“Chicago” on The Daily Caller

Chicago 2012 is the largest-ever NATO summit, with representatives from over 60 countries attending. It’s the first such gathering in the U.S. since 1999, and the only one to ever be held beyond the Beltway. It’s a set piece of the world’s diplomatic calendar. The only problem is that you wouldn’t actually know it by being here. Despite all the press coverage and pre-conference buildup, President Obama’s NATO summit is a pretty low-key affair. (more)

Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch told a crowd of 500 tea party activists on Monday that under the leadership of Gov. Scott Walker, the Badger State has shifted from deficits to surpluses and from job losses to job gains. (more)

Nationwide, ambitious entrepreneurs are pursuing their American Dream by starting mobile food businesses. The number of food trucks and carts has exploded in recent years — and so have regulations that do little but protect established brick-and-mortar restaurants from these new competitors. As Slate’s Matthew Yglesias recently opined, city governments “are threatening to kill the food truck revolution with dumb regulations.” (more)

CHICAGO (AP) — Accustomed to wearing Vera Wang gowns on red carpets, singing at the Grammys or autographing her weight-loss memoir, Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson will take on a new role under a very different spotlight — in Chicago’s drab criminal courts building at the trial of the man charged with murdering her mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew. (more)

A suspected child rapist is on the loose and in a statement obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement accepts responsibility for releasing him. (more)

With the critical Illinois primary only a day away, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney took his pitch to President Barack Obama‘s home turf, speaking on the campus of the University of Chicago, where Obama taught constitutional law from 1991-2004. The university’s home — Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood — was also home to the president before his move to Pennsylvania Avenue. (more)

CHICAGO — Republicans in Chicago’s 43rd Ward saw an unusual presidential primary debate and straw poll Wednesday night, one where no candidates showed up and their convention-delegate surrogates did all the talking. (more)

We’ve heard of passing notes in school, but this is ridiculous. A first-grader at a Chicago-area school is under federal investigation for distributing phony $100 bills. (more)

A hacker purported to have been involved in the December 2011 cyberattacks on private intelligence firm Stratfor was arrested late Monday evening in Chicago. The hacker was one of six members of hacktivist group Anonymous charged with “computer hacking and other crimes,” the FBI said Tuesday. (more)

Basketball Hall of Famer Michael Jordan is selling his longtime family home in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park for a pretty penny. (more)

The death of a Chicago man killed by a drunk driver who was in the United States illegally has become an unlikely catalyst in the national policy debate over immigration. Eight Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder on January 30, asking them to cut off some federal funding currently sent to Cook County, Illinois. (more)

Box office results show Universal Studios’ “Safe House” ranking number one this week, but a retired Chicago police officer is hoping to close the door on the new film. (more)

Family members of a Chicago man killed in 2011 by a drunk driver are steaming mad at city officials for failing to bring the driver’s illegal immigration status to the attention of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when they first learned about it, four years ago. (more)

The texts of Barack Obama’s recent speeches seem tailor-made for softening the White House’s often hostile description of American business, but the president’s impromptu additions are highlighting his efforts to subordinate business to government. (more)

CHICAGO (CBS) — Illinois motorcycles and bicycles will be allowed to run red lights starting in 2012, but only in certain instances. (more)

GRAFTON, Ill. (AP) — Whether it’s the state’s shaky finances, its recent tax hike or strict gun laws, downstate Illinois knows it can always vent its frustration by blaming Chicago. (more)

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has shared exclusively with The Daily Caller descriptions of three violent illegal immigrants recently released from custody in Cook County, Ill., instead of being forwarded to immigration jails and processed for deportation. (more)

CRYSTAL LAKE, Ill. (AP) — Authorities say four people are dead after a small plane crashed into a field near the northwestern Chicago suburb of Crystal Lake. (more)

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel explained Sunday that the reason his former boss, President Barack Obama, has been unable to bridge the so-called “partisan divide” as he promised to on the campaign trail is because the overarching goal of Republicans is to destroy the president’s prospects for re-election. (more)

Barack Obama learned about politics in Chicago, a city controlled by the Democratic Party machine of the Daley family. In recent weeks, sweetheart deals between Mayor Daley’s office and several union bosses have come to light. Those deals have made the unions bosses enormously wealthy. (more)