Free Republic

Rebuilding and widening the mammoth Central Tri-State Tollway (I-294) is complicated enough given it's the system's most-used road, with up to 185,000 cars and trucks clogging it daily.Throw in a tangle of towns where officials either hate or love the project, plus churn on the tollway board, and the planned redo gets even gnarlier. The Illinois tollway intends to fix the road between 95th Street in the South Suburbs and Balmoral Avenue in Rosemont. There's no final design or budget yet, but a decision is expected soon.Improvements likely could include extra lanes and new interchanges -- exciting news for anyone...

Shin Dong-huyk is 29 years old. He loves Mexican food and going to baseball games. But any similarities between Shin and other young men ends there. Shin Dong-huyk is the only person known to have escaped from a North Korean prison camp. He was born into a life of enslavement and torture inside Camp 14, where he was starved, beaten and forced to watch the executions of his mother and brother. He existed within the camp’s concrete walls, which had no running water or furniture, until aged 23, he escaped. He spent one month on the run before sneaking over...

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Six years ago, convicted sex offender Kenneth Glenn Hinson was released from prison after a judge rejected prosecutors' pleas that he be committed indefinitely. That same judge was to preside Thursday over a preliminary hearing for Hinson, now charged with kidnapping and raping two teenage girls in an underground room behind his home. Circuit Judge Edward Cottingham's decision in 2001 allowed for the eventual release of Hinson, 48, who was arrested again after a four-day manhunt in March. The girls were sexually assaulted and left bound inside the room, concealed under a shed, but managed to free...

Hinson, builder of megachurch, dies Preacher turned around the struggling First Methodist By RICHARD VARA Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle The Rev. William H. "Bill" Hinson, a nationally known preacher who presided over the growth of First United Methodist Church from a dwindling downtown congregation to a two-campus megachurch, has died. ADVERTISEMENT Hinson, who suffered a massive stroke Nov. 28, died at noon Sunday in Huntsville, Ala., with his family at his hospital bedside, said Ann Spears, a spokeswoman for First United Methodist Church. He was 68. "My immediate reaction was one of shock and great sadness, for a mighty man...