Chicago

CHICAGO -- In retrospect, an alarm did sound that death was on the way.The alert came from Iowa, where oven-like air was powerful enough to fell tens of thousands of cattle, turkeys, chickens and hogs."

"You know, in Chicago, we have a very unusual association with people that work for us."-- Dan RostenkowskiI had just finished my freshman year at college and needed a summer job. So I did the usual things: responded to classified ads, went to employment agencies, made phone calls, sent out letters.There were a lot of kids doing the same thing, however, and I was getting nowhere. But the father of my girlfriend was a community activist who happened to know Marshall Korshak, city treasurer of Chicago.

"Whenever I watch a Bulls game on the TV," Slats Grobnik said, "I'm embarrassed at being from Chicago."Embarrassed? Are you crazy? We again have the amazing Michael, leaping over tall centers in a single bound. That is a reason to be proud, not embarrassed."Michael, yeah, OK, he's pretty good, even though he don't give the ball to Will Perdue enough. Will's my hero because he has feet the same size as mine. But it ain't the team or the players that embarrass me."I should hope not. What does?

PHOENIX -- Everything was in place for a wild celebration in Chicago on Friday night.The champagne was on ice, the gleaming NBA championship trophy was within reach of commissioner David Stern, and an army of riot-trained police was prepared to quell a repeat of last year's looting and violence.A few enterprising vendors already were taking the Bulls' threepeat mission a step farther, offering "four-play" T-shirts to the fanatics who filled Chicago Stadium.But the Phoenix Suns found all this party planning presumptuous, if not downright rude.

CHICAGO -- President Clinton, with beleaguered Rep. Dan Rostenkowski in tow, talked crime, health care, education -- and some very thinly veiled politics -- yesterday in a political rescue mission for the powerful House Ways and Means Committee chairman whose support Mr. Clinton needs on Capitol Hill.The president told his audience at Wright Junior College that "if it hadn't been for the leadership of the chairman," his budget-reduction package, approved last year by a single vote in the House, "would not have happened, and this economy today would not be on the right path it's on if we had not done it. That is a fact."

AS BILL CLINTON continues to upstage his own hand-picked national convention with a Truman-style train ride through the Rust Belt, his destination city of Chicago is awash in traumatic recollections of 1968, the last time Democrats assembled by the shores of Lake Michigan.It was the only time in American history when real blood was shed during the process of nominating a presidential candidate. Clashes between Chicago cops and anti-war protesters became part of the nation's collective memory of Vietnam, much to the exclusion of all else then going on in a troubled world.

CHICAGO -- Corey Hewitt scored 13 points, Jina Mosley had 12 and Jennifer Bongard 11 as the Loyola women's team turned back Illinois-Chicago, 63-54, yesterday to win its second straight game under new coach Cindy Anderson.The Greyhounds (6-1) and Flames (2-7) both shot poorly in the first half, but Loyola managed a 22-14 lead at intermission.Loyola shot just 30.4 percent (7-for-23) from the field in the half, but Illinois-Chicago didn't do much better, shooting 31.6 percent (6-for-19).The Greyhounds won the game at the free-throw line, making 16 of 25 in the second half to pull away.

CHICAGO -- It's been a long time between drinks -- 28 years -- for the city that has been, by far, the favorite site for the major political parties' national conventions. Having at last overcome its reputation for bedlam created by the riot-torn 1968 Democratic convention, Chicago is back with its 25th national party gathering this week.Among American cities that have hosted political conventions, Baltimore is a distant second, with five Democratic meetings and five Republican. Chicago had its first major-party convention in 1860 in a two-story hall known as The Wigwam, where the new Republican Party nominated a lightly regarded former Illinois congressman named Abraham Lincoln.

CHICAGO -- Investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been following a trail of mass death for the last three months through the brick and concrete valleys of this city.The team has been trying to determine why at least 500 people, perhaps more than 700, died in a short but brutal invasion of high heat and humidity in July, creating one of the deadliest periods in the history of a city that has stubbornly survived snowstorms, fires, gangsters and skyscraper-bending winds.

CHICAGO -- Grant Moehring's 17 points led six Loyola University of Chicago players in double figures, as the Ramblers breezed to a 105-55 victory over winless Morgan State yesterday. The home team took a 28-point halftime lead in putting the game away early.This was the largest margin of victory for Loyola since the 1978-79 season.The Ramblers, seemingly unaffected by a 12-day layoff for exams, had wide margins in rebounding and shooting. They outshot Morgan by 49-35 and hit 51.9 percent from the field to 31.0 for the Bears.