How much are your civil rights worth? To Mokena resident Tino Lettieri, the price is $10,000. In a letter submitted by his attorney to the village, that's what Lettieri says he should be compensated for what he claims was unfair treatment during the election Nov. 4.

As Benny Buchanan, 74, of Kankakee, was traveling to Moline to visit his granddaughter around 10 a.m. Friday, he stopped at the rest area on westbound Interstate 80 between Minooka and Morris. But after the General Motors retiree got out of his pickup to go inside, he slipped, gashing his head on the sidewalk.

While he was stationed in Iraq, Charles Loverude taped himself reading a children's book and sent the DVD to his niece, Hannah, 2. "We put it on and she said, 'Uncle Charles, Uncle Charles!' She went up to the screen to touch it and said, 'He's not listening to me,'" Charles' mother Pat said. On Friday morning, Hannah walked up to her uncle and was swept into his arms after the Army first lieutenant led a motorcade to his parents' house.

Talk about a baptism of fire. One moment the Romeoville fire chief was being sworn in as vice president of the newly reformed Romeoville Lions Club, the next he was out the door on an emergency call.

MorningStar Mission wants its 3.5 -acre retail plaza annexed into the village of New Lenox.

The National Society of High School Scholars has selected Plainfield Central High School physics teacher Nickey Walker as a 2009 Claes Nobel Educator of Distinction.

In an era of fewer co-workers and more work responsibilities, many workers are finding taking vacation a stressful experience. Staffing firm Randstad U.S. said 43 percent of respondents to its survey said preparing a boss and co-workers for one's absence is stressful, and 30 percent worry about giving up control of their responsibilities. And 77 percent of respondents label the first day back from vacation stressful.

Timber Ridge Middle School English and social studies teacher Patricia Orvis is now a published author.

To Mayor Valerie Burd's delight, the state of Illinois has declared her to be credible. An Illinois Pollution Control Board hearing officer has denied a landfill company's motion to find testimony by Burd not credible, from a hearing over the city council's denial of the landfill site.

A 200-foot garden hose was stolen between Wednesday and Thursday from the Twin Oaks condominium complex on Twin Oaks Drive in Joliet.

Students in Cindy Maki's summer school class at Lakewood Falls Elementary School are having an adventure through their studies. The kindergarten through third-grade Extended School Year students celebrated Africa and its cultures and creatures.

As the sun glistened off the glass art creations of the Lotton family, Margi Hafer dabbed at her brilliant watercolors and Becki Moffet Moore described her organic pottery techniques. "I work with clay like I work with pie dough," she said, explaining why one large lacey white bowl had floppy, uneven edges.

Indian Trail Middle School Assistant Principal Jennifer Orlos will become principal of John F. Kennedy Middle School next school year.