Raja Khan, the cab driver arrested and charged with aiding al-Qaida, has entered a not guilty plea. Khan's attorney says that his client did send money overseas but it wasn't for terrorism purposes as the government alleges. According to ABC 7: more ›

Open Books, 213 W Institute Pl., 6:30 p.m., free more ›

It's no secret that the State of Illinois is in some serious financial trouble and can't pay its bills. School districts are waiting on funds, social services are in peril, even the guy running the newsstand at the Capitol can't get paid. And now Chicagoist learns that the State's finances are so in the hole, it can't even keep up with the health and dental insurance claims of its tens of thousands of employees. more ›

On this week's entry to the Chicagoist Podcast Series, the natural comedy of the City Council, mixed with the real comedy of Schadenfreude - so which one is funnier? One's definitely funny in a "ha-ha" sense, and the Council...well, that's just kinda funny in a civically cynical sense. more ›

Four years ago, professional wrestler Simon Diamond learned the hard way you don't mess with the White Sox. In honor of today's home opener and Ozzie's insistence he wants his team to be hated, we revisit that fun moment. more ›

Be it rolling Easter eggs, holding a summit with the Easter Bunny, or throwing out the first pitch of the baseball season, it's been a busy day for the POTUS. Though Benjy didn't get his wish: Obama kept to Washington Nationals gear for his baseball appearance...or did he? That's right, Obama still represented the South Side with a Sox hat on the mound in DC. more ›

In an office loft located in the North Damen industrial corridor, Goose Island Clybourn pub brewer Jared Rouben pulled a shucked oyster from its bed of ice. Working in tandem with L2O sous chef Emiliano Pimentel Morado, an old friend of Rouben's from culinary school, they removed the oyster from its shell, filled the shell with wort (unfermented beer) frozen with liquid nitrogen, then reset the oyster atop the granita and garnished the whole thing with edible flowers and a citrus emulsion. For added effect, Rouben sprayed an oil he made from citra hops using L2O's distiller as Morado handed the finished appetizer to the curious. "Right now, Citra hops are my favorite," he explained. Around them, guests wandering the loft sampled. "We were also thinking about Italian ice and how we could make it using beer." They uploaded some of their experiment on You Tube. more ›

We've seen excellent under-the-radar exhibits at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in the past, and we were hopeful that Cooper: Cat Photographer might be one of them. So we were disappointed to find that this exhibit is a mere 18 large photographs hung on a single wall outside the Butterfly Haven. There is only one introductory panel explaining that Cooper is a handsome orange tabby (we're a little biased toward orange tabbies) who lives in Seattle with his filmmaker owners, Michael and Deirdre Cross. Once a week, they put a lightweight digital camera on Cooper's collar that automatically snaps a photograph every two minutes. more ›

In this recession, craft beer has become a success story. The combination of more breweries and a better educated consumer have resulted locally in a brewing renaissance that shows no signs of ebbing soon. the Brewers Association is holding the biennial World Beer Cup in Chicago this week, and its annual Craft Brewers Conference at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers from Wednesday to Saturday. With crowds five deep around the bar at Revolution Brewing, Half Acre installing its canning operation, Metropolitan chugging along, Haymarket Pub and Brewing targeting an autumn opening and sales of Stone Brewing's beers making Chicago their fifth-strongest market in 2010 after one week, the timing couldn't be any more perfect to for brewers and sales reps around the country to see what a market Chicago could be for them. more ›

We're entranced by Teen Dream, Beach House's latest album. Photographer Will Rice shares his photos of the band casting their spell over the Chicago audience during their stop at Metro last Friday. more ›

The cliché of pretentious creative self indulgent artists is slowly fading away from Columbia College Chicago’s film program. Last fall, the film and video department changed its curriculum centering on group collaboration with an emphasis on storytelling over technical mastery. The college’s program has a long standing reputation of hard work focusing on the technical nuts and bolts of production. The goal is to maintain that while underscoring creative collaboration. “We can teach skills, but people forget it’s how a filmmaker works with others that gets a movie made,” said Bruce Sheridan, film and video department chairman, in an interview with the Tribune. more ›

If you'd like your photos to be considered for Around Town or other features on Chicagoist, share them in our Flickr Pool. more ›