Chicago Daily Observer

Oak Street Beach needs to be retested for asbestos because previous tests for the cancer-causing substance weren’t done properly, a scientist on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s asbestos advisory board is urging.

“They should go back and retest,” said the scientist, James Webber, who teaches at the State University of New York in Albany.

In 2004, University of Illinois at Chicago scientists found asbestos fibers in 11 of 12 samples taken at Oak Street, the city’s signature beach. It was a surprising and troubling finding. Inhaled asbestos fibers can cause a cancer called mesothelioma. Another concern: The most deadly form of asbestos—amphibole—was found at Oak Street.

Anita Alvarez, I learned at a 7 a.m. breakfast a couple of months ago, isn’t much of a morning person. Nor does she drink coffee, preferring hot chocolate. Neither fact should lull her November opponent into the belief that she is either soft or unready for the battle ahead.

Alvarez is the 48-year-old career county prosecutor who made history Feb. 5 by becoming the first woman and the first Hispanic to win a primary for Cook County state’s attorney. She beat five guys who were seasoned veterans of past political races. But that primary, however heated it got, was political patty-cake compared to what’s to come when Alvarez faces off against Republican Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica in November. Consider what the Sun-Times’ Steve Patterson reported after her victory:

Joe Novak, the dark operative who honed his considerable political skills in the gritty corridors of Chicago’s blue-collar wards, today lives in a remote area of Montana. But his wily head and hard heart are still firmly planted in Illinois if the campaign he’s now waging against presidential contender Barack Obama is any indication.