The Nooner | Chicago news and beyond | November 4, 2011

The Nooner: Chicago news and beyond
Today's news contains tips on how to walk off with a 3-carat diamond ring.

Billion-dollar upgrade for the Red Line
A ton of cash is about to be spent upgrading the Red Line—$646 million state-funded dollars have just been committed to rehabbing the CTA’s busiest train route. The cash will go towards fixing tracks on some southern stretches of the line, as well as into complete remodeling of the Wilson and Clark/Division stops. Which sounds good to me: The Wilson stop is disgusting. This new pile of cash joins previous state funds that had already been committee to Red-Line improvement, totaling around a billion dollars. In other CTA news, I just want to make sure that you saw this photo of Mayor Rahm Emanuel nonchalantly riding the El with zombies.

Tomorrow is National Bank Transfer day
Saturday, Nov 5, has been declared “National Bank Transfer Day,” a day to move your money from big banks to local banks and/or not-for-profit credit unions. The goal is to protest the mismanagement that caused the recession and the greed that is leading to exploitative fees on personal checking and savings accounts. Gapers’ block points to I Know Chicago’s local resources for it. Vegan Femme has some additional Chicago-specific info on her tumblr blog.

Why won’t anyone let me borrow a 3-carat diamond on a handshake?
A Chicago jeweler’s $381,000 diamond ring was “borrowed” by Evanston real estate developer Neil Ornoff, who said he wanted to show it to his girlfriend. The diamond shop, Graff Diamonds, took as collateral both a check for the ring’s full price and a credit card number—but they didn’t check to make sure there was money in either account. When the ring was not returned, the shop tried to cash the check. But whoops, it turns out that the bank account did not exist and the credit card was declined. And double whoops—Ornoff had pawned the ring to pawn shop New York Jewelers. Now Graff Diamonds is suing the pawn shop; the pawn shop is attempting to charge Graff $44,000 for the return of the stolen ring. Ornoff, naturally, has been charged with theft and deceptive practices; his case is pending.

Occupy Scott Walker
Occupy Chicago protestors attended—and disrupted—Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s speech at the Union League yesterday. Walker, you’ll remember, is the union-busting governor who eliminated the collective-bargaining rights of government workers in his state. But at the talk, about 70 members of the audience turned out to be activists; just as Walker began his speech, they called him out as “someone who has wreaked havoc on the lives of working families,” among other things.

Convict curses out judge
After breaking into a house and killing a man in front of four witnesses, a Chicago man was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. In response, he had a few choice words for the judge: He said that if he’d really been the guy who committed the crime, he would’ve killed everyone in the house, not just one guy. He also called the judge a “clown,” and claimed that his conviction would get overturned and that he’d then win millions in the resulting lawsuit: “I’ll buy me a big house in Rolling Meadows ‘cause you paid for it,” he told police officers and the dead man’s family. Something tells me that this guy’s going to have a hard time getting parole.