not allow merchants to charge consumers a fee for using a Visa card because we do not believe that cardholders should be penalized for using their cards,” a company statement read. “Checkout fees on purchases are harmful to consumers and unfairly shift the cost of electronic payments onto consumers.”

* For Illinois, recession looking milder, recovery weaker

Illinois’ economic downturn is easing as home sales stabilize and factory orders start to recover, but lingering unemployment points to a weaker-than-expected recovery next year, according to a new forecast.

Moody’s Economy.com now foresees a 1.4% decline in gross state product for 2009, better than the 2.1% decline the Pennsylvania-based firm predicted earlier in the year. It’s also better than the 2.7% drop Economy.com forecasts for the national economy.

“Things are not going to be getting significantly better, but they are not going to be getting worse,” said Sophia Koropeckyj, an economist at Economy.com.

* Cloudy future requires rainy day funds

The latest figures from the Illinois Employment Security Department showed the unemployment rate rose to 11.3 percent in the Chicago metropolitan area in June from 10.7 percent in May.

Meanwhile, the median length of time workers were unemployed was more than four months, and nearly 4.4 million of the unemployed had been out of work for more than six months.

Against that backdrop, a recent survey from Country Financial found that 44 percent of Chicago residents and 49 percent of U.S. residents said they wouldn’t be able to pay their bills on time if they went more than one month between jobs.

* United flight attendants dodge job cuts

United Airlines said Friday that it avoided layoffs when about 2,100 flight attendants agreed to take voluntary furlough or other steps.

* Chrysler to welcome employees back to work

Belvidere’s 3.7-million-square-foot Chrysler auto assembly plant resumes production Monday after a nearly two-month break.

About 1,700 workers who underwent three days of training earlier this month are expected to return — welcome news for a Boone County economy hit by the troubles of the auto industry.

* New Taurus raises hopes for Ford’s South Side factory

The Ford factory is one of two remaining auto-assembly plants in the area, alongside Chrysler’s Belvidere plant, and it’s an important part of an ever-shrinking Chicago manufacturing economy. Despite a series of slow-selling vehicles produced there in recent years, Ford has continued to invest in the plant at 12600 S. Torrence Ave., which analysts say is one of the company’s more efficient production facilities, despite opening 85 years ago. Five years ago, the city and state offered $100 million in incentives that paved the way for construction of a nearby supplier park on 126th Street.

Ms. Allman declined to speculate on future employment. But as recently as November, the plant employed more than 2,000 workers in two shifts. Employment fell after an earlier Taurus model was discontinued and the deepening recession killed off demand for new cars.

* Plenty of cash for plenty of clunkers

The $1 billion clunker program — also known as the Car Allowance Rebate System — offers $3,500 to people who trade in cars that get less than 18 mpg and buy a new vehicle getting at least 22 mpg. Folks who buy a new car that gets at least 10 mpg more than their trade-in receive a $4,500 rebate. The clunkers are crushed for scrap metal.

* Luxury prices keep falling

Mansions priced at $1 million-plus are harder to sell, so owners ask for less — and add perks

* Credit card law should give consumers some relief

Interest rates will remain fixed unless a consumer is 60 days delinquent on a payment. If a payee is delinquent and the rate jumps, it will be reinstated to the fixed amount if the payee sustains at least a six-month period of meeting the new payment obligations, Rose said.

Credit card companies cannot send bills later than 21 days before the due date. Service fees will be eliminated for online or phone payments. And credit cards must provide at least 45 days of notice prior to raising the interest rate.

And adults 21 and younger who apply for a card will have to show proof of income or have someone co-sign for them, Rose said.

* Nonprofits continue boom in face of new pressures

* Central Illinois can take pride in going ‘green’

* Dry cleaners leave a toxic legacy

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has signed off on cleanups of about 500 sites since the late 1990s. More than 400 polluted locations remain, though few neighbors may know it. Most are in Chicago and its suburbs.

At more than two dozen of these sites, state records show, the dry cleaning solvent threatens nearby water wells and residential areas. The most infamous example is in south suburban Crestwood, where village officials secretly drew water from a contaminated well for more than two decades.[…]

To help clean up the contamination, the dry cleaning industry persuaded state lawmakers a decade ago to create an insurance fund financed by annual licenses and fees on the amount of perc used. The fund is expected to spend $2.75 million this year to help scour pollution from about 100 sites.

More money could have been earmarked, but last fall former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and legislative leaders took $2 million out of the fund to help balance the state budget.

* Nuke-cleanup funds $1 billion short

Funds set aside to clean up seven Exelon Corp. nuclear plant sites face a shortfall of more than $1 billion after last year’s market meltdown.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has challenged Chicago-based Exelon to respond to shortfalls in clean-up funds for the seven sites, which are grouped in four Illinois locations. The NRC could order Exelon to pump cash into the funds if it decides that is required to keep funding on track.

The four nuclear stations are Braidwood in Will County; Byron, 90 miles west of Chicago; LaSalle, about 75 miles southwest of Chicago, and Clinton, in central Illinois.

* IEPA: More than 500 used tires on two lots

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency is seeking legal action against the owner of two properties on Springfield’s far north end for alleged open dumping and illegal management of used tires.

* Human bone found on ground at 2nd cemetery spurs probe

A human bone was found on the ground at a far south suburban cemetery, but officials can’t say whether the situation mirrors the alleged grave-reselling scheme at Burr Oak Cemetery.

* Cook County sheriffs investigate 2nd cemetery

* Suit accuses 2nd suburban cemetery of body-stacking scheme

GLENWOOD — A family has filed a lawsuit alleging that a second suburban Chicago cemetery stacked bodies and resold plots in a moneymaking scheme.

* Families flock to Glenwood-area cemetery

People rushed to Mt. Glenwood Memorial Gardens South Cemetery in the south suburbs today to check on grave sites after hearing that a human bone was found on the ground there.

* U.S. House Members Review Burr Oak Scandal

* Dart not backing down on Craigslist prostitution suit

* Mocked for Arab roots, guard awarded $200K

Officer Abraham Yasin sued the Cook County sheriff’s office in 2007, saying he was constantly targeted by fellow officers with slurs such as “camel jockey,” “bin Laden,” and “shoe bomber” — over the the radio and via graffiti scrawled on his locker.[…]

The sheriff’s office said it resolved four of seven issues Yasin brought to his bosses. “Each was addressed quickly, and he thanked us each time,” the office said in a statement.

Three other incidents, including the graffiti on the locker, were investigated without discovering who was responsible, the statement said.

* Cops Respond to Ruling that Internal Inquiries are Public

* Where’s Aaron? Not behind the barn smokin’ a Jay, that’s for sure

While the rest of America (particularly law enforcement) is backing away from anti-marijuana laws, there’s some who refuse to give up the fight: The Congressional Anti-Cannabis Caucus.

According to the Desert News, the group pushes four core initiatives:

1. Stopping drug use before it starts through education and community action;
2. Healing drug users;
3. Disrupting the narcotics market; and
4. Stringent narcotics enforcement.

So far, the Congressional Anti-Cannabis Caucus has only eight members: Dan Burton & Mark Souder of Indiana, Jim Jordan & Michael Turner of Ohio, Jason Chaffetz of Utah, Darrell Issa of California, Aaron Schock of Illinois, and, the aforementioned, John Mica of Florida.

* On pot issue — for once – Stroger wise not to use veto

* Kind of dopey

* Stroger vetoes sales tax rollback

“We’ve been trying all day to line up the 14 votes for a special meeting, but everybody’s traveling,” Republican Commissioner Tony Peraica said. “We may have to wait until Sept. 1. I think we’re going to get 14 votes. I think he is engaging in a futile act.'’

* The Cook County 14

Fourteen co-sponsors. That’s how many Cook County Board members are so disturbed by dying jobs and businesses that they decided to cut in half a sales tax hike that smacks poor citizens hardest. Signing on as co-sponsors of this tax rollback was a courageous act for some of the Cook County 14. So all of us ought to offer our thanks and congrats to Forrest Claypool, Earlean Collins, John Daley, Bridget Gainer, Elizabeth Doody Gorman, Gregg Goslin, Roberto Maldonado, Joan Patricia Murphy, Tony Peraica, Tim Schneider, Pete Silvestri, Deborah Sims, Robert Steele and Larry Suffredin.

* Will Council heed unions or voters on allowing 2nd Wal-Mart in city?

The Council doesn’t care that the proposed Chatham store would employ up to 500 workers. Wal-Mart says its Chicago area stores pay an average hourly wage of $12.05 for associates (excluding managers).

Aldermen could give a whit that the multimillion-dollar West Side Wal-Mart store was built by an African-American female general contractor, with 57 percent of all the subcontracts going to women and minority-owned firms.

They sneeze at the other rich bennies Wal-Mart claims it has brought to Chicago: Its West Side store generated $10 million in new tax revenues in its first two years, and 14 new minority-owned Chicago vendors have gotten their products into Chicago area stores.

* New park on track — literally

Turning Bloomingdale Trail into a 2.7 mile-linear park for walkers and bicyclists got a little closer to reality this month, when the city selected ARUP North America to begin preliminary design and engineering work.[…]

The second design portion will handle architectural and engineering details and take another year. The city still needs at least $41 million in construction funding, and is negotiating for purchase of the land from Canadian Pacific Railway. With all these pieces left to finish, it could be “several years” before the trail is done, Steele said.

* 1 man, 2 ‘affordable’ homes

If the southwest suburban teacher could afford to buy two condos in one year, how did City Hall find that he qualified to buy any condo subsidized by Chicago taxpayers? […]

City housing officials approved Twardy’s application, saying he was making less than 90 percent of the area’s median income. […]

City officials say there was nothing to keep Twardy — or anyone else — from buying more than one affordable housing unit, as long as they met the city’s income limits.

“No rules or laws were broken when the contracts for these purchases were signed,” says Molly Sullivan, spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Community Development. “At the time … we did not have in place the same sorts of policies we have in place today.

* 1 man, 3 subsidized condos

2 ‘AFFORDABLE’ CONDOS, 1 FROZEN ASSESSMENT = $886,500 IN SUBSIDIZED HOMES

* CHA keeping promise to displaced residents

Since then, some of the original 16,800 families have returned or settled elsewhere. But thousands have not because new or rehabbed units are not ready yet.

The CHA was obliged to keep up with these families, but now it can’t find 3,200 of them. […]

The CHA can’t offer apartments to anyone on its wait list — an out-dated list of 14,000 names — until all interested relocated residents are housed.

No one wants the CHA to deny other deserving families homes because former residents haven’t responded to the CHA’s letters and calls. And the CHA shouldn’t continue spending excessively to find these families — the CHA paid a company $745,000 in the last year to hunt for them.

* Distracted driving a major problem

Legislation is likely to be introduced again by state Rep. William Black, a Danville Republican, that would create a misdemeanor category for negligent vehicular homicide. It could result in a prison term of one year and a maximum fine of $2,500. Pyke reported that Black pushed for the bill after a 25-year-old bicyclist was killed in Urbana by a driver who went off the road while downloading ring tones on her cell phone. She was only charged with improper lane usage.

We would support such a bill and we also support Secretary of State Jesse White’s call for a two-year study into distracted driving.

* Naperville putting up more red-light cameras

The city claims that since red-light cameras were installed at the intersection of North Aurora Road and Route 59, there has been a 33 percent reduction in crashes with injuries.

The suburb also found an 8 percent reduction in rear-end crashes. That counters the complaints of red-light camera opponents who say the cameras increase rear-end crashes because people brake suddenly to avoid a $100 ticket.

* Red-light camera 101: Know your enemy

* The green in red

* Only 10% of parking tickets are contested

Only 10 percent of the approximately 2.8 million parking tickets issued each year in Chicago are contested. But of those contested, over half are dismissed, says Sheldon Zeiger, a lawyer and former parking enforcement hearing officer and former administrative law officer in the Department of Administrative Hearings.

* CTA BUS DRIVERS: WE’RE NOT HARASSMENT COPS

The head of the CTA bus drivers union said drivers can’t be expected to defend passengers from sexual harassment without proper backup from transit managers and Chicago Police.

* Illinois to post bridge data online

Information about state bridge inspections is expected to be posted on the Internet next month. While complete inspection reports showing the condition of state bridges won’t be available, officials say the information being compiled will offer motorists a snapshot of the status of a bridge.

* Governors Talk High-Speed Rail in Chicago

A spokeswoman for Quinn says the Midwest governors may finally pick leaders to head up the region’s high-speed rail efforts.

* Slow down those fast-train dreams

* Gay Rights Equal Civil Rights: Illinois Needs To Say So

* 17% of gay men here HIV-positive, new stats confirm

* Daley couldn’t bear to watch Buehrle

‘’I shut it off because I thought it’d be bad luck for him,'’ the mayor said.

* Late Hawk’s videos resonate with fans