* Four killed, at least eight wounded in six-hour bloodbath

Three men were fatally shot. One man was fatally stabbed. Police shot one man and at least seven other people were wounded by gunfire — including an 8-year-old boy sitting in his bedroom — during an especially violent six hours late Wednesday and early Thursday mainly on the South and West Sides.

* Boy among gunshot victims on violent night

* Three wounded in West Loop drive-by

* Argument over $15 ends with man shot, seriously wounded in Chatham

* Man dies following West Town shooting

* Man dead, woman hurt in South Side shooting and crash: police

* $417K for family of bystander killed by police in shoot-out

* Murder defendant takes a gamble – and wins

How do you stab and slash someone 61 times, not just killing but slaughtering him, then walk free?

That’s the lingering question in the wake of last week’s acquittal of Joseph Biedermann of Hoffman Estates, who admitted to inflicting numerous fatal wounds on Terrance Hauser during an early-morning altercation in March 2008 in Hauser’s apartment in the complex where both men lived.

The answer, in this case, is that you cast yourself as the victim of an attempted homosexual rape, then you throw in all-or-nothing with the jury.

* Illinois jobless rate hits 10.3%

The unemployment rate in Illinois climbed to 10.3 percent in June, up from 10.1 percent in May, but the pace of job loss slowed for the third straight month, the Illinois Department of Employment Security said today.

Some 13,900 jobs were lost in the state since May bringing the total number of employed to 683,300, the highest since November 1983, the agency said. The state has lost 272,600 jobs over the year and recorded job losses for nine consecutive months.

The state’s jobless rate continued to exceed the nation’s 9.5 percent rate and was well above the 6.6 percent rate reported in June 2008.

* Jobs for Chicago …

The good news, such as it is: Job losses in the Chicago metropolitan area slowed in June. We still lost jobs, though. The unemployment rate stands at 10.3 percent for the state, 10.6 percent for the region.

The area’s job losses have been on a steady, dreary march this year: 37,200 in January, 37,700 in February, 22,500 in March, 27,000 in April, 37,600 in May, and 2,300 in June, according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security.

More than 200,000 jobs have been lost since the start of the recession.

Yet the company and the alderman face huge resistance from the City Council to a proposal for a Wal-Mart Supercenter on the South Side, at 83rd Street and Stewart Avenue just west of the Dan Ryan.

* Chicago, city that works?

Small business owners all across the city are being ticketed for having signs without permits, even though some of them hung the signs when it was perfectly legal to do so. Nowadays, a business isn’t supposed to hang any sign without hiring a bonded sign erector, paying fees and getting permission from several unconnected city departments as well as the local alderman. As difficult as it is to interpret tow-zone signs pointing every which direction, the permit process to put a sign above your storefront is even more baffling. Your heart sinks when you see that orange envelope under your wiper and know you must pay $50, but imagine getting a signage ticket for $3,000 in a year when your business is just barely hanging on.

If Chicago remains so hostile to start-up businesses and self-employed people when the region has now lost nearly 170,000 jobs in the last year alone, we have no hope of recovering. Instead of fining small businesses at every turn and enforcing confusing regulations that have nothing to do with protecting the public’s health and safety, the government should get out of the way of industrious people who want nothing more than to pursue their American dream. It is time that Mayor Richard Daley and the City Council support entrepreneurs so we can truly become “the city that works.”

* Interest in blue-collar trades up, colleges say

“It is someone who has been laid off in manufacturing without any education going back to get their GED. It’s people that have master’s degrees. It’s across the board,” said Peggy Gundrum, director of career services at ECC. “A lot of them are feeling a panic and just want to find a job.”

* FutureGen on track to a 2010 decision

But two partners recently dropped out of the alliance, reducing membership to nine. American Electric Power Co. and Southern Co. cited concerns about costs. Steve Higginbottom, spokesman for Southern Co., added that the company pulled out to focus on other technology research being conducted by the government and industry partners. The uncertainty of FutureGen also contributed, he said, but added: “We’re supportive of the FutureGen project. We think it has the potential to lead to some developments.”

* Midway Games closing Chicago headquarters

Midway Games Inc., owner of the Mortal Kombat video game franchise, will close its Chicago headquarters and fire all 60 of its remaining employees at the corporate office (about 20 percent of its total work force) by early September, according to an SEC filing. Midway also has an office in Chicago that develops Mortal Kombat.

Last week, Midway sold its assets for $33 million plus accounts receivable to Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of New York-based Time Warner Inc. Midway filed under Chapter 11 in February, listing assets of $168 million and debt of $281 million.

* Midway Games closing HQ, cutting 60 workers

* Unpaid designers furious with Jake

Jake, one of Chicago’s best-known fashion boutique names, saw its big-spending customers disappear as the recession deepened in spring 2008.

What happened next is a story familiar to ailing businesses: Jake boutiques, run by parent company Price Allen Inc., missed a requirement by its lenders to make a profit one quarter. The bank pulled Jake’s credit line and commercial loan, totaling $1.5 million, and took over the boutiques’ assets.

* Virgin Atlantic halts Chicago flights — at least for now

* Amid layoffs, 911 workers rack up overtime

Chicago has laid off 431 employees to help erase a threatened $300 million year-end shortfall. Those lucky enough to remain on the job have been forced to swallow furlough days and other concessions.

Still, employees at the city’s 911 center are raking in the overtime.

At least 13 police and fire communications operators were each paid more than $10,000 in overtime during the first three months of this year alone, records show. Georgine Murray topped the list with $23,439 in overtime through March 30.

* Chicago hiring monitor notes progress, setbacks

Brennan said 290 city contractors were hired on as city employees in violation of federal court rules and that the city clerk’s office this year hired nine “connected” summer interns who were relatives of city workers — including relatives of three clerk’s office employees.

Kristine Williams, a clerk’s office spokeswoman, said the mayor’s Office of Compliance advised that family members of city employees could be hired as interns if they were not directly supervised by their relative.

* Stroger owes answers on Cole

The Better Government Association is suing Cook County after it rejected the BGA’s request under the state’s Freedom of Information Act for the county cell phone records for Stroger, Dunnings, Cole and the county’s chief of communications, Eugene Mullins. The Chicago Sun-Times made a similar request, which also was denied.

The county first told the BGA the request was too burdensome, so it couldn’t release the records.

What nonsense.

The county then said releasing the records could jeopardize an ongoing investigation.

* Embattled superintendent ducks FOIA requests

In the wake of a grand jury investigation, raids by cops and a lawsuit to get back nearly $200,000 borrowed from Cook County, Suburban Cook County Regional Office of Education Supt. Charles Flowers’ office now is refusing to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests from the SouthtownStar.

Three months ago, the newspaper began filing FOIA requests, and though nearly every one came back requesting seven-day extensions, they were eventually filled.

The office has yet to respond to the SouthtownStar’s latest requests - dated June 19 and June 25 - for Flowers’ e-mails and cell phone records. Extensions, the latest of which expires today, were requested.

* The costs of making downtowns attractive

The nonprofit groups that promote some suburban downtown districts — planting flowers, hosting summer concerts, putting up holiday decorations and marketing the shopping areas — are funded, in part, by tax dollars. So does that mean they are accountable to the public about who runs things and how their money is spent?

But in addition to the tax they assess on themselves, some of these organizations — like the one in Elmhurst — are in TIF districts and get additional funds from taxpayer dollars. In Elmhurst’s case, the City Centre’s annual budget is about $900,000, split almost evenly between TIF dollars and money generated through the special service area.

* Fire chiefs sound alarm on equipment funding

The Schaumburg Fire Department wants to buy special breathing apparatus that could be used in cave-ins. The Arlington Heights department would like new equipment to clean, dry and disinfect clothing. And Des Plaines is in the market for a firetruck priced at nearly $500,000.

Some of these items are essential for firefighters, especially during emergency rescues, but the costs have officials worried. The weak economy combined with a lack of tax revenue is obstacle enough, but even more troublesome is the prospect that a federal grant program designed to help departments buy equipment may be cut next year by 70 percent.The scope of the cutback was unexpectedly steep, said Arlington Heights Fire Chief Glenn Ericksen.

* Daley’s pick to head landmarks panel withdraws

Mayor Daley’s choice to chair the Commission on Chicago Landmarks has withdrawn from consideration to avoid a potential conflict, creating a leadership vacuum on a panel that will play a pivotal role in any renovation of Wrigley Field.

* Ald. O’Connor to take over zoning panel?

Ald. Pat O’Connor (40th), Mayor Daley’s trusted floor leader, is the odds-on favorite to replace retiring Zoning Committee Chairman William Banks (36th) at the helm of the City Council’s second most powerful committee, City Hall sources said Thursday.

“I have not talked to the mayor about it at all. [But] I’ve had folks say that’s something that might happen,” O’Connor said.

“If that’s what they want, that’s fine with me. But if they want to go in another direction, that’s fine, too. Oftentimes, you express an interest and it looks like you have this avarice for the position. People tend to say, ‘Forget it.’”

Banks refused to discuss his replacement during a break at Thursday’s Zoning Committee meeting. With one more committee meeting left before his Sept. 1 retirement, Banks is running out of time to train his successor.

* RTA rejects paratransit bailout

A confusing, rambling meeting of the Regional Transportation Authority board ended in a vote to give no additional money to paratransit service for the disabled — which will run out of funds this fall.

Transit advocate Jim Watkins blamed the vote on a “a turf war” between the transit agencies.

“As of right now, come October, there will be no paratransit service,” Watkins said.

* Pace solution to budget woes ruffles feathers on RTA board

At a meeting of the agency’s Finance Committee, RTA Chairman Jim Reilly proposed sharing the deficit burden through Pace using $9 million in capital funds, the RTA allocating $8 million in funds shared by Pace, CTA and Metra and a third component of fare increases for paratransit on Pace.

But, competing priorities between Metra, the CTA and Pace emerged on the RTA board, which is a mix of representatives from Chicago and surrounding municipalities.

Insiders said that CTA and Metra leaders pressured some directors to hold off from backing the $8 million.

Pace Chairman Richard Kwasneski said he could not expect his board to move on the $9 million or ask riders to make sacrifices with fare hikes without the RTA’s cooperation.

* Will County’s trails connected in master plan

A new plan is in the works that would link a long connection of separate south suburban trails so that people can bike, walk or even ride horseback through neighboring communities without the path being disrupted.

The I-355 Area Trails Master Plan is a detailed document recently adopted by officials in Homer Glen, Lemont, Lockport, New Lenox, the Will County Land Use Department, and the Forest Preserve District of Will County. The plan would link a proposed Veterans Memorial Trail that will run parallel to Interstate Highway 355 and other planned trails to existing routes.

* IDNR offers free fishing clinic

* Springfield: Boring By Design