The Nooner | Chicago news and beyond | October 14, 2011

The Museum of Science and Industry is listed as a "nerdy day trip." Guilty as charged; I love that place.

Photo: Eileen Ryan Photography

The Nooner: Chicago news and beyond
Today’s news is about good reporting and bad boyfriends.

Death at a Naval base
Great reporting of a sad story here, about a death at the Great Lakes naval station. Kyle Antonacci was found hanging from a belt in his closet on base—but first the Navy told his parents that he’d died in his bunk, and later they claimed that he’d died in a car accident. In the end, his parents only discovered the truth from Facebook posts written by Antonacci’s friends—and his parents are still trying to discover if the death was a homicide or a suicide. Antonacci had been a key witness at a rape case two months prior and had repeatedly reported being threatened in an attempt to get him to change his testimony. The Navy has not been forthcoming in their investigation—and the neck bone that would help indicate if the death was a homicide by strangulation was missing from Antonacci’s remains when they arrived at his home town for burial.

Oak Park seeks to ban eating while driving
The Oak Park village board is considering an outright ban on eating while driving, in an attempt to curb distracted driving. There’s already an Illinois law that bans testing while driving—but because research shows that distracted driving accounts for about 80 percent of collisions and near-misses, and cell-phone use is not the only distraction, the subject is far from closed. Whether a mobile-eating ban can be enforced is another question.

Nerdy day-trips
Nerdy Day Trips is a very handsome interactive travel site by nerds, for nerds. Chicago-area nerd hotspots include the Chicago Botanic Gardens, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Illinois Railway Museum in Algonquin, Fermilab and American Science & Surplus. Uh…I resemble that remark.

Joliet police nab dastardly girlfriend-ambusher
Joliet police, following a tip, found and arrested a man who’s been in hiding since ambushing and shooting his ex-girlfriend two weeks ago. Roosevelt Gills (what a name!), who was already wanted on an earlier shooting, intercepted his ex as she walked her daughter to school. Gills drove his Buick LaSabre onto a lawn, hitting the girl’s leg, and then got out of the car and shot his ex girlfriend several times before driving away. The ex-girlfriend survived the shooting, and Gill is now in custody.

Chicago bike-lane condition survey   
If you’re a biker in Chicago, you’ve seen these problems: A bike lane with gigantic potholes that force you out of the lane. A road gets resurfaced and the construction crew erases the lane and doesn’t re-paint it when they’re done. Chicagoist points out that a local biker, who goes by Carfreecommuter on The Chainlink, is asking people to take a survey and pinpoint unmaintained lanes. Hopefully, this info can get to the city—and the city will actually care about it.