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Bonnie Miller Rubin

Unstable televisions can be a risk to small children.

Child's death heightens awareness of TV set dangers

Bonnie Miller Rubin, Deanese Williams-Harris Chicago Tribune

Last updated Tuesday, January 17, 2012 - 10:57am

Before heading off to Minnesota more than a week ago, Adam Hadjis leaned over and kissed his 4-year-old daughter goodbye as she slept. It would be the last time he saw her alive.

Gianna was playing by herself over the weekend when a large TV tipped and fell off a table, landing on the little girl's body, according to the family.

"They said her skull was severely crushed, and she had a massive bruise on the bridge of her nose," Hadjis said Monday.

The death comes less than three months after two similar fatalities -- a 3-year-old Chicago girl who had been playing with her brother and a cousin when a TV tipped over, and a 6-year-old boy in Arlington Heights, Ill., who reached for something on top of the screen, causing the TV to fall.

Accidents, Children, Televisions, National Read more Comments

Are science class injuries increasing?

Bonnie Miller Rubin Chicago Tribune

Last updated Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - 11:25am

CHICAGO -- Chemistry class accidents like the one at a Chicago area high school that recently injured a 16-year-old are relatively rare, but no federal or state agencies track such incidents, say experts.

Education, Schools, Features, Accidents, Science Read more Comments

Websites selling fake IDs a booming business

Bonnie Miller Rubin Chicago Tribune

Last updated Thursday, August 4, 2011 - 8:41am

Fake IDs for underage drinkers have graduated from being a dorm room enterprise to a China-based Internet business, say authorities who are scrambling to stay a step ahead of the counterfeiters.

Features, Fake identification, Internet, Websites Read more Comments

Catching up with 'Baby Tamia,' Utah connection

Bonnie Miller Rubin, Chicago Tribune

Last updated Thursday, May 26, 2011 - 3:26pm

CHICAGO -- Watching this sunny 6-year-old romp with her dog, it's difficult to envision her at the center of a dark story that dominated headlines for weeks in Illinois and Utah.

"Baby Tamia" -- as she became known -- is now a bright, chatty, affectionate, 40-pound ball of energy. The peaceful domesticity unfolding at her Hyde Park home is light-years from the noisy custody battle that began in December 2004, when her mother, while in the grip of bipolar disorder and post-partum depression, put the 3-month-old up for adoption.

Carmen McDonald, then 20, traveled alone to Utah, returning without the baby but with a $600 check from an agency she found in a newspaper advertisement. Carmen's mother, Maria McDonald Dorden, relentlessly pursued her granddaughter and sued to get Tamia from the new adoptive parents.

Features, Adoption, Courts, Utah Read more Comments