* ACLU, courts prepare for abortion notification

The American Civil Liberties Union and courts throughout Illinois are preparing for what could be several hundred pregnant teenagers each year seeking judges’ approval for abortions without notification of their parents.

“We’ll be ready,” Patrick Kelley, Springfield-based chief judge of the 7th Judicial Circuit, said Friday.

He said he has e-mailed administrative guidelines to judges in all six counties in the circuit — Sangamon, Scott, Morgan Greene, Jersey and Macoupin — regarding requests for waivers to the Illinois parental notification law that takes effect Tuesday.

* Outer-ring suburbs got fewer trains, not more: CN

But according to the most recent CN report to the federal Surface Transportation Board, fears about freight traffic on the 198-mile line haven’t yet materialized.

That’s because the bad economy has resulted in freight traffic volumes that have been lower than they were before the EJ&E purchase, according to CN spokesman Patrick Waldron.

* CTA card extension ending

The grace period is ending — CTA Chicago Card Plus customers with expired cards have until Aug. 12 to use them.

* ‘Just believe’ bus ads fire back at atheists

* Legionnaire’s disease closes CTA vehicle washers

* State accuses Wells Fargo of mortgage discrimination

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a lawsuit Friday accusing Wells Fargo & Co. of discriminating against black and Latino homeowners by employing racially biased lending practices.

“As a result of its discriminatory and illegal mortgage-lending practices, Wells Fargo transformed our cities’ predominantly African-American and Latino neighborhoods into ground zero for subprime lending,” Madigan said Friday at a Chicago news conference announcing the lawsuit.

The suit filed in Cook County Circuit Court accuses Wells Fargo & Co., based in San Francisco, of selling high-cost subprime mortgage loans to minorities while white borrowers with similar incomes received lower-cost loans.

* Lowest Illinois tuition hike in a decade

The 11 campuses are raising tuition by an average of 7.1 percent, the smallest average increase this decade.

The “break'’ comes after the schools walloped new students with tuition bills that were double and triple those from just a decade ago, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of state data finds.

* 7.6 percent tuition hike at Illinois State

* Child support collections up

* Daley gives vote of confidence to Huberman

Responding to a report that federal authorities are investigating admissions practices at Chicago’s selective schools, Mayor Daley said he has “full confidence” in schools chief Ron Huberman, who is already looking into the problem.

* Grade-changing scam spurs CPS changes

* Youth Take Survey on Violence

* Battle-hardened vets see it all from front lines

High school kids share ideas on fighting youth violence

* No free check for the 2016 Summer Games

* Fill your recycling bin, win a prize

* Signs aid safety, hurt tickets: Safety up, revenue lags with warnings

Red-light camera warnings cut crashes along with cash. And just 1 suburb has them.

* 2 wards to see stepped-up enforcement of bike rules

* Power restored at Will Co. nuclear reactor

* Crime hot spots shifting

But the city’s nearly 9 percent across-the-board crime decrease touted by police — including a 3 percent dip in violent crime — doesn’t tell the whole story about crime in Chicago neighborhoods, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of district-by-district crime data shows. […]

• • A collection of West Side neighborhoods in the Harrison District (11th) became Chicago’s new top murder hot spot.

• • Robbers and burglars were so busy in the Chicago Lawn District (8th) that there was an average of 186 burglaries and 106 robberies reported each month between January and June.

• • The Shakespeare District (14th) — home to parts of gentrifying Bucktown and Logan Square — saw violent crime spike by nearly 30 percent. There were double-digit percentage increases in murders, robberies and assaults and batteries with weapons.

* Six wounded after shooting at West Side funeral

Police said the funeral was for Cornelius Robinson, 28, of the 1200 block of North Cicero, was a “self-admitted gang member.” Robinson had died at his home on July 26 from heart problems, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.

* Second trial set in 1993 Brown’s Chicken massacre

* Illinois soldiers return home

About 135 Illinois Army National Guard soldiers have returned home after a nine-month deployment to Afghanistan.

* Illinois soldiers to be welcomed home in Chicago