Buy Home Illinois

When it comes to home loans, we’ve become a nation of debt-a-phobes. Borrowers are choosing shorter-term loans when they can; of those who refinanced a 30-year fixed-rate loan in the third quarter of 2011, 40 percent chose a 15- or 20-year loan.

Source: Don’t rush to pay off your mortgage

Naperville is youth football’s Title Town once again. The Naperville Patriots eighth-grade Unlimited All-American team recently won the United Youth Football League national championship in Plant City, Fla. In doing so they became the Patriot program’s fourth champion over the past six years.

Source: Naperville Patriots win national youth football title

New gardeners can give themselves a head start with smart plant choices

Unlike a new lamp or a chair that you would set in a room, occasionally dust and otherwise forget, the plant you cart home from the garden center has needs, like food, water and good soil.

Source: Beginner’s pluck: Easy garden plants

MILWAUKEE — Four helicopters will be landing in downtown Milwaukee for an EMS convention.More than 2,700 people are expected in Milwaukee from Wednesday through Saturday for the Wisconsin EMS Association conference at the Frontier Airlines Center.

Source: 4 helicopters to land for Milwaukee conference

When Paula Matzek retired from London Middle School in Wheeling, she resolved to pursue a long held dream and write for publication. Now, more than five years later, Matzek has twice won first place in the prose division of the Community Art & Writing Contest, sponsored by Northwest Suburban High School District 214 and the Daily Herald. The 2012 contest is now open and waiting for entrants.

Source: Entries open for District 214 Arts Unlimited contest

Five years after the housing market’s downfall, the number of tenants is on the rise. So is the number of landlords, and both groups often enter into these arrangements with their eyes only partially open.

Source: Rise of the accidental landlord

Baroque composers like Handel, Vivaldi and Rameau get the “Mamma Mia!” treatment when The Metropolitan Opera screens a live HD simulcast of its new pastiche work “The Enchanted Island” starring such opera greats as Pl

For a year, two Finnish-born forwards for the Chicago Blackhawks lived across the hall from one another on the fourth floor of a Lincoln Park condo building.

Source: Ex-Hawks dropping Lincoln Park condos

Arlington Heights teen charged in Chicago beating. Wheeling crash victim dies. Manhunt continues for Elgin bank robber. Cook County holds ICE hearings. Hawks win.

Source: Dawn Patrol: Crash victim dies, robber manhunt continues

Most general contractors, called GCs, don’t pound nails or wire outlets. Carpenters, electricians, plumbers and other subcontractors take care of that. The GC takes care of everything else— and reaps a healthy share of the profits. That’s the part that tempts DIYers to manage remodeling jobs themselves.

Source: Should you be your own general contractor?