Ida Konstant

Ida Konstant, a teacher's aide at Homewood-Flossmoor CommunityHigh School, died of cancer Monday in her Oak Lawn home. She was 63.

Mrs. Konstant had worked with visually and mentally impairedyouths at the south suburban school for the last 15 years. She wasemployed by the Metropolitan Association for Low IncidenceHandicapped, a public school co-operative that leases classroom spaceand organizes special curricula.

A native of Austria, she came to this country as an infant, andher family settled in the Brighton Park area on the Southwest Side.Mrs. Konstant graduated from Gage Park High School before …

Oscar could be coronation for composer Desplat

NEW YORK (AP) — In a film where sound is central, Alexandre Desplat's score to "The King's Speech" enters subtly.

A simple melody slinks in, a soft, demure line of hopeful piano notes, fittingly repetitive, like the stuttering speech of the film's main character, George VI (Colin Firth).

"You have to respect the silence," says Desplat, speaking from London where he's working on the score to "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2." ''It's quite a challenge to be able to come in in such a delicate way that you're not noticed. I think great scores have to be noticed, but they're wrong when you hear the music come in."

The score, partly recorded with a vintage …

Obama warns Americans to heed tsunami warnings

President Barack Obama says the U.S. is preparing for a tsunami that could reach American shores and he wants people in Hawaii, American Samoa and Guam to follow the instructions of local authorities.

A tsunami warning _ the highest alert level _ is in effect for those Pacific Ocean locations after a powerful earthquake struck Chile.

Obama also is encouraging people along the West Coast …

Morel Madness takes over at Thyme

It's morel season and to welcome the flavorful, spongelike cappedmushroom, the folks at Thyme restaurant are hosting a Morel Madnessspecial menu.

``I went on my first morel hunt about three years ago in Chicagoarea woods and loved the morel and the hunt,'' said John Bubala, chef/owner of Thyme, 464 N. Halsted.

``The morels are interesting mushrooms because they're created byan action and reaction that happen in nature and cannot be replicatedby man,'' says Bubala, who buys morels for the restaurant from a``trusted professional morel forager.''

Bubala says morels add a flavor of nuttiness or earthiness tofoods and can cost as much as $20 a pound in the early …

Sean Connery immortalized with Estonian bust

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — He's been honored with an Oscar and British knighthood. As of Thursday, Sean Connery can count a bronze sculpture in the Estonian capital among his tributes.

The bust of Scotland's most famous actor was unveiled by British Ambassador Peter Carter outside Tallinn's Scottish Club, whose members include Estonians enamored with Scotland and a handful of expatriate Scots.

"Sir Sean Connery is, without a doubt, an icon," Carter told dozens of invited guests. "He is variously known as James Bond or the sexiest man of the century. He's a great British actor, a great Scot actor and a great symbol for Scotland."

The Scottish Club, which started as a whiskey …

Belarus to toughen control over Internet

Belarus' authoritarian leader is promising to toughen control over the Internet and Web users.

Alexander Lukashenko said Wednesday that people posting "lies and dirt" online should be subject to prosecution.

He told journalists that a new Internet bill proposed Tuesday requires the registration and identification of all online publications and of each Web user, including visitors to Internet cafes.

The Internet has been the last fully free medium in Belarus, a former Soviet Republic that Lukashenko has ruled with an iron fist since 1994. Many of the independent newspapers ordered closed have taken refuge in cyberspace. All television channels and most of the print media are state-controlled.

Why did he say that? Rahm says it was a slip

Chicago political tea readers were pondering on Tuesday what was behind the timing of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel's admission to PBS' Charlie Rose that he wants to run for mayor of Chicago when Mayor Daley quits.

After all, Emanuel tried mightily in January to douse chatter about his mayoral ambitions when such talk first surfaced. The staunch Daley loyalist said then he hoped Daley would run for another term in February 2011.

Back then, there were no on-the-record quotes from Emanuel about his interest.

Why, then, did he open up when Rose asked him Monday afternoon: "Is there any other job in government you'd like to have?"

Emanuel responded, "One day I would like to run for mayor of the city of Chicago."

Emanuel told me Tuesday night he never intended to go as far as he did with Rose. The question came up at the end of a wide ranging interview. The usually disciplined Emanuel says he slipped up.

Earlier in the day, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, who is at odds with Emanuel over the slow pace of comprehensive immigration reform in the Obama White House, told me, "I am sure every word that he spoke was not some sort of off-the-cuff remark but calculated to achieve some political goal.

"When I see Rahm Emanuel, [from now on] I don't know if I am talking to the president's chief of staff and if that is his chief priority, or if I am talking to a future candidate for the mayor of the city of Chicago," Gutierrez said.

FOOTNOTE: Emanuel never liquidated his political war chest when he joined the White House; as of April 15, he had $1,175,109.76 cash on hand that could be transferred to a mayoral campaign.

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