Briefs: Field offsets footprints
The Field Museum in Chicago is offering a way visitors can purchase credits to offset the carbon emissions generated by traveling to the building. Starting Tuesday, visitors can voluntarily choose to buy a carbon emissions offset credit for $1. The Field Museum says the money will promote the development of renewable energy technologies, as well as support habitat restoration projects and forest conservation. The Field Museum participates in the Chicago Climate Exchange, a greenhouse gas emissions trading system.
Council meetings online
The Chicago City Council today will make its debut over the Internet. There has been talk of televising city council meetings ever since Chicago was wired for cable. An ordinance authorizing the live streaming video on the Internet was approved by the council in January 2004. However, it was stymied by a debate over where to position the cameras. Some aldermen complained cameras free to pan the council floor could paint an unflattering portrait of inattentive aldermen. To placate aldermen, cameras were installed in three locations. Each will be fixed on the speaker. No panning the floor for reaction shots from aldermen while colleagues are speaking. No shots of the audience.
'Prank' leads to month in jail
A 25-year-old Des Plaines man convicted in August of calling in a fake abduction will spend 30 days in jail, Cook County Judge John Scotillo decided Thursday. Christopher Ghanayem, of the 300 block of Third Avenue, also was sentenced to two years of probation and 100 hours with the Sheriff's Work Alternative Program. He'll also have to donate $1,000 to a local anti-crime program and submit to random drug testing, officials with the Cook County state's attorney's office said. His jail time, including his birthday today, will be spent at the Cook County jail. Ghanayem was found guilty after a bench trial of reporting a false offense. His phone call about a fake kidnapping sent police to Woodfield Shopping Center in Schaumburg for hours afterward to investigate, officials said. A police officer said Ghanayem admitted to the prank and also said it was childish.
Cancer screening expanded
The state is expanding its breast and cervical cancer screening program to cover all women without health insurance in Illinois. Gov. Rod Blagojevich says the expansion will make screening and treatment available to 260,000 more women. Women need only be uninsured to qualify. Their income levels don't matter. Blagojevich says the program could cost about $50 million. He says he'll pay for it with savings from his vetoes of pork-barrel spending in the state budget. Spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff says that's the total cost of the program if all eligible women get screened and treated. The governor made the announcement at a Chicago hospital surrounded by women's health advocates and breast cancer survivors.