A Country Club Hills man accused of heading one of the biggest federal mortgage fraud schemes ever prosecuted in Chicago will remain under house arrest, under conditions set Thursday during a hearing at the Dirksen Federal Building.

Keeping food at the 28th annual Taste of Chicago fresh and safe is Frances Guichard's primary concern this week. But, then again, it's her primary concern the other 355 days of the year. As the Food Protection Program Director of the Chicago Department of Public Health, Guichard, along with the rest of the department staff, works hard to educate and inform Chicagoans about food safety in and out of the home.

A Lansing man charged with murdering five people during an armed robbery in the Chatham neighborhood of Chicago's South Side is being held on no bail after a hearing Thursday at Cook County Criminal Court.

Arthur Brown, 25, of the 3700 block of Lake Street in Lansing, was charged late Wednesday with five counts of murder, five counts of armed robbery and one count of home invasion.

As Cook County's newly increased sales tax rate entered its second day Wednesday, shoppers from communities along the county's border with Indiana flocked to retail outlets across the state line, where taxes are now more than 3 percent lower.

The new Cook County rate of 10.25 percent-an increase of one percentage point-dwarfs Indiana's statewide sales tax rate of 7 percent.

Visitors at the 37th annual Rainbow PUSH Coalition Conference and its first annual Youth Conference were presented with a unique opportunity Tuesday. For the first time ever, all seven schools of the City Colleges of Chicago instantly enrolled students on site.

Bond was set at $300,000 Tuesday for a Chicago man charged with sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl he met on the internet.

Marcus Kuykendoll, 24, who was arrested in South Holland, appeared before a judge in the Cook County circuit court house in Markham. He was charged with predatory criminal sexual assault involving a minor. He was in custody at Cook County jail as of late Tuesday afternoon.

The lead defendant in one of the biggest mortgage fraud schemes ever prosecuted in Chicago has allegedly been threatening some of his co-defendants and other individuals involved in his case, a federal prosecutor disclosed Tuesday during an arraignment at the Dirksen Federal Building.

The deadly Giant Yellow Israeli Scorpion may be one key to boosting the accuracy of brain tumor removal in cases involving children.

Chlorotoxin, a tumor paint made out of this scorpion's venom, is just one surgical development presented this week at the 13th International Symposium on Pediatric Neuro-Oncology, held at the Chicago Marriott Downtown.

This weekend finally felt like summer, and it wasn't because of the heat or the constant hangover.  It was because when I took the el from Evanston to Roscoe Village, I didn't just run into a few people headed my way.  I ran into what appeared to be the entire city of Chicago drunk off their asses.  

"The thing about Chicago," a friend said to me as we passed groups of Sox and Cubs fans staggering onto the train at Addison, "is that it packs all of it's shit into two months when the weather doesn't suck."  

As mixed as this week was for Chicago news, there was one constant that rang true throughout the last five days.  They've been hot.  So hot, in fact, that a friend confessed yesterday he's been forced to kick his cat off his bed at night to avoid further warmth in his non-air-conditioned apartment.  It's a sad day when the heat affects the kitties.

And with that, here's this week in review.

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