Chicago

CHICAGO -- Whenever a Republican presidential candidate looks at Illinois, he naturally casts a worried eye at the Windy City, where the Democrats traditionally run up an awesome vote that must be countered in the suburbs and downstate.In one of the state's most fabled political stories, Richard Nixon in 1960 lost Illinois to John Kennedy by a mere 8,858 votes out of nearly 2.4 million, leading to allegations of fraud in the vote-counting in Chicago. Nixon declined to press the charges because, he said later in one of his nobler moments, doing so would have created damaging uncertainty about the country's new leadership.

CHICAGO -- That mere grain of an idea that occurred to a friendly neighborhood barber in Baltimore, one Sam Lamantia, continues to nurture and to make an impact on the National Football League. It has nothing to do with punts, passes or pitchouts, but, instead, furthering a cause devoted to humanity.This is a charitable function that brings cheers and commendations from all sides. The compelling function? Abused children. The organization that is addressing the subject with the NFL is known as the Ed Block Courage Award Foundation.

CHICAGO -- It's not that ex-cons haven't been elected here before. There were those tax returns that Harold Washington failed to file years ago and the 30 days he spent in the pokey as a result. That didn't stop him from becoming this city's mayor back in 1983.But even in Chicago, the fact that five convicted felons are running for City Council in Tuesday's election -- a record number here by anyone's reckoning -- might be expected to cause at least a little stir. After all, how many political candidates can include such qualifications?

CHICAGO -- "Money," Roman Pucinski is saying as Dan Rostenkowski takes the stage. "It's about money."Pucinski should know. He and Rostenkowski were both elected to Congress from Chicago in 1958. While Rosty stayed to become chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Pucinski returned home after 14 years to serve as an alderman, a seat he held until 1991.Now, at age 74, his voice reduced to a whisper, he still helps out a friend in need, he still serves The Machine.This is the Democratic Machine whose obituary has been written by the media for decades but which still manages to return people like Dan Rostenkowski to Congress.

CHICAGO -- For everyone except the suburbanites whose homes and cars have been hit by blue-green goo, the strange outbreak of droppings in the Chicago area over the past three weeks has been the subject of considerable mirth.But the bizarre phenomenon is much more mystery than comedy.The victims are convinced that they have been strafed by the contents of airliner lavatory holding tanks.Officials at first suspected that the droppings -- reported in patches in a wide area from Lake Michigan west to Warrenville, Ill., from the Wisconsin border south to Flossmoor, Ill. -- came from flocks of geese or ducks.

CHICAGO -- When meteorologists predicted a severe winter for the Chicago area, Barry Rankin pictured cold and white.But the temperature was downright balmy yesterday for a day in mid-December, and the stuff covering Mr. Rankin's Lincolnwood home, his car and his patio wasn't white. Nor was it as pure as the driven snow.It was dark and lumpy, and it was, unfortunately, Lincolnwood's turn.Mr. Rankin and his neighbors in the north suburb apparently have become the latest victims of a rather irritating phenomenon over the past several weeks afflicting communities under O'Hare International Airport's flight paths.

CHICAGO - How did the downtown of this old Frostbelt city beat out its competitors to capture the headquarters of mighty Boeing, quintessential global mega-corporation of the 21st century? Simple, say insiders: Downtown Chicago has life. And not just its Miracle Mile, its stunning lakefront, its skyscrapers, 100,000-plus downtown residents and access to O'Hare International, one of the world's great airports. Chicago is also a 24-hour-a-day city with vital street life, an ethnically diverse population, great universities and a world-class assortment of professionals in virtually every field.

Mike Royko is on vacation. In his absence, we are reprinting some of his favorite columns. This column was originally published in 1976.A RETIRED DETECTIVE remembers going to the County Morgue late one night, after a well-known gangster had been killed."

CHICAGO -- Before they last hosted an NFC championship game, they were the fabled 1985 Chicago Bears, and they defined brash. The Super Bowl Shuffle already was a hit, Mike Ditka was daring people to knock the chip off his shoulder and Buddy Ryan, their defensive coordinator, was correctly predicting they would force the Los Angeles Rams' Eric Dickerson into a few fumbles at Soldier Field. Saints@Bears NFC championship game, Sunday, 3 p.m., chs. 45, 5 Line: Bears by 2 1/2

CHICAGO -- Ford Motor Co., the world's No. 2 carmaker, must face a class action lawsuit brought by female auto workers who contend that they were targets of discrimination and sexual harassment on the job, a federal judge has ruled.Ford recently reached an agreement with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to establish a $7.5 million fund to pay workers hired since 1996 at its Chicago stamping and assembly plants who can prove that they were sexually harassed. The automaker claimed that agreement settled suits brought by several women employees and precluded further class actions.