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The National Weather Service has issued flood warnings and advisories today for areas near rivers in the Chicago area due to a combination of melting snow and recent rainfall levels, officials said.

Many areas are at high water levels and are expected to crest in the next few days, said Andy Boxell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

The Des Plaines river is at flood levels along with the Ottawa, LaSalle and Illinois Rivers, said Boxell. The upper Fox River basin near Algonquin is also expected to rise up to flood levels, said Boxell.

Officials said flood warnings have been set for the Des Plaines River near Gurnee until Monday night. At 8:30 p.m. Sunday, the stage was 8.5 feet and at or near crest. Flood stage is 7.0 feet, the weather service said. Minor flooding was occurring and the river was expected to slowly fall early Monday morning drop below the flood stage by midday Thursday.

Minor flooding was...

A Waukegan man is facing felony charges after he allegedly shot a cab driver who managed to subdue him after being shot in Zion early Saturday, officials said today.

Darryel J. Garner, 38, of the 1000 block of Westmoreland in Waukegan, was charged today with attempted murder and aggravated battery with a firearm.

Police found the victim's cab stopped in a front yard up against a house on the 3100 block of Lebanon Avenue after they responded to the shooting about 3:10 a.m. Saturday, according to police.

They said they found the victim, a 44-year-old man, lying on top of Garner, pinning him down until officers could arrest him. After taking Garner into custody, officers could see that the cab driver was injured and discovered he had been shot.

Polic...

As it neared noon today, Keegan's Pub on South Western Avenue was eerily quiet. A waitress leaned against a counter. A few patrons sipped Guinness at the bar.

"Usually by 11:15, we're at capacity, but this year it's empty," complained owner Bernard Callaghan.

South Side business owners and residents were absorbing the full effect of the cancellation of the South Side Irish Parade, an annual event that usually flooded their Beverly neighborhood with hundreds of thousands of people. Organizers called off the parade after drunken and unruly revelers disrupted the festivities last year and nearly a dozen police officers were assaulted.

Entrepeneurs disappointed that the South Side Irish Parade was cancelled this year try to sell some of their goods to the bar patrons on Western Avenue on the South Side today...

Maywood firefighters, along with firefighters from neighboring western suburbs, battle a 3-11 alarm blaze at 1408 St. Charles Rd. in Maywood. (Warren Skalski/Photo for the Tribune)

A fuel spill appeared to have caused an extra-alarm fire at a Maywood auto repair business this afternoon, causing possibly $1 million worth of damage.

Firefighters from several towns lent a helping hand to their Maywood brethren as they battled the blaze at the J & E auto shop at 1408 St. Charles Rd., fire officials said.

No one was hurt in the blaze that damaged two buildings on its property.

Two or three people were working inside at least one of the two buildings when the fire started, said Maywood Fire Department Chief John Cadagin. Preliminarily, he said, it appeared fuel spilled "around a heat s...

Clergy and cops backed a ban being pushed in the General Assembly to classify blunt wraps -- a tobacco leaf often used to roll marijuana -- as drug paraphernalia.

Blunt wraps come in flavors such as cherry, peach and purple thunder and are used to camouflage the potent smell of pot. The wraps can be found at gas stations, liquor and convenience stores. Because of their low cost, easy availability to urban youth, and "lack of legitimate uses," the flavored wraps have become targets for lawmakers and religious leaders.

"Having this product in mainstream stores is like having drug pushers in our neighborhoods," Bishop Larry Trotter, the pastor at Sweet Holy Spirit Church, said today. "Blunt wraps are an indefensible product marketed to children and entirely identified with illegal drug use."

Blunt wraps are displayed today...

A 27-year-old man was wounded early this morning in a drive-by shooting in the Northwest Side's Logan Square neighborhood.

The victim was in the 2300 block of North Hamlin Avenue when someone from a passing vehicle fired several gunshots at him, striking him in the back, a Chicago police spokesman said.

The victim was taken in serious condition to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center. The spokesman could release no further details this afternoon as Grand Central Area detectives continued to investigate the shooting.

--Staff report

Preliminary reports indicate that food left on a stove in a Bolingbrook apartment unit was responsible for an extra alarm fire this morning that injured 13 people, including one police officer, officials said.

Residents from about 70 apartment units on the second floor of the building at 505 Preston Drive are being temporarily housed at a local school while officials clear out smoke from the fire, said Bolingbrook Police Lt. Mike Rompa.

The complex has about five buildings with a total of about 700 units, but only the second floor of one building was affected by the fire, he said.

The second floor of the affected building was "inundated with smoke" and fire crews using ladders had to rescue several people from the windows of their apartments, including an elderly man, Rompa said. Some people chose to jump from the second floor but were not injured.

"It was so severe, the smoke, and so dense,'' said Rompa.

The fire began about 6:07 a.m...

Just as most of the massive rehab of the Illinois tollway system ends, construction on a small segment, the Edens Spur, threatens to snarl the commute for thousands of motorists and handcuff Chicagoans' escape to Wisconsin this summer.

The 5-mile stretch of tollway near Northbrook that connects the Edens Expressway (Interstate 94) and the Tri-State Tollway (Interstate 294) will become a chokepoint, reduced to one lane in each direction, as part of a $20 million resurfacing project.

"I'm not surprised," said restaurant owner Sara McKinnon, who regularly travels between Chicago and Gurnee to operate her pubs, Timothy O'Toole's. "There's been construction on the tollway for what seems like forever. The never-ending roadwork is one of those things about living in Illinois."

Motorists are only starting to relax after the Edens was resurfaced two years ago.

If it's any consolation, however, the Cook County Highway Department has cancelled its plans to widen near...