Residents that have been classically defined as solidly suburban middle class are the biggest group of new users at the Niles Township Food Pantry. The long-term unemployed or those forced to take lower-wage positions after being cast out of well-paying jobs, or have lost homes to foreclosure, have dramatically swelled the ranks of pantry patrons with the  peak demand for food necessities still ahead December.

Last year 150 students attending Township High School District 211 schools in Palatine were classified as homeless, and this year that number continues to rise.  In response to the growing problem, a group called Realtors Against Homelessness (R.A.H.) have joined forces with the District 211 Foundation to sponsor an upcoming fundraiser to impact the lives of these students. 

Two Chicago Public Schools football coaches and four of their team members have been charged in the alleged hazing of a 14-year-old boy on Chicago's Northwest Side.Coaches Tom Cipriani, 47, and Jonathan Manning, 21, allegedly participated with four members of the Prosser Career Academy's varsity football team in beating the young victim with belts at the school on Oct. 18. All of the players and both coaches have been charged with misdemeanor battery, the coaches were charged with endangering the health or life of a child and Manning faces an additional charge for allegedly videotaping the beating.

Dawn Ferralez saw her brother, Scott Webb, for the first time this weekend since he disappeared in May. The Woodridge ex-police officer is being held in Missouri jail but could be transported to Illinois Tuesday. Webb disappeared after being charged with taking $30,000 from Crawlin' for the Fallen fundraisers, a bar crawl he helped organize to benefit C.O.P.S. (Concerns of Police Survivors). The organization benefits family members of police officers killed in the line of duty. His sister insists he is innocent. “It’s something he’s told me over and over again,” Dawn Ferralez said. “It’s something that I truly believe in my heart.”

The business partner of missing St. Charles man John Spira accused him of racking up “massive debt” in “excess of $1 million,” and speculated that this prompted him to skip town, according to police reports recently obtained by Patch. Spira’s partner at Universal Cable Construction, David Stubben, also theorized that Spira “might have been taking money from the business” and “would not rule out” that the missing man had something to do with a suspicious fire that gutted the company building nine months after he vanished, the reports said.

Algonquin District 300 supporters, students and administrators are protesting from the State Capitol against Amendment 3 of Senate Bill 540. When the resolution was adopted in 1989 as a way to keep Sears in Illinois, leaders set the property tax incentives to last 23 years. With the agreement set to expire in mid-2012, the retail giant that employs more than 6,000 workers has been waging a campaign for another package of tax breaks. A 15-year extension of the Sears agreement would cost the district $14 million per year, officials say.

An elderly McHenry woman died Sunday night after being struck by a Metra train in unincorporated Harvard.  Gloria C. Jacobs, 87, of McHenry, had been walking east along the tracks immediately prior to the accident at 8:27 p.m. Sunday

Want some monster makeup ideas. Check out the photos of filmmaker Kiel Cross’ visit to the Cary Library to teach teens how to transform themselves into monsters.