News Watch's blog

City Manager Julia Carroll reportedly has focused her search for a new Evanston police chief on a single candidate.

Evanston/Skokie School District 65's plan to assure racial balance in school assignments could be placed at risk, depending on the outcome of two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court this term.

Washington Post columnist John Kelly says nice things about Evanston and wasn't even too disappointed with a ride on the CTA after a visit last month. But then he's got relatives who live here.

The future of Solucient, the health care information business headquartered in downtown Evanston, is still uncertain.

A 51-year-old Evanston woman testified in Circuit Court in Skokie yesterday that she was attacked in her Evanston home three years ago by her daughter's boyfriend who stabbed her repeatedly, leaving tendons in her arms exposed.

The CTA says riders heading to the Loop on the Purple Line's Evanston Express Service or the Red Line can look forward to years of delays starting in April -- delays far worse than what they've already been experiencing lately.

Work is scheduled to begin later this month on a $2.3 million renovation of Evanston's main public library designed to make the place more appealing to young people.

Officials in Wilmette have vowed to destroy all 2,900 ash trees on public property there over the next six years as a way of combatting the spread of the emerald ash borer beetle. But the Chicago Tribune reports that Evanston, which has about 4,000 public ash trees, has decided to take a more measured approach.

With Evanston's aldermen scheduled to discuss plans for the Civic Center again Jan. 10, the Chicago Tribune reports this morning that the Friends of the Civic Center have gathered "dozens" of petition signatures calling for a referendum urging that the city rehab the existing building rather than move.

Shares of Evanston-based Northfield Laboratories Inc. [NFLD] lost more than half their value today after the company announced disappointing results in tests of its experimental blood substitute.

When Los Angeles-based Lowe Enterprises bought Evanston's first skyscraper, the 1603 Orrington Ave. building, they apparently paid a bit of a premium over the average price for office properties in the Chicago suburbs.

Evanston Mayor Lorraine Morton visited Evanston's sister city, Belize City [map], the capital of the Central American nation of Belize, earlier this month to meet with officials there.

Business leaders in Milwaukee are pitching an extension of commuter rail service that now runs from Chicago, through Evanston, to Kenosha so it would continue on into downtown Milwaukee.

School District 65 officials gave reporters a tour of the new African-centered curriculum program at Oakton Elementary School last week.

In a move that should sound familiar to Evanstonians, officials in State College, Pa., are seeking more financial help from Penn State University to pay for municipal services.