SCHOOLED IN CONTROL

Ari Emanuel Lobs Legal Letter Over Rock Center Interview

By Elizabeth C.

LEGENDARY HOLLYWOOD SUPER AGENT AND REPUTED BULLY ARI EMANUEL reportedly was peeved by NBC’s Brian Williams’s line of questioning during a Rock Center segment that aired Friday.

The segment, featuring the three Emanuel brothers Rahm, Ari and bioethicist Ezekiel, seemed benign enough with the three highly accomplished siblings jocularly sparring with each other and Williams. The televised tete a tete was to promote Ezekiel’s new book, Brothers Emanuel: A Memoir of an American Family. Williams called them the “Jewish Kennedys.”

It was not their American experiences — but rather their ties to Israel among other topics — that allegedly ticked Ari off, compelling him to shoot off a “legal letter” to NBC complaining about William’s interrogation, according to the New York Post and The Hollywood Reporter.

STRIKING A POSE

Reasons For Rihanna Being Late: Traffic, Celebrity, BPT

By Elizabeth C.

WE CAN ONLY IMAGINE THE A CONFLUENCE OF CIRCUMSTANCES that caused Rihanna to be four and a half hours late Friday to a “Thank you” suburban Chicago high school rally.

RiRi was due at Barrington High School at 1pm to thank the popular kids for their winning entry in the singer’s Shine Bright Like A Diamond video contest, which highlighted how the town’s Buffys and Biffs’ collective wealth contributed to its extraordinary community service. The superstar performed Friday night at Chicago’s United Center.

But there were literal and figurative obstacles that caused RiRi to have to push back her appointment to 2pm — and then to finally roll in about 5:30pm.

MYSTERIOUS POISONING

Autopsy Confirms Chicago Lottery Winner Was Murdered With Cyanide

By Elizabeth C.

IT’S OFFICIAL: AUTOPSY RESULTS confirm that 46-year-old Urooj Khan died from cyanide poisoning, NBCChicago reports. “The manner of death is homicide,” Cook County Medical Examiner Stephen Cina told reporters. “There was a lethal amount of cyanice circulating in his blood stream at the time of death.”

Investigators could not determine how the cyanide was delivered but said Khan’s coronary artery indicated signs of poisoning.

Khan died last July, a mere 24 hours after Illinois lottery officials presented him with $425,000 he won in a scratch-off game. The Indian immigrant’s cause of death was originally listed as natural. But family members persuaded the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office to investigate further, and Khan’s blood and urine tested positive for cyanide.

BITE-SIZED TIDBITS

Whack Wednesday

Kim Kardashian’s Auto-Erotical Fantasies, Lisa Lampanelli’s Loose Lips & Chicago’s ‘Taste’ Loses Flavor

By Miz J

ANOTHER SECOND, ANOTHER KIM KARDASHIAN UPDATE. That gal is really milking every single one of those 15 minutes, taking some glossy shots of her barely-there bump for DuJour Magazine. We know, we’ve never heard of that magazine, either, and yes, we’re looking into whether it’s a Kris Jenner-owned-and-operated-enterprise. Because at this point, what DON’T you know about that krazy family? And do you know what’s even krazier? When answering a Cosompolitan sex survey about what she’d do if she were a man for a day, Kim declared: “I would want to know what it’s like to have sex with myself. I would just want to know what it would feel like.” Never change, kray kray, never change.

BLAME HER ACHING BODY

Lady Gaga Sicks Out On Three Midwest Concert Stops

By Jacob Wittich

LADY GAGA’S LITTLE MONSTERS OF Chicago, Detroit and Hamilton, Ontario, will have to catch Mother Monster’s Born This Way Ball the second time around. Gaga has cancelled her next four shows due to a case of Synovitis, a severe inflammation of the joints.

Gaga was due to perform at Chicago’s United Center on Feb 13 and 14th; in Detroit Feb. 16 and in Hamilton, Ontario on Feb. 17.

LOST LEGACY

Report: Jesse Jackson Jr. Signs Plea Deal With Feds

By Elizabeth C.

CHICAGO’S NBC5 is reporting that disgraced former Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. has signed a plea deal that could include jail time for using campaign contributions for personal use. He will be sentenced by an as-yet assigned federal judge.

Jackson resigned from Congress last November just two weeks after being re-elected to Illinois’ 2nd congressional district for his 10th term, and three months ago after mysteriously disappeared from his office on Capitol Hill. After much press speculation, the son of Civil Rights leader Jesse Jackson Sr. finally claimed he was being treated for bipolar disorder, depression and “gastrointestinal issues.”

FAKE OUT BOY

Fall Out Boy Announces New Album — & A Surprise Chicago Concert

By Jacob Wittich

Amid rumors that punk rock band Fall Out Boy would reunite, bassist Pete Wentz pooh-poohed the talk in an interview with the Chicago Tribune Sunday: “Don’t hold your breath that it’s happening.”

Monday morning, less than 48 hours after the denial, Fall Out Boy announced the band’s first album in three years, Save Rock and Roll, coinciding with a U.S. tour that begins tonight at Chicago’s Subterranean club. “You can take a breath now,” Wentz tweeted immediately after the announcement.

STOLEN LIGHT

In Life — And Death — Hadiya Pendleton Impossible To Ignore

By Elizabeth C.

HER BRIGHT SMILING FACE MAKES IT HARD TO IGNORE the war waging on the South Side of Chicago. In life — and now death — Hadiya Pendleton commands your attention.

“A lot of people are saying, ‘Why Hadiya? Why did it have to be her?'” said Jayla Rufus, 16, a classmate of Pendleton at King Prep High School, one of the city’s elite selective high schools.

“She was an amazing person — always positive,” classmate Bria Carter told the Chicago Tribune. “She was one of those people everyone loved. She was the sweetest thing.”

The high school sophomore had performed at President Obama’s second inauguration in Washington, D.C. just eight days before she was gunned down Tuesday while hanging with friends under a canopy at a city park.

She was a majorette, a volleyball player, a lover of Maroon 5 and and Coldplay who dreamed of attending Northwestern University to study journalism or pharmacology. “She was destined for great things,” her father Nathaniel Pendleton told reporters.

FIRE & ICE

Credit: John Gress/Reuters

Hell Frozen Over

By Elizabeth C.

BITTER COLD TURNED CHICAGO FIREFIGHTERS’ BATTLE AGAINST A 5-ALARM WAREHOUSE BLAZE INTO AN ICE SCULPTURE. Smoke was spotted coming from the boarded warehouse In the City’s Bridgeport neighborhood about 9pm and quickly spread throughout the 5-story building. “It looked like hell was on the next block,” nearby resident Jaime Lamus told NBC Chicago.

CYANIDE WHODUNIT

Credit: Reuters, Illinois Lottery

Chicago Cyanide Victim’s Body Exhumed For Further Testing

By Elizabeth C.

THE INEVITABLE MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE THAT IS the death of Illinois Lottery winner Urooj Khan advanced Friday when his body was exhumed for an autopsy.

Khan, 46, died July 20, one day after claiming the $425,000 payout on a one million dollar scratch-off ticket jackpot. Although Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office officials initially concluded that Khan died of natural causes, an anonymous family member persuaded them to investigate further. Subsequent lab tests on blood samples tested positive for cyanide, and Chicago police opened a homicide investigation. On Friday, authorities exhumed his body from the Rosehill Cemetary on Chicago’s North Side, and performed an autopsy looking for further evidence of poisoning.