* Lawsuits cost city $136 mil. last year

* City wants to end Shakman decree

Mayor Richard Daley’s administration believes it has cleaned up the city’s corrupt hiring system and early next year will seek to end court oversight of its personnel practices, his top lawyer told aldermen Thursday.

Mara Georges said she plans to tell a federal judge that the city is in “substantial compliance” with the decades-long Shakman decree, the legal threshold for getting out from under court control. Georges’ brief comment came during a question and answer session with a City Council budget committee.

The Daley administration has longed chafed about its hiring system being under the scrutiny of court-appointed monitor Noelle Brennan. She was named to the position in August 2005 after authorities arrested Daley’s patronage chief and others on charges they rigged the hiring system to reward the mayor’s political allies with jobs and promotions.

* Stroger rehires county commissioner’s brother as primary election looms

* Alvarez wrongly takes on student journalists

* Rigging the test

And it gets worse: Schools aren’t even testing many 11th graders who wouldn’t perform well. As the Tribune recently reported, school districts across the state use a loophole that allows them to liberally define who is a high school junior. The Tribune found that 20 percent of sophomores in the state didn’t advance to junior status last year.

Voila! You’re not a junior, you don’t take the test! And the school’s results aren’t weighed down.

* Recession allows City Hall to drop hourly rates paid to outside lawyers

* Compromised Care: West Side nursing home probed after death

Psychotic felon fatally beat dementia patient at facility with numerous reports of violence, records show

* Warehouse Workers Lose Jobs After Unionizing

About 70 workers at a vacuum-cleaner warehouse in Will County are losing their jobs. The vacuum company says it’s because a contract for their services is ending. The workers say it’s because they joined a union and complained about their pay and conditions.

* Temp Agency Defends Warehouse Dismissals

A firm that supplies labor for a southwest suburban warehouse is disputing a claim that it’s firing workers because they petitioned for a union.

* Company moving headquarters, 100 jobs to Illinois

* Durbin to address unemployment issue

* Higher disability tied to obesity

* Swine flu has sickened 22 million

* Illinois begins new road safety program

* Bad growing season haunts farmers

Rainy spring, cool summer shrink pumpkins

* Motorola considers shrinking to just 2-way radios, barcode scanners

* Blackhawks’ value soars 26% in one year

According to a Forbes magazine report released this week, the NHL had its most profitable year in 2008-09 and team values rose $3 million to an average of $223 million.

The Hawks, however, increased in value the most. They had ranked 14th in 2007-08, with a value of $205 million. Last year, their value climbed to $258 million — a whopping 26 percent increase. So, the Hawks now rank seventh in financial value among the 30 NHL teams.

* Stringing the Holiday Lights on the Illinois State Capitol - Nov 12, 2009…