Big John and Ramblin’ Ray are joined by Mike Ellis, the Evanston Township High School’s men coach, where he talks about Freshman Blake Peters who made the game-winning shot from 80 feet away. Peters is a finalist for national honors in the 2018 ESPY Awards.
By Nick Gale, WLS-AM News
(CHICAGO) The Illinois Democratic County Chairmen’s Association on Monday announced the results of their online straw poll asking who should run for governor and Lt. governor in 2018.
State Sen. Daniel Biss (D-Evanston) came in first in the gubernatorial straw poll with 25-percent of the vote.
Alderman Ameya Pawar came in second with 15-percent of the vote followed by Chris Kennedy, U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-East Moline), and J.B. Pritzker rounds out the top five vote getters with 10% of the vote.
The poll was conducted from Monday January 23rd to midnight on Sunday January 29th. The results were tabulated from 5,352 responses.
Write in Candidates include Attorney General Lisa Madigan, former-Gov. Pat Quinn, and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL).
It’s expected that Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner will seek re-election in 2018.
Lt. Governor votes are still being tallied.
@ 2017 WLS-AM News
(EVANSTON) A firefighter was injured and multiple families were displaced in a fire Monday afternoon at a townhouse in north suburban Evanston.
Crews were called about 3:20 p.m. for reports of a fire at the two-story townhouse in the 800 block of Sherman Avenue, according to a statement from the Evanston Fire Department. They arrived to find heavy smoke and fire venting from a first-floor window of the unit, which had two other units attached to it.
Firefighters found heavy smoke throughout the structure and fire in the basement and on the first floor, authorities said. The residents, who reported the fire, had safely exited the building on their own.
The fire was under control by 4:20 p.m. and extinguished by 4:51 p.m., the fire department said. Families from all three units were displaced and the American Red Cross assisted them with finding shelter.
One firefighter was injured in the incident, authorities said. He was taken to a hospital, where he was treated and released.
(CHICAGO) The Evanston Fire Department responded to a house fire in Evanston on Thursday night.
About 9:07 p.m. firefighters arrived to heavy smoke coming from the first floor door of the two-story house. Additional firefighters arrived on scene and were able to extinguish the fire about 10:10 p.m., which had started in the kitchen area of the first floor.
The resident on the building’s first floor was displaced and is being helped by the Red Cross. The two residents on the second floor will not be displaced.
No injuries were immediately reported.
(EVANSTON) A student is in custody after a locker was set on fire Monday afternoon at a north suburban high school.
About 12:15 p.m., a boy set an object on fire inside a third-floor hallway locker at Evanston Township High School at 1600 Dodge Ave., Evanston police Cmdr. Joe Dugan said. The blaze then spread to a second locker.
The Evanston Fire Department responded and extinguished the small fire, Dugan said.
The fire was contained to just the two lockers, but firefighters had ventilate the second and third floor areas and students in the east wing of the school were relocated to another area, though the school was not evacuated, authorities said.
The school has resumed normal operations, and “no students or staff were in danger at any time,” according to a statement posted to the school’s website.
Police checked the school video system and were able to see a 16-year-old Skokie boy “light a paper object on fire and place it in the locker,” police said.
The juvenile was questioned, and later charged with one felony count of aggravated arson, according to police. He was being held at the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center.
About 9:25 p.m., the 31-year-old man was driving in the 2200 block of Emerson when the medical event happened, according to Evanston police. His car struck an unoccupied parked vehicle and then crashed into the house.
He was taken to NorthShore University HealthSystem in Evanston with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
No one else was injured in the crash, police said.
(EVANSTON) The husband of a children’s librarian who died in a crash while riding her bicycle to work in north suburban Evanston has filed a lawsuit against the driver.
Gay “Gigi” Galich was on her way to work at Evanston Public Library when she was struck by a motorcycle driven by Alexander E. Thorne about 9 a.m. June 30, 2014, in the 600 block of Church Street, or between Orrington and Chicago avenues, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in the Cook County Circuit Court.
Galich, then 55, was wearing a helmet and riding her bicycle in a dedicated bike lane at the time of the crash, according to the lawsuit.
Galich’s husband, Paul M. Magura, claims in the lawsuit that the driver drove too fast for conditions, failed to keep a sufficient lookout and failed to control his motorcycle.
A witness told police Thorne was eastbound on Church Street when the bicyclist, also eastbound in the designated bike lane, crossed the street mid-block right into the path of the motorcycle, Evanston police previously said.
Thorne, 27, was not hurt in the crash and was not issued any citations, the Sun-Times previously reported.
The three-count suit claims negligence and seeks more than $150,000.
Michael H. Perrine | Evanston police
(EVANSTON) A north suburban man was arrested Friday after a package containing more than 14 pounds of cannabis was delivered to his Evanston home.
Michael H. Perrine, 39, of the 1800 block of Sherman Avenue, is charged with one felony count of possessing more than 5,000 grams of cannabis, according to an Evanston police statement.
Local police and the United States Postal Service started investigating after they identified a package containing suspected narcotics, police said.
They conducted a controlled delivery of the package to the addressee about 1 p.m. Friday, and arrested Perrine after he took possession of it, police claim.
Authorities later discovered more than 14 pounds of cannabis inside the package, police said. Court information was not immediately available.
© Copyright 2015 Sun-Times Media, LLC
(EVANSTON) Roberta Buffett Elliott — sister of legendary investor Warren Buffett — has set a new high water mark for donations to Northwestern University.
Tuesday, she gave the Evanston university a gift of $100 million to create the Institute for Global Studies and fund scholarships for international students, according to a statement from Northwestern.
“Bertie’s extraordinary commitment and her unprecedented generosity to Northwestern will fundamentally transform every corner of the University’s global programming,” Northwestern President Morton Schapiro said in the statement.
Elliott, a 1954 grad of the university, decided to fund the entire gift immediately.
© Copyright 2015 Sun-Times Media, LLC
(EVANSTON) A Cook County judge has granted an emergency order of protection of evidence in a lawsuit filed over a crash that left a woman trapped underneath a UPS truck for 30 minutes last month in north suburban Evanston.
Erin Hinner, 30, was crossing Ashland Avenue on Dec. 22, 2014, when she was hit by the UPS truck, according to a lawsuit filed Jan. 15 in Cook County Circuit Court.
Judge James N. O’Hara granted an emergency order of protection requiring UPS to preserve and protect evidence from the crash, including cell phone records of the truck’s driver and data recording devices for the truck and its driver for the 24 hours leading up to the crash.
Evanston police said at the time the woman was walking across Ashland Avenue at the Central Street crosswalk about 5 p.m. when a UPS truck, turning south onto Ashland, hit her.
The truck then rolled over her, pinning her body under its axle, where she was trapped for 30 minutes, the suit claims.
“The order will give us access to what could be key information in finding out how and why a driver would knock down and drive over a pedestrian who was in a cross walk at five o’clock in the evening,” Hinner’s attorney, Michael Demetrio of Corboy & Demetrio, said in a statement.
Police said at the time she was extricated from under the truck by personnel from the Evanston Fire Department, then taken to Evanston-Northshore University Hospital with life-threatening injuries.
The UPS driver told police he wasn’t even aware he’d run over Hinner until he “heard her screaming under the truck,” according to a statement from Demetrio.
Hinner, a new mother, was placed in a drug-induced coma to save her life, the attorney’s statement said.
“Erin suffered life-threatening injuries as a result of the severe crushing her body suffered under the full weight of the UPS truck,” Demetrio said. “In addition, she missed her son’s first Christmas and other milestones mothers dream about experiencing with their children.”
The lawsuit names UPS and the driver, Gabriel Garcia, as defendants, and claims Garcia was negligent for failing to stop and yield to a pedestrian within the right-of-way.
The one-count suit seeks an unspecified amount of damages and a jury trial.
UPS has not commented on the lawsuit.
© Copyright 2015 Sun-Times Media, LLC
