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Chicago Sun-TimesLatest news from the Chicago Sun-Times Online
It was the ultimate field trip for aviation geeks — 160 frequent fliers chartered an American Airlines jet and hopped across the country. They went down emergency chutes in Dallas, toured Boeing’s factory near Seattle and got to sit in the cockpit of the world’s largest passenger jet in Los Angeles.
Ford Motor Co. will pump $3.8 billion into its global pension plans this year as it tries to get them closer to fully funding their obligations.
The bulk of a man’s childhood comic book collection that included many of the most prized issues ever published has sold for about $3.5 million.
Home sales rose in the Chicago metropolitan area to the highest level for the month of January since 2007, jumping 15.7 percent from a year earlier, but the median price sank 11.4 percent, the Illinois Association of Realtors said Wednesday.
Gov. Pat Quinn took his case for a budgetary crash diet directly to state lawmakers Wednesday, pushing a grim assortment of prison closures and spending cuts in a spending plan that he said was built around "hard realities."
Chicago restaurants are not exactly chomping at the bit to participate in Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to shrink and revamp the Taste of Chicago. Only 40 restaurants applied to participate for the five-day festival, prompting the city to extend Tuesday’s deadline until Friday.
More people intend to stash their tax return money into their savings accounts — 44 percent this year versus 42 percent last year, a National Retail Federation survey shows. That’s the highest percentage to do so in the nine years the survey has been taken.
President Barack Obama is proposing to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent and wants an even lower effective rate for manufacturers, a senior administration official says, as the White House lays down an election-year marker in the debate over tax policy.
Microsoft on Wednesday lodged a formal complaint with the European Union’s competition regulator against Motorola Mobility and its soon-to-be owner Google, saying Motorola’s aggressive enforcement of patent rights against rivals breaks competition rules.
Stocks are ending lower for the first time in four trading days and a day after briefly hitting their highest point in nearly four years. The Dow is ending down 27 points at 12,938. The S&P 500 is down five points at 1,357.
It’s been nearly nine years that developer Philip Mappa has tried to recruit office tenants to justify construction of a tower at 645 W. Madison, alongside the Kennedy-Dan Ryan expressway connection. Early in his quest, the site was too far west to be a top-grade office destination. But the Loop grew, big users began looking west for space and now Mappa, co-founder of Des Plaines-based MR Properties LLC, finds formidable competition around him. It includes developer Steven Fifield, who is marketing two office towers, and Old St. Patrick’s Church, which has aligned with a developer to propose an office high-rise …
An international phone scam in which callers in India posed as debt collectors bilked millions of dollars out of more than 10,000 U.S. residents by using threats of arrest or even the loss of their jobs, U.S. authorities said Tuesday.
LOS ANGELES — Grubb & Ellis Co. says it has filed for bankruptcy protection in a bid to stave off creditors amid mounting debt. The Santa Ana, Calif.-based company also said Tuesday it has arranged to sell most of its assets to the parent of rival commercial real estate services company Newmark Knight Frank. The proposed sale to BGC Partners Inc. will require court approval as part of Grubb & Ellis’ Chapter 11 bankruptcy process. The company filed for bankruptcy protection Monday in the Southern District of New York. In the filing, Grubb & Ellis listed $150 million in assets …
After a 46-year career, Frank Clark, the man who rose from mailroom clerk to become Commonwealth Edison’s first African-American CEO and then chairman, will put in his last day Friday at the company that powers 3.4 million homes in Northern Illinois. The high school underachiever credits his mother for his success, his wife for pushing him and his service in the Vietnam War for changing his life’s ambitions and drive for an education.
Comcast will launch four minority-owned networks on its cable-TV systems in the next two years, including channels spearheaded by music mogul Sean "P. Diddy" Combs and NBA great Magic Johnson. Two of the networks are majority black-owned while two are majority American-Hispanic-owned, with all of them programming in English, the Philadelphia-based Comcast said.
Starbucks has conquered new territory in its quest to caffeinate every corner of the world, with its first ski-through coffee shop.
Microsoft attacks Google Apps in 'Googlighting' video Microsoft has launched an open attack on Google Apps in a new online video called 'Googlighting'.
(telegraph technology)
Foreign journalists killed in Syria TWO Western journalists have been killed in the flashpoint city of Homs after Syrian security forces shelled a building.
(heraldsun world)
Space elevator that takes tourists 22k miles into orbit could be built within 40 years If created, up to 30 passengers at a time would spend a week travelling a quarter of a way to the moon at speeds of 120mph.
(dailymail sciencetech)
Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric) release is ready for download.