truesee's Blog

Jason Nordlander, 21, and his mother Cheryl Nordlander, 49, both of the 1800 block of Portsmouth Lane, were arrested and appeared in bond court in Rolling Meadows charged with dealing drugs out of their home, Cook County sheriff's officials said in a press release.

Jason Nordlander was charged with manufacturing and dealing cannabis, possession of cannabis, possession of drug paraphernalia, and two counts of possession of a controlled substance. Cheryl Nordlander was charged with possession of cannabis and possession of a controlled substance.

Officials said they began investigating the duo after police received complaints from neighbors about drug activity at the family's home.

The home was put under surveillance and investigators witnessed a "suspicious amount of foot traffic in and out of the house at all hours of the day and night," officials said.

After getting a search warrant police raided the home on Thursday and found large quantities of drugs and drug paraphernalia in plain view, officials said.

Inside the home police found 30 hydrocodone pills, 1.5 grams of hashish, 38.5 grams of cannabis, and nearly $2700 in cash, officials said.

Police also said there was evidence of a disassembled grow house in the basement, with hydroponic equipment used to grow cannabis.

Cheryl Nordlander is on probation for a previous drug arrest.

In January she was arrested by the Chicago Police Department and charged with possession and production of cannabis, and possession of Ecstasy, after a tip that drugs were being shipped to her home by a relative in California, officials said.
 
Bond for both Jason and Cheryl Nordlander was set for $10,000 in Rolling Meadows Court on Saturday. Cheryl Nordlander's next court date is July 29th at 26th & California.  Jason Nordlander appears in Rolling Meadows on August 19th.

Schamburg Police assisted Cook County Sheriff's Police, officials said.

-- Carlos Sadovi

The 47-year-old told police she had been undergoing treatment at Discovering Health, 1513 E St. At some point, she realized the acupuncturist had left and closed the office, police spokesman Mark Young said.

The woman told police she pulled out the needles and tried to leave, but the doors were locked and required a key to unlock even from the inside.

She set off motion detector alarms while trying to leave the building and called 911 for assistance at about 7:30 p.m., Young said.

Police officers responded and were able to get her out of the office. The woman was not harmed, Young said.

A call to Discovering Health on Wednesday was returned by an attorney, who declined to comment for this article.

All three acupuncturists listed as working at the clinic have valid licenses with the state Department of Health as East Asian medicine practitioners. Two of them have held those licenses since the mid-1990s, the other got the license in 2000. One of them also is a licensed naturopathic physician, according to the Department of Health.

Young didn't say which acupuncturist was treating the woman.

A Department of Health spokeswoman said if the patient filed a complaint, it would be investigated. She would not speculate on what the penalty, if any, would be if the complaint were found to be true.

Police did not release the patient's name.

Foreclosure activity rises in most major metropolitan areas

 

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 30, 2010  

Foreclosure activity climbed in three-quarters of the largest U.S. metropolitan areas in the first half of 2010, compared with the same period a year ago, but declined in some of the nation's hardest-hit regions, according to data released Thursday.

• In slow economy, Americans stay put
• The new division of labor: Adding profits, subtracting workers
• Foreclosure activity rises in most major metropolitan areas

The number of properties in some stage of foreclosure rose during the first six months of the year in 154 of the 206 metropolitan areas with a population of 200,000 or more, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac said in a report.

The 20 regions with the worst foreclosure rates were in the four states -- Florida, California, Nevada and Arizona -- where home prices climbed fastest during the boom years and crashed hardest during the crisis. Nine of the areas on the top 20 list were in Florida, eight in California, two in Nevada and one in Arizona.

Nationwide, more than 1.6 million properties were in some stage of foreclosure in the first half of the year, according to RealtyTrac, up about 8 percent from a year ago but down 5 percent from the final six months of 2009.

In the Washington region, foreclosure activity fell 5.4 percent from a year ago and nearly 18 percent from the previous six months. About 1 in 78 D.C. area loans was in some state of foreclosure from January through June.

Foreclosures tend to drag down home prices and undermine the housing market's stability. The nation's stubbornly high unemployment rate and the lending community's increased willingness to sell foreclosed properties are boosting the number of foreclosures hitting the market.

For a period, lenders were under political pressure to delay foreclosures and modify troubled loans. But as lenders get a better handle on which loans cannot be salvaged, they are starting to complete more foreclosures and put those homes on the market.

However, there are "early signs" that foreclosures might have peaked in some of the most-troubled regions, James J. Saccacio, RealtyTrac's chief executive, said in a statement. Foreclosure activity dropped in nine of the 10 most-severely affected areas. Even so, the rates still remain three to five times as high as the national average.

The Las Vegas area still has the nation's highest foreclosure rate, with 6.6 percent of its housing units receiving a foreclosure filing in the first half of the year. But the number of filings fell 15 percent from the second half of 2009 and 9 percent from the first six months of last year.

Foreclosure activity in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area of Florida, which had the second-highest rate among U.S. metropolitan regions, at 4.98 percent, also slipped. The foreclosure rate there in the first half of the year is down 30 percent from a year ago and 22 percent from the previous six months.

Thomas Lawler, a housing consultant, attributes the declines in those regions to a high concentration of exotic loans that went bad and cleared the system.

In other areas, "more of the loans are running into problems not because loans were bad but because the economy stinks," hence the rise in foreclosure activity, Lawler said.

The report collects data from 2,200 counties nationwide that make up more than 90 percent of the U.S. population. Some of the foreclosure filings captured in the first half of this year may have been recorded in previous time periods.

With Reporting By Julian Hattem

During his daily press briefing on July 13, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was peppered with questions about why the president's popularity numbers are in decline and his policy positions are so difficult to sell.

ABC News's Jake Tapper sought reaction to the network's newest poll showing that 51 percent of respondents would rather have Republicans running Congress. CNN's Ed Henry wanted to know why, in that same poll, "six in 10 Americans have little or no faith in the President to make the right decisions." CBS's Chip Reid then pointed to his own network's poll showing that only 13 percent of respondents thought the president's economic programs had affected them personally.

Exasperated, Gibbs deployed a classic rejoinder: mocking the polling-obsessed media culture.

"You know, in all honesty, Chip, there isn't a website in the world that doesn't have a new poll every day," the press secretary replied. "And if you spent a lot of time sitting around worrying about polls rather than worrying about the people that you're trying to help, I'm sure you'd get discouraged. But we're way too busy to sit around looking at polls."

Too busy to look at polls? Perhaps. But not too poor to pay for them. While Gibbs routinely chides members of the press for obsessing about the day-to-day temperamental swings of the American public, behind the scenes the White House has poured plenty of money into conducting its own public opinion polls. Through June 9, 2010, the administration, via the Democratic National Committee, has spent at least $4.45 million on the services of seven different pollsters, according to records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. (The Huffington Post looked into only those expenditures that totaled more than $5,000)

That total represents only 18 months into the administration. During the first 24 months of the Bush administration, the Republican National Committee spent $3.1 million on polling according to a 2003 study done by Brookings. During the 2005-2006 years of the Bush administration, the RNC spent just north of $1.23 million on "surveys," "focus groups," and "polling," according to an analysis of Center for Responsive Politics data (they spent millions, instead, on telemarketing services). So far this cycle, the RNC has spent slightly more than $1 million on those same activities. (The Huffington Post did not examine data from the 2008 cycle because spending totals were affected by the presidential election.)

The expenditures seem at odds with the image that the administration and the president project publicly. During the past few months, for example, Gibbs has dismissed speculation that polling played a role in the federal government's decision to file a lawsuit against the Arizona immigration law, the president's economic agenda, and the administration's approach to health care reform. In a speech at the National Urban League's 100th anniversary convention on Thursday, the president himself laughed at the "scribes and the pundits" who wonder why he pursues policies that don't poll well.

"I have to explain to them, I've got my own pollsters. But I wasn't elected just to do what's popular," Obama said. "I was elected to do what was right."

All of which may be true. But the administration, like those of the past, is far more invested and interested in the flow of public opinion than it lets on -- wary of the perception that it is operating off anything other than pure conviction. At one point during the presidential campaign, Obama was spending more money on pollsters than the notoriously poll-driven Clinton camp.

Part of the current buys has to do with the state of American politics. The Democratic Party has congressional majorities bigger than any of those Republicans enjoyed during the Bush administration. Keeping those majorities involves a duty to protect incumbents.

"We laid out an agenda in the election and we are pursuing it now," said a senior party official. "Our polling is to get the pulse of the American people, to understand where they are, what their priorities are and how they are responding to the policies we are pursuing."

"It's par for the course for the party in power in the White House to spend more on research than the party out of power," said DNC National Press Secretary Hari Sevugan, before adding a bit of partisan flare. "What is surprising is that going into such an important election that the RNC has spent so little on research and so much on redecorating offices and sex clubs."

That said, the party's campaign committees have spent their own money on polling as well. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, for instance, divided more than $1 million between six separate pollsters, according to Center for Responsive Politics data. (Figures for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee are not detailed on the site).

The White House declined to comment on the nature of its polling, noting that it was done under the purview of the DNC. But sources familiar with the expenditures say that the administration has indeed done broad-themed polls on several recent hot-button issues including immigration and energy reform. And while the administration claims it hasn't made decisions based on the results, it does put heavy stock in the data.

Among the firms that have benefited are David Binder Research, which has been paid close to $800,000 this cycle; Harstad Strategic Research, which was paid more than $850,000; Benenson Strategy Group, which took in the biggest haul at $2.36 million; and AKP&D Message and Media -- WH Senior Adviser David Axelrod's old firm - which has not done polling itself but for $334,000 has helped coordinate messaging and questions for the polls, prompting the CRP to define those receipts as a polling expense.

"Part of what they are trying to figure out, I think, is trying to figure out what kind of message to use in terms of selling their policies to the country," said Alan Abramowitz, a political science professor at Emory University.

But, as Abramowitz points out, even with the data culled from all the polling, the evidence is mixed as to whether the administration has been able to reach or move public opinion. "The problem," he said, "is I don't see a coherent message right now." Indeed, the past year has been marked in a relatively steady decline (with natural ups and downs) in public opinion for the president. As one party operative put it, when shown the expenditures: "They spent this much money to drive their numbers this far down?"

Terrified 12-year-old girl calls 911 as boozed-up mom swerves down highway, saving their lives

John Lauinger
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

 

Wednesday, July 28th 2010, 4:00 AM

 

Justin Hyde
Free Press Washington Staff

 

In his popular show, Limbaugh criticized the Volt and the $41,000 price GM revealed on Tuesday, questioning why the U.S. government needed to add a $7,500 tax credit.

“Obama and the government are admitting nobody wants this,” Limbaugh said, repeatedly referring to GM as “Obama Motors.”

But Limbaugh also seemed somewhat confused about how the Volt worked, noting once that it had a gas engine and an electric motor, but suggesting its 40-mile electric-only range was its only power source.

“That 40-mile range has to include you getting home, and staying home three to four hours to charge the thing,” Limbaugh said.

After 40 miles, the Volt’s gasoline engine kicks in, giving it about 300 additional miles of range.

Limbaugh also said the Volt was the most expensive Chevrolet model outside the Corvette. But in fact the Suburban and Tahoe Hybrid models also cost more.

And the $7,500 tax credit will be available on the Nissan Leaf electric vehicle and other models that have large enough batteries to meet federal guidelines.

Limbaugh admitted that last year following the Obama administration’s rescues, he had taken advertising money from GM. His show’s archives include his promotions for a GM incentive to cover vehicle payments for people who lost their jobs after buying new vehicles.

But Limbaugh said he ended the arrangement even though GM wanted to continue.

"I turned it down because I could not honestly recommend--I knew this was coming--I’m not going to recommend people go buy an electric car,” Limbaugh said. “I wish them luck, don’t misunderstand here,” he added. “We turned down big money."

GM spokesman Greg Martin said Limbaugh was a long-standing critic. "He's entitled to his opinion and we appreciate his wishes for future success," he said.

A U.S. Postal Service official said records show the remains were processed in Phoenix and supposedly arrived at O'Hare on a commercial flight earlier this month, but there's been no trace of the package.

"Everybody is still on high alert for it," said Regina Armstrong, with the U.S. Postal Service's local Consumer Affairs Office. "My heart goes out to the family. I wish they could have some closure."

Armstrong said officials with the postal service's Consumer Affairs Office in Phoenix also are "on alert" for the package.

Biancalana said the family didn't really want Mabel Bink cremated in the first place, but Bink prior to her death had insisted because it would be too costly to ship her body home. Biancalana's uncle, 62-year-old Kenneth Bink, who lives in the Phoenix area, planned to carry the cremated remains when he flew back to Chicago for the burial and memorial. He even bought a special permit allowing him to do so.

The family ordered a vault in which the ashes would be placed for burial.

But the vault was accidentally shipped to Phoenix instead of Chicago, and Kenneth Bink couldn't carry the vault and the cremated remains because of their size. So he decided to have them both shipped.

While the family couldn't bury Mabel Bink without her remains, they decided to carry out an already-scheduled memorial service on Saturday in South Holland.

But the weekend's torrential down pour, which flooded many highways and side streets, prevented Biancalana and many other relatives from attending. She said she drove for about three hours trying several different routes, all blocked by water.

"It's been surreal," she said.

She considers her grandmother, who died of congestive heart failure on June 18, "like a third parent." Mabel Bink lived with Biancalana and her parents all her life.

The daughter of Dutch immigrants, Mabel Bink graduated from Fenger High School in 1939 worked at Argonne National Laboratory as a payroll clerk, processing an estimated $800 million in payroll checks, her family said. She was also a talented seamstress who kept up with fashion trends and made all of Biancalana's clothing.

"She was a larger-than-life type of person," Biancalana said.

 -- Angie Leventis Lourgos

Wed, Jul. 28, 2010

It began like almost any other orchestra summer idyll, with Leonard Bernstein's Candide Overture. 

And then, with the middle movement of a Mozart piano concerto, Tuesday night's Philadelphia Orchestra concert at the Mann Center suddenly took on rare auras of celebrity, politics, and the general idea that history of a sort was in the making. 

The source of the extra-musical messaging was the soloist: Condoleezza Rice, former national security advisor, 66th U.S. secretary of state and public face of the Bush 43 administration. She took on the 10-minute "Romance" of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466, like the competent amateur she is. 

Rice got a nice, mostly polite reception, but after intermission, the star power intensified exponentially with the arrival of Aretha Franklin. Listeners roared, and she gave them what they came for – "Respect," "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," "Think," and more. "What a wonderful audience," she said. 

A gala fund-raiser for the Mann's educational programs and clearly the Fairmount Park venue's main event of the summer, the concert has no obvious parallels. It was a first, and so far only, commingling for this pop music legend, former member of a presidential cabinet, and major symphony orchestra. Under-cover seating was sold out, and the lawn was thickly settled. Total attendance was near 10,000, a Mann official estimated. 

The Philadelphia Orchestra has plenty of precedent ceding the guest-artist spotlight to personalities more famous for doing something else, among them Harpo Marx, Danny Kaye and, more recently, Alec Baldwin. Amateur Bavarian pianist Joseph Alois Ratzinger, now known as Pope Benedict XVI, is a friend of former Philadelphia Orchestra music director Wolfgang Sawallisch, though the relationship has yet to yield a performance with the Philadelphians. 

Even Ignacy Jan Paderewski isn't an exact historical relation to Rice. He was first a professional pianist with a top-rank career, one of the greats, and then went on to become a diplomat, prime minister of Poland, and his country's signatory to the Treaty of Versailles. 

Rice, of course, is experienced as a diplomat first, pianist second. She has parlayed her profile and connections into relationships with musicians and ensembles that otherwise would have been unavailable to her. She partnered with Yo-Yo Ma and the Muir String Quartet - big names - but Tuesday's performance marked her entry into the big-time orchestra league. Her only other moment on stage with an orchestra, she said, was a performance of this same concerto with the Denver Symphony, as a teenager. 

But it was the Queen of Soul's show, and she spent so much time sating the audience with Classic Aretha, plus spells at the keyboard, you had to wonder whether she had Rice tied up backstage. Rice did return for a collaboration – briefly, at the very end on "I Say a Little Prayer" and "My Country 'tis of Thee." 

Sans Rice, Franklin intoned her inimitable, liberal take on Puccini's "Nessun Dorma," plus a piece that a Mann publicist confirmed as "Che faro senza Euridice" from Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice. 

Rice was a pretty player in spots of the Mozart, making conductor Rossen Milanov smile when she took time with the upbeats to a phrase. In the serene opening few minutes, her playing was studied and slightly stiff. She wasn't able to voice effectively in the stormier middle section so that the more important material could be heard. On the whole it wasn't an artistic statement as much as an exercise in survival, and, heard from that point of view, she achieved what she set out to do. 

The audience, which greeted her initial appearance on stage with a partial standing ovation and a boo or two, granted her polite applause afterward. 

Some in attendance viewed her presence as a dangerous omen - for the music industry. 

"I hope this doesn't start an alarming trend of Bush administration officials going on tour," said Manan Trivedi, Democratic candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania's Sixth District. "We don't want Cheney on third tenor." 

Trivedi, an Iraq War veteran, was one of many attendees inclined to quarrel with Rice's record in Washington. But the smattering of boos aside, most said the evening had little to do with politics. 

"Look how many cars are in the lot," said Tracy Weatherly, 43, of North Philadelphia, noting the concert's charitable ties. "They're here for the music." 

Any meaning, then, to the orange Barack Obama T-shirt Weatherly donned? 

"Matched the sneakers," he said.

LINK TO VIDEO:

http://video.ap.org/?f=PAPHQ&PID=tFIbEEF2Lg0c6rdCAKIRavUE_oosMNgU

LINK TO PHOTOS:

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//100728/482/urn_publicid_ap_org_f97cda5f72d941e48fc2d528939618b0/?.src=news#photoViewer=/100728/482/urn_publicid_ap_org_cbcac2109b6d45c694028ef5b115496eRead

Read more:

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_left_story/20100728_A_secretary_of_state_and_the_Queen_of_Soul_make_music_at_the_Mann.html#ixzz0uzwQ2Wa9