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NovaMed Eyecare Inc., an owner and developer of outpatient surgery centers, posted modest earnings for the fourth quarter, an improvement from a year-earlier loss that was due in part to the introduction of new cosmetic and pain-management surgical procedures. NovaMed earned $1.34 million, or 6 cents per diluted share, for the quarter ended Dec. 31. … Read more

About 100 miles west of Chicago, one answer to Illinois’ future energy supply may be blowing in the wind. In January the state’s first large-scale wind farm — 63, 213-foot tall turbines turning wind into electricity –- got its finishing touches from Navitas Energy Inc., a Minneapolis-based wind farm developer and subsidiary of Spain-based Gamesa … Read more

Nicor Inc., parent company of natural gas utility Nicor Gas, reported a 10.7 percent drop in fourth quarter earnings from the same year-ago period under the pressure of increased operating costs and sub-par results from the gas distribution portion of its business. Nicor earned $35.1 million for the quarter ended Dec. 31, or 80 cents … Read more

A colder than usual year and sinking interest expense helped NiSource Inc.’s earnings leap ahead for the quarter ended Dec. 31, but earnings for all of 2003 dropped a whopping 77 percent from the previous year’s earnings due mostly to the sale of discontinued operations assets. “They took a beating on what they sold,” said … Read more

About 277,000 tons less of carbon dioxide made it into the air in 2002, according to the Center for Resource Solutions, a non-profit environmental organization in San Francisco. And it’s all because of little things called green tags. By January, sales of those little green tags brought Mainstay Energy LLC’s revenues to about $100,000. And … Read more

Hand-to-hand combat, a bagpipe player, men in uniform and gunfire. Were it not for the cookies and coffee, it could have been war. On Tuesday night students in the Niles Police Department’s Citizens Police Academy (CPA) had their final class before they accept graduation certificates at next week’s graduation ceremony. The class kicked off with … Read more

Christmas – ‘tis the season of sharing and caring, giving and receiving, robbing and stealing. Skokie police will be out in greater numbers at the Old Orchard mall to help deal with the usual surge in retail thefts during the holiday season, Sgt. Paul Kruszynksi of the Skokie Police Department said Thursday. He said the … Read more

Glenview Police responded to 2,706 false alarms from Jan. 1 to Nov. 16 of this year, endangering officers by conditioning them to expect all alarms to be false, Commander Don Hohs of the Glenview Police Department said Monday. The 2,706 false alarms were 3.2 percent more than the number of false alarms that occurred in … Read more

Glenview Police identified Peter Guttilla, 87, of the 500 block of Briar Hill Lane, Glenview, as the man who died after a Metra train struck his car on Thursday morning. Exactly how and why Guttilla’s car got onto the tracks is still under investigation, said Commander Don Hohs of the Glenview Police Department. A final … Read more

One man is dead after an explosion Thursday night in garage of the house at 9320 Greenwood Avenue across the street from the Golf Mill Shopping Center, according to Bob Cohen, Director of the Maine Township Emergency Management Agency. Leo McDevitt, 44, was found dead inside the garage of the house by firefighters responding to … Read more