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Illinois

Jul 2002Daily fine introduced last month for the outdoor use of upholstered furniture in Normal, Illinois: $100
Source:

Town of Normal, Illinois

Jul 2002Minutes after a tornado hit Shiloh, Illinois, in April that the town's warning siren sounded: 30
Source:

National Weather Service (Silver Spring, Md.)

Oct 2000Amount a Chicago suburb's city council offered a Muslim group last June to abandon its plans for a mosque there: $200,000
Source:

Palos Heights City Council (Palos Heights, Ill.)

Jun 2000Price an Illinois company charges for a pen embedded with Abraham Lincoln's “genetic essence”: $1,650
Source:

Krone Pen (Buffalo Grove, Ill.)

Apr 2000Number of flowers that prison inmates plant each spring at the Illinois State Fairgrounds: 110,000
Source:

Lincoln Correctional Center (Lincoln, Ill.)

Apr 2000Ratio of April showers to plants producing May flowers at the Springfield, Illinois, Park District last year: 1:1,571
Source:

National Weather Service (Lincoln, Ill.)/Washington Park Botanical Gardens (Springfield, Ill.)

Apr 2000Rank of Chicago among the windiest U.S. cities: 53
Source:

National Climatic Data Center (Asheville, N.C.)

Oct 1999Number of tires found along the Mississippi River since 1997 by an Illinois man bent on cleaning it: 1,916
Source:

Mississippi Beautification and Restoration Project (East Moline, Ill.)

April 29, 2008An Illinois newspaper carrier rescued an elderly woman whose leg had been pinned for four days under the dead body of her obese 77-year-old husband.
Source:

Fox News

February 15, 2008A graduate student in social work, specializing in mental health, shot up a classroom at Northern Illinois University, killing five people and then himself.
Source 1:

Chicago Tribune

Source 2:

New York Times

Source 3:

Chicago Tribune

June 5, 2007Three students were arrested in Aurora, Illinois, following a cafeteria food fight. “Milk cartons, full pop bottles, and blue slushies were flying around,” said one student. “Kids literally bought the food to throw it and, to me, that's a little expensive.”
Source:

CNN

April 5, 2007XXXChurch.com, an online ministry, staged a “Porn and Pancakes” event for evangelicals in Morton, Illinois.
Source:

CNN.com

April 4, 2007In Beardstown, Illinois, federal agents arrested 62 undocumented immigrants in a pork plant.
Source:

Reuters

January 31, 2007 President Bush staged an impromptu visit to the Sterling Family Restaurant in Peoria, Illinois, but few of the diners wanted to talk to him. “Sorry to interrupt you,” said Bush. “How's the service?”
Source:

Newsweek via MSNBC

January 15, 2007An Illinois man rode a stationary bike for 85 hours, setting a new world record.
Source:

AP via ESPN.com

November 16, 2006Parents in Illinois were lodging complaints against an elementary school library for carrying And Tango Makes Three, a children's book based on a true story about gay male penguins.
Source:

CBS 3

August 24, 2006At Chicago's O'Hare airport, Mardin Amin, 29, of Skokie, Illinois, was arrested after telling security agents that the penis pump in his backpack was a bomb.
Source:

Forbes

June 1, 2006The United States declared a moratorium on wind farms in Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
Source:

PhysOrg.com

May 27, 2006A jury in Illinois awarded a woman $5 million in compensation for her ruined vagina.
Source:

Daily Southtown

April 28, 2006 Scientists in Illinois said that they had refined a process that transforms pig manure into crude oil, and suggested that up to 3.6 gallons of crude oil could be generated daily per pig.
Source:

Belleville News Democrat

April 17, 2006Former Illinois Governor George Ryan was convicted of racketeering.
Source:



April 3, 2006Thunderstorms--along with at least 63 tornadoes--killed 27 people in Tennessee, Missouri, and Illinois.
Source:

CNN.com

April 2, 2006Scientists successfully sent muon neutrinos from Illinois to Minnesota in order to prove that some neutrinos do transform, most likely to tau neutrinos.
Source:

Chicago Sun-Times

February 18, 2006An Illinois man was suing his ex-wife to keep her from having their 8-year-old son circumcised.
Source:

The Chicago Tribune

July 15, 2005A St. Charles, Illinois, man was accused of seducing an Akita through a chain-link fence.
Source:

Daily Herald

May 30, 2005An Illinois man burned down his house in order to clear it of crackheads.
Source:

Chicago Sun-Times

April 16, 2005The $90 million Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum opened in Springfield, Illinois. It features special effects created by Stan Winston Studios--which did the effects for Jurassic Park--and a life-sized model of Navy Secretary Gideon Welles with a terrible toupee.
Source:

LATimes.com

February 24, 2005An Illinois court ruled that a man could sue his ex-lover for using his sperm, acquired via oral sex, to impregnate herself.
Source:

Chicago Sun-Times

January 1, 2005The eastern tiger salamander was selected by voters in Illinois as the official "State Amphibian."
Source:

Associated Press

April 8, 2004 Illinois expressed regret for the lynching of Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum in 1844 and the expulsion of the Mormons in 1846.
Source:

Associated Press

August 7, 2003A man in southern Illinois was charged with raping one horse and killing another.
Source:

Associated Press

JULY 2008

HIGH NOON FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
Why the G.O.P. Must Die
A Forum with Kevin Baker, Scott McConnell, Kevin Phillips, and Thomas Schaller

THE MAGIC OLYMPICS
With Tricks Explained!
By Alex Stone

THE CASE OF THE SEVERED HAND
A story by Robert Coover

Also: J.G. Ballard: The Boy from Shanghai