Author: staff

Cousins Rhea Allen, of Stonington, Illinois and Shannon Lewis, of Tennessee, said they’ve “got the Irish in us,” are spending the weekend in the city and saw the river dyeing and parade for the first time. Allen said it was “spectacular watching the river turn that bright green color,” while Lewis added, “It was cold, but it was fun.”

Four days earlier on March 1, Town Hall District Officer James Daly, 47, shot himself to death in a locker room inside the district’s police station, 850 W. Addison St., on the North Side. A 21-year Chicago police veteran, Daly worked the overnight shift and was expected to retire that week, sources have said.

Chris Weafer of Macro-Advisory, a consultancy specializing in Russia, said the Russian government “is adopting a carrot-and-stick approach to foreign business,” with talk of nationalization balanced out with government help for those who stay. A key reason, Weafer said, is the Kremlin’s desire to avoid mass unemployment.

The good news is Charles Oakley’s new memoir, “The Last Enforcer: Outrageous Stories From the Life and Times of One of the NBA’s Fiercest Competitors,” comes with a six-page index, for easy perusal. The bad news — particularly if you played in the NBA during the power forward’s 19-year career, from his 1985 debut alongside Michael Jordan on the Chicago Bulls, to his 2004 retirement from the Houston Rockets — is if you find your name in the book. I hope not. I mean, after a light, laudatory forward by Jordan himself (“He truly was my enforcer”), Oakley begins, in the first sentence, with direct words for Charles Barkley. No, he never punched Charles Barkley, he explains:

I recommend adding used coffee grounds, the filters, along with kitchen scraps, and plant debris to your compost pile. A plastic compost bin, which houses the pile, has worked very well for me. You can add a small amount of grounds to the pile each day. And it’s a simple way to reduce waste going to a landfill. The paper filters decompose rapidly, too. The finished compost enriches the soil in our vegetable garden.