The new runway at O'Hare International Airport is officially open for business after the arrival of the first plane to use the $450 million strip that's part of the O'Hare expansion plan. Mayor Richard Daley and other officials were aboard the plane when it touched down Thursday morning in Chicago.

Fifty years ago next month, 92 children and three nuns from Our Lady of the Angels School died in a fire so deadly, Chicago's fire code was rewritten to prevent a tragic repeat. Like Sept. 11 and the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., every living Chicagoan remembers where they were and what they were doing when they heard the breathtaking news.

A plunge in gasoline prices and lower housing costs drove consumer prices in the Chicago area down 1 percent in October, the Labor Department said Wednesday. Nationally, prices also dropped 1 percent, the biggest one-month decline on records that go back to February 1947. The drop was twice as large as analysts had been expecting and marked the third straight month that prices had either fallen or been unchanged.

The Illinois Tollway board today approved a proposal to spend $1.8 billion on road improvements, including $1.4 billion on interchanges and $400 million to establish carpool lanes.

A man who was killed when the speeding car he was driving was left the roadway, rolled over and struck a tree Wednesday night on the Stevenson Expressway near southwest suburban Forest View has been identified.

A Humboldt Park minister charged Wednesday that top designers of a gay-friendly high school reneged on a "deal'' with clergymen to strip the gay focus from the school's mission and said "hundreds of ministers'' would oppose restoring the original plan, as some gay activists now demand.

A toxicology report completed Thursday morning shows Merilyn Bouler, the Pierce Middle School teacher who died in a two-car crash Nov. 7, had cocaine in her system.

A plan that could double the number of entry seats at elite Skinner Classical on the Near West Side by using shuttered Sojourner Truth School in Cabrini-Green as a second campus was given the green light Wednesday by Chicago School Board members.

The Buffalo Grove Police Department welcomed a new officer into the ranks and helped make a dream come true. George Marijan, 7, was presented with a service award from the town Wednesday for capturing several suspects, saving hostages and returning a valuable stolen diamond on his first and only day on the job. Not bad for a rookie. Marijan, who has acute lymphoblastic leukemia --a cancer that affects the lymphoid white cells-always wanted to be an officer.

A rusty, burned out car hidden in a Gary corn field contained human bones, but few other clues to help police determine what happened there. Police officers discovered the car shortly after noon Wednesday at the northeast corner of 35th Avenue and Chase Street, just west of the city's fire and police training facility.

The Lane Bryant employee who was the only person to survive a quintuple slaying at the store earlier this year is not getting paid.

No one was in custody Thursday morning after the fatal shooting of one man the wounding of two others Wednesday night in the West Side’s Garfield Park neighborhood.

A teenager was shot while playing cards in a South Side basement apartment Wednesday night in the Grand Crossing community.

Will County prosecutors on Wednesday received a new legal weapon they can use to investigate the murder of one of Drew Peterson’s wives and the disappearance of another.

The surest sign Devin Hester doesn't have his edge as a return man can be found in opponents' game plans. They're kicking to him these days without fear of reprisal.

There are bad losses, really bad losses and embarrassing losses. The Bulls' 116-74 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday night at the Rose Garden falls into that last category. There wasn't anything competitive about this one as the Bulls never got started, immediately fell behind by double digits and never made a significant rally. Other than that, it was another fine circus trip performance.

The Blackhawks aren't into individual statistics. They're just trying to stay in playoff position as they enter Game 2 of their six-game trip tonight against the Dallas Stars. There's one individual stat that's intriguing, though. Defenseman Aaron Johnson, who didn't even make the season-opening roster, is tied for second in the NHL in plus/minus at plus-11. Only Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin (plus-17) rates higher.

'A win is a win.'' That sentiment was expressed by several players after Notre Dame's 27-21 victory over Navy last week. It's an understandable sentiment, considering the Midshipmen scored twice in the last two minutes to set up a potential winning drive in the final seconds, just as it was understandable when players used those same words after a mostly dreadful performance in a season-opening 21-13 win over San Diego State.

Nate Davis threw four touchdown passes and 14th-ranked Ball State survived a scare from Central Michigan on Wednesday night in a 31-24 victory in Mount Pleasant, Mich.

AP - Democratic leaders in Congress sidetracked legislation to bail out the auto industry Thursday and demanded the Big Three develop a plan assuring the money would make them economically viable.

AP - New claims for unemployment benefits jumped last week to a 16-year high, the Labor Department said Thursday, providing more evidence of a rapidly weakening job market expected to get even worse next year.

AP - President-elect Barack Obama is likely to choose Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano to be secretary of homeland security, top Obama advisers and several Democrats said Thursday as the shape of Obama's Cabinet begins to emerge.

AP - A federal judge on Thursday ordered the release of five Algerians held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the continued detention of a sixth in a major blow to the Bush administration's strategy to keep terror suspects locked up without charges.

AP - With weekly jobless claims benefits at a 16-year high, the White House said Thursday that President George W. Bush would quickly sign legislation pending in Congress to provide further unemployment benefits.