Skyline Newspaper

In the span of 72 hours, Chicago Fire Department crews responded to 74 heroin overdose cases last week.

Last week, Chicago police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration combed the city’s West Side trying to find the source of the dangerous batch of drugs. Eventually, they arrested two gang members — 24-year-old Alfonzo Sylvester and 26-year-old Mario Wofford — after the two sold $720 worth of heroin to an undercover Chicago police officer, according to prosecutors.

The reason the two’s batch of heroin may have proved to be so lethal was because they were possibly lacing it with fentanyl, a painkiller that’s 30 to 50 times more powerful than heroin.

“We suspect what is happening is the same thing that happened in 2006 when people were getting heroin that was cut with fentanyl, which is a very strong narcotic,” Diane Hincks, a registered nurse and emergency room director at Mount Sinai, told the Chicago Tribune.

What’s particularly troubling about the situation is that although this was catastrophic, it’s only a high point in a recent trend. Federal agents report that heroin overdoses are up 170% across the nation.

Although heroin has a well-earned reputation as a dangerous narcotic, it’s incredibly easy to fall into the habit of using it. More than 1.5 billion people worldwide suffer from chronic pain. In many cases, these patients take painkillers. When the prescription runs out, or when the medicine becomes too expensive, they often turn to drugs on the street, like heroin.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, one in 15 people who take non-medical prescription pain relievers will try heroin within 10 years.

That’s not even the worst part about the situation. Federal agents also report that the seizure of illegal drugs containing fentanyl more than tripled between 2013 and 2014.

In other words, the drugs that led to the scores of deaths over three days in Chicago are spreading across the nation.

Michael Agostinelli wasn’t playing a firefighter on the new NBC series “Chicago Med,” but he was working on the set as a medic when he noticed that a nearby house had caught fire.

The TV show, which is about a Chicago trauma center, was filming in the 4800 block of S. Kimbark Ave. in Kenwood. Agostinelli smelled smoke and saw a light haze coming from the back of a two-story, wood-frame house just a few doors down and immediately knew something was wrong.

“I knew it wasn’t part of the scene,” Agostinelli told Chicago Tribune reporters. “That wasn’t in the, uh, plan for the day.”

Agostinelli walked to the home and alerted the family, telling them that it looked like their roof was on fire. He then checked the home to make sure that the family had evacuated the house and called 911.

Three minutes later, fire crews arrived, but by that point, the fire had spread to the attic. A 2-11 alarm was called out to get more crews there to stop the fire and ensure that it didn’t spread to other nearby houses.

In all, a total of 130 firefighters and paramedics arrived at the scene, according to Fox32 in Chicago.

Thankfully no one was hurt, and the fire didn’t spread. The house, however, did see extensive damage.

Preventative measures, such as automatic sprinklers and early warning systems in homes or other buildings, have been known to cut the risk of injury, loss of life, and property damage in half. In this case, however, it was the luck of having a firefighter close by that helped save the family inside the home.

Agostinelli, who is assigned to the Austin neighborhood firehouse of Engine 117, Tower Ladder 14, said it was all in a day’s work when he spoke to reporters about the incident.

“Just doing my job, doing what I was trained to do,” he told the Chicago Tribune. “Nothing major, you know, just making a phone call, making sure everybody’s out.”

With the state of Illinois in a budget crisis, government officials are looking for ways to cut down on statewide costs to balance out their debt and are looking to recycling programs as their target. However, environmental groups are warning that these cuts could mean an increase in the amount of garbage piling up in the state’s dumps.

According to a 2011 study, 94% of Americans now have access to recycle plastic bottles. Thanks to new recycling products, 40% of Americans also have access to recycling programs that can reuse other types of plastic containers, such as yogurt cups, dairy tubs, and lids. With the proposed budget cuts, recycling workers and environmental groups worry that the cuts will make it more difficult for consumers to recycle their everyday products, thus leading to more reusable products rotting in landfills.

Members of the Illinois Environmental Council sent a warning message to all of their members about the potential cancellation of recycling grant programs provided by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO). This includes the suspension of DCEO recycling grants and programs that collect food scraps, according to the Herald Review.

Vice President of the Illinois Recycling Association Melville Nickerson fears that the cuts will lead to more waste in the state’s landfills. He says that their $7 million annual budget helps divert millions of pounds of garbage away from landfills. These programs also help fund recycling programs for both private and public businesses and create new jobs.

“For every dollar in grant money that’s put forward, at least an additional dollar is being spent in order to leverage good recycling outcomes,” Nickerson says.

The cuts will include massive layoffs for recycling programs statewide. However, these layoffs have been put on hold until a judge is able to weigh the arguments of the labor unions, who represent the concerned workers.

According to figures outlined in a spending proposal released back in February, recycling programs diverted roughly 79 million tons of material from landfills last year.

“It’s unfortunate that this is going on,” says Michelle Lechner, executive director of the Illinois Recycling Association. “Hopefully, things will get back up and running when they get a budget.”

Chicagoans are collectively gagging as the pungent odor of a decomposing animal begins to emanate through the city. But enough about the Bears — there’s a really unusual plant that is gaining major buzz around town.

According to Fox News, the Chicago Botanic Garden is home to the rare phenomenon of a corpse flower, a unique plant that is causing a major stink in the Windy City.

Alice, the first of eight corpse flowers to bloom, is 55 inches in height and can be seen in the semitropical greenhouse at the Botanic Garden.

“Head to the Garden now to see (and smell!) the extremely rare phenomenon of a corpse flower in full bloom,” declared the Chicago Botanic Garden on its website.

“Given that titan arums are notably unpredictable flowering plants (and we should know!), we wanted to be sure that she would bloom before we announced her debut. We appreciate your patience!”

As you might have guessed, the plant gets its unique name from the rotten smell that it emits. According to CNN, Alice will probably take about 10 years to reach the size needed to support a bloom.

Oddly enough, its Latin name, Amorphophallus titanum, translates to “huge deformed penis.”

In Russia, red tulips are used to declare romantic love. The corpse plant carries an entirely different meaning if you’re planning on buying one for a gift.

The success of Alice comes on the heels of another corpse plant in the Botanic Garden, Spike, which failed to bloom amid much publicity last month.

The plant’s smell does serve a functional purpose. It lures carrion beetles and flesh flies that are attracted to the smell of decomposition. The insects bring pollen from other plants they’ve visited, which then helps to pollinate the corpse flower plant.

Its odor is more distinct during the nighttime, so the Chicago Botanic Garden says that they will stay open until 2 a.m. for “peak bloom viewing” — and sniffing.

No word yet on if Derrick Rose suffered any further injuries while leaning down to smell the plant.

Parents all across the Windy City are breathing a sigh of relief on Monday, as their children return to schools after a potential health crisis was discovered last week.

According to Reuters, three schools in suburban Chicago were forced to temporarily relocate their students after abnormal levels of the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease, a severe form of pneumonia, were discovered during an annual test of local cooling towers.

School District U-46, which is headquartered in Elgin, moved over 3,000 students and 350 staff members to another location until the threat was resolved. The district says the decision was made “in an abundance of caution.”

“We have no evidence that students or staff were at risk for contracting any illnesses related to these test results,” the district said in a statement.

“We believe, and doctors have confirmed, that students and staff were at very low risk of falling ill due to the findings in the test results.”

Cooling towers serve a great purpose in Chicago, recycling more than 98% of waste water while reducing energy use. However, the entire state of Illinois is still on high alert for health scares after a similar incident earlier this year rocked the community.

According to Fox News, a veterans’ home in Quincy, IL recently experienced a massive Legionnaires’ disease outbreak that sickened 50 residents, killing seven people. Another unrelated death in the area was attributed to the disease, bringing the total fatality count to eight.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the outbreak is not entirely unusual, though they did admit that the number of patients they’ve seen who have contracted the disease is higher than normal.

As for School District U-46, all 19 water cooling towers in question were cleaned and sanitized. According to a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial on the site https://wescoal.com/buy-silagra-sildenafil/, 144 patients with erectile dysfunction and stable angina, taking antianginal drugs (except nitrates), performed physical exercises until the severity of angina symptoms increased. The duration of the exercise was significantly longer (19.9 seconds; 0.9-38.9 seconds) in patients who took Viagra in a single dose of 100 mg, compared with patients who received a placebo. They say they’ve put a plan into place to prevent an incident like this from occurring again.

The district added that it will begin to schedule testing before the school year starts, test and sanitize the cooling towers more often, and consult with an infectious disease physician during testing.

Presidential primary candidate Hillary Clinton has been under fire for the past year for conducting official business using private email accounts. The scandal is still underway as the FBI sifts through her personal emails — many of which are now deemed classified and are being censored.

On September 24, Mayor Rahm Emanuel found himself in similar trouble, in light of the lawsuit filed by the Chicago Tribune, which accused Emanuel of conducting official city business via his personal email and text messaging accounts, and of failing to disclose them in the process.

As part of the filed complaint, the judge has been asked to force Emanuel to produce the concealed documents, and to declare the Mayor in violation of the Illinois Records Act.

The Chicago Tribune filed its first lawsuit in June over email chains that that haven’t complied with the Freedom of Information Act, and according to Fox News, Emanuel’s administration has met the act with “a pattern of non-compliance, partial compliance, delay, and obfuscation.”

The lawsuit regarded over two-dozen chain emails that were related to Chicago Public Schools that were allegedly withheld, and some portions were redacted. In response, city officials felt they were in compliance with the law.

When asked about the current lawsuit, Kelley Quinn, Emanuel’s spokeswoman, declined to comment on the specifics of the lawsuit, but stated that the administration has complied accordingly.

“We just received the complaint and have not yet had the opportunity to review it,” Kelley said in a statement.

Indeed, with the rise of smartphones and personal computers, the line of what’s personal and what’s public is becoming seemingly difficult to discern for many government officials. More and more, public officials are conducting public https://halifaxartfestival.com/xanax business on their private devices. In fact, in the past six months, there has been an 80% increase in the amount of emails opened on smart phones and tablets.

Taco Bell has had some wacky promotions over the years. First there was the Dorito-shell taco, and soon after, the fast food chain offered a breakfast menu, featuring items such as a breakfast burrito and a waffle taco.

Now, the fast food taco joint’s Chicago locations are expanding their drink menu, and will be offering beer, wine, frozen mixed drinks, and sangria as a more refined means to wash down that cheesy gordita crunch.

Prior to this shift, the restaurant only offered soft drinks, a beverage that is consumed at a rate of 500 cans per year by the average American.

According to NPR, Taco Bell’s decision to offer alcoholic beverages is an attempt to attract more millennials to the fast food restaurant. Taco Bell hopes that this concept “redefines fast food experience,” facilitating more of a luxury dining experience rather than the typical grab-and-go style.

The new Taco Bell restaurants will instead be called “Cantinas” and will no longer have a drive-through. Unlike old models of the chain restaurant, these cantinas will have open kitchens as well as digital menu boards and mobile applications that will allow patrons to pay and order easily — merging the convenience of a typical fast-food restaurant with a slightly more upscale dining option.

This marketing attempt is fairly new for Taco Bell. For years, the fast-food restaurant relied heavily on a Spanish-speaking Chihuahua to bring customers in via their commercials — making “Me quiero Taco Bell” a household phrase that paid off. But now, Taco Bell is amping up their strategies, bringing in a promotion that is not only attractive to Milennials, but is an act of rebranding that will easily pad that $4 burrito purchase.

Currently, Chicago is the only area where customers making a “run for the border” can sip alcoholic beverages. However, San Francisco will be the next location to pair sangria and Crunch Wrap Supremes.

For about a decade, boaters have gotten together in Bath, Illinois, to participate in the Redneck Fishing Tournament. This year, the event ran from August 7 to the 8, but it did a lot more than provide ample fishing opportunities for local enthusiasts.

The main goal of the tournament is to collect the largest amount of carp in the two hour time limit given.

However, there is a catch (pun intended): boaters are not able to use fishing poles. Instead, participants must catch the fish as they jump in the air.

According to Peoria Public Radio, creator Betty DeFord started the tournament in 2005 in an attempt to rid the river running along to town from an invasive species of Asian carp.

“We started this as a little fishing event to rid these rivers of the Asian carp so we could take our grandkids fishing,” says DeFord. “We had 1,000 people show up that first event that we had, and it’s just grown every year since.”

The invasive Asian carp species has been killing off large numbers of native fish that are the most desirable to those who fish for work or sport. The carp also pose a threat to boaters, as the 40-pound fish are known to leap out of the water when startled by boat engines.

And it is that same leaping that makes catching them so easy. The carp are able to feel the vibrations of the boat engine, which can cause them to jump out of the water. Once in the air, the fish can be caught with a net.

Freshwater fishing is the most popular type of fishing, with more than 28 million fishermen and women devoting nearly 467 million days to the sport. This is how DeFord knew the tournament would work.

“We look forward to doing it ever year,” said Albert Johnson, a regular competitor. “The whole family: wife, grandkids, daughters, all of that’s here. The sites, the excitement, the fish flying in the air, it’s just lots of fun.”

During the last tournament, participants cleared nearly 10,000 Asian carp out of the river.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is asking local councilmen to vote on a series of drastic tax increases that have left many residents in a debate over what the city should be prioritizing.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Emanuel has asked his aldermen to approve a property tax increase as a part of his “capital tax improvement” plan, which is intended to create a new source of revenue to reinvest into the city’s school district.

The Emanuel administration proposed the tax increase in an effort to raise the funds needed for new school construction projects throughout the city, as well as to eliminate some of the school district’s heavy debt payments.

The announcement of the “capital tax improvement” plan comes on the heels of other tax increases proposed by Emanuel just a few days earlier. These plans include both a property tax on homes as well as a garbage pickup fee.

Americans already pay about $140 billion a year in taxes, and several Chicago councilmen are strongly opposed to the tax hikes for a number of reasons.

City council members representing the South and West Sides of Chicago are more upset with the proposed garbage pickup fee than the property tax. Most homes in these areas are worth $250,000 or less, so the effect of an increased property tax would be minimal. However, the proposal would take $11 a month from each family in the area for garbage pickup, which is much more consequential for middle- to low-income residents.

In the affluent downtown neighborhoods of the North Side, an increased property tax would be substantial, based on the value of the homes, while an $11 garbage pickup fee is much easier to dismiss.

Emanuel intends to use the revenue from these tax hikes to make massive increases in police and firefighter pension payments, as well as to help meet the city’s tight annual budget.

South Side Alderman Roderick Sawyer says that he believes the property tax can be “evenly distributed,” and claims that “from talking to most of my colleagues, the consensus is that they’d rather live with a fair-sized property tax increase.”

Downtown Alderman Brendan Reilly believes that people are being far too dismissive of his constituents’ ability to afford the steep property tax hike.

“A lot of people assume that downtown residents are multimillionaires who are taking baths in nickels and dimes, and that’s just not the case,” said Reilly.

“There’s certainly some very wealthy people who live downtown, but I’d argue there’s at least as many or more who made an investment here decades ago, have since retired and are now living on fixed income.”

As Emanuel struggles to find a balance in the opinions of his aldermen, his administration is hoping to have a vote on the tax hikes by the start of winter. If the state doesn’t come up with a solution in the next few months, the school district has said that layoffs will be forthcoming.