| March 18, 2008 | - In response to fury over a handful of remarks made by Reverend Jeremiah Wright over the course of his 36 years as a pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, Senator Barack Obama delivered a nuanced and serious speech about race in America. “I think it's an obligation of any opponent to use this issue,” said Congressman Peter King (R.-NY), “to make Reverend Wright a centerpiece of the campaign.”
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
Newsday
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| February 2, 2008 | - An unidentified robber killed five women in a Chicago-area branch of the plus-sized clothing store Lane Bryant.
| Source:
Five women dead in Tinley Park clothing store shooting
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| December 11, 2007 | - Researchers in Chicago used drugs and manipulated genes to control the sexuality of fruit flies, making them gay and then straight again within a few hours. “It was very dramatic,” said scientist David Featherstone. “They even attempted copulation.”
| Source:
Fox News
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| April 3, 2007 | - A Chicago woman filed suit against her dance partner for “negligent dancing.”
| Source:
CNN.com
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| January 1, 2007 | - United Airlines employees claimed to have seen a saucer-like object hovering over O'Hare Airport last fall.
| Source:
AP via Yahoo! News
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| November 9, 2006 | - To protest the Iraq war, a man named Malachi Ritscher committed suicide in Chicago by setting himself on fire next to a 25-foot-tall sculpture called “Flame of the Millennium.” Along with a self-penned obituary, the 52-year-old Ritscher posted a farewell message on his website in which he described the “deep shame” of a day in 2002 when he stood, knife in hand, next to Donald Rumsfeld, but was unable to bring himself to slash the defense secretary's throat. “I too love God and country,” wrote Ritscher, “and feel called upon to serve.”
| Source 1:
Malachi Ritscher
Source 2:
Chicago Reader
Source 3:
Chicago Sun-Times
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| September 14, 2006 | -
Chicago prosecutors dropped all charges against a man who, after security guards mistook his penis pump for a bomb, was detained at O'Hare International Airport. “Humiliation aside,” said the man's attorney, “the system worked.”
| Source:
MSNBC
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| August 24, 2006 | - At Chicago's O'Hare airport, Mardin Amin, 29, of Skokie, Illinois, was arrested after telling security agents that the penis pump in his backpack was a bomb.
| Source:
Forbes
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| August 14, 2006 | - A Chicago ice-cream-truck driver was shot dead behind the wheel.
| Source:
Local6.com
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| June 24, 2006 | - Seven men were arrested in Florida for talking about blowing up the Sears Tower.
| Source:
The New York Times
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| March 17, 2006 | - In Chicago a man named Jakub Fik, upset with his girlfriend, was arrested for smashing car windows; he also cut off his penis and threw it at police officers.
| Source:
Chicago Sun Times
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| March 11, 2006 | - In Chicago between 300,000 and 500,000 people marched to protest a House bill that calls for increased border protection to limit immigration.
| Source:
CBS2Chicago.net
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| February 25, 2006 | -
Researchers in Chicago verified that a quantum computer does not have to perform any calculations in order to arrive at results.
| Source:
Science News
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| December 8, 2005 | - A passenger jet slid off the runway at Chicago's Midway Airport and hit a car, killing a six-year-old boy as he ate some McDonald's food and sang “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.”
| Source:
KVIA.com
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| September 15, 2005 | -
Chicago was considering a proposal to ban foie gras. "Our culture," explained an alderman, "does not condone the torture of innocent and defenseless creatures."
| Source:
The New York Times
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| May 6, 2005 | - In Chicago a vandal painted the words “big lie” over a stain on a roadside wall that many people believe is an apparition of the Virgin Mary; onlookers wept as a road crew covered the stain with brown paint.
| Source:
Reuters
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| April 22, 2005 | - Many people thought that a stain on a wall in Chicago was actually a miraculous apparition of the Virgin Mary.
| Source:
Reuters
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| February 18, 2005 | - A scientist in Chicago used stem cells to grow fat tissue, which can be used in breast implants.
| Source:
New Scientist
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| November 23, 2004 | - A buck was captured and euthanized after running through Chicago's O'Hare Airport.
| Source:
ABC 7 Chicago
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| November 9, 2004 | -
Chicago's parks division announced plans to track its employees with GPS monitors, like animals, and
| Source:
Chicago Sun Times
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| October 7, 2004 | -
Chicago experienced its first murder-free night in five years.
| Source:
New York Times
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| May 11, 2004 | - Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago asked the Illinois legislature to approve a city-owned casino.
| Source:
New York Times
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| November 18, 2003 | - Judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan heard arguments over the indefinite detention of Jose Padilla, an American citizen who was arrested in Chicago last year and declared an "enemy combatant." A government lawyer said that "Al Qaeda made the battlefield the United States"; an opposing lawyer said that "the president seeks an unchecked power to substitute military power for the rule of law"; Judge Rosemary Pooler observed that "as terrible as 9/11 was, it didn't repeal the Constitution."
| Source:
New York Times
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| October 3, 2003 | - Garbage was piling up in Chicago,
| Source:
New York Times
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| May 13, 2003 | - Seattle and Chicago staged simulated terrorist attacks.
| Source:
New York Times
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| February 25, 2003 | -
Twenty-one people died in a stampede at an illegal nightclub in Chicago.
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| March 19, 2002 | -
A 25-year-old calling himself “Dr. Chaos” was charged with storing a cache of cyanide in the Chicago subway system.
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| December 18, 2001 | -
Greece dropped spy charges against a group of British tourists who enjoy “plane spotting.” Federal officials arrested 35 people for smuggling cocaine using infants rented from poor families in Chicago.
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| November 13, 2001 | - Employees of Argenbright Security, the airport security firm, were fired after they let a man carrying seven knives, a stun gun, and pepper spray through a security checkpoint in Chicago.
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| May 29, 2001 | - A Chicago judge decided not to send a woman to jail for wire fraud because she claimed to be a shopping addict.
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| May 22, 2001 | - A woman in Chicago bit off a man's testicles when he assaulted her and demanded that she fellate him; she deposited her trophy at a police station shortly thereafter.
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| April 24, 2001 | -
Researchers in Chicago made a functional cyborg using the brain of an immature lamprey eel.
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| November 28, 2000 | - Teachers in Chicago were issuing report cards judging the quality of the parenting received by schoolchildren.
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| November 7, 2000 | -
Black city council members in Chicago were blocking a proposal to require the council to recite the pledge of allegiance at meetings because the phrase “liberty and justice for all” was factually inaccurate.
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