Several years of renovation work on two old downtown Champaign stores is nearly finished, and the result – a new bar called Seven Saints – is now expected to open around the first week of April at 32 Chester St.

The latest venture by downtown bar and restaurant operators Carlos and Marco Nieto, Seven Saints has been built in the two neighboring spaces that once housed Johnston's Sports Shop and Dan's Hat Shop.

URBANA – Longtime area restaurant owners Johnny and Cheryl Lee plan to open a steakhouse at the former Ned Kelly's site in Urbana later this month.

To be called The Timbers, the restaurant will serve steaks, chops, ribs and seafood, Johnny Lee said.

URBANA – Two of the three apartment buildings at 1507 E. Washington St., U, which the city was threatening to condemn for multiple code violations, will be temporarily closed within the next few days, the landlord says.

Gabriel Omo Osagie, owner of Gabe's Place Apartments, said he decided to close down two of the three buildings at the troubled complex following a wave of vandalism that left commons areas with broken windows and doors, disconnected fire alarms and little to no lighting.

Steven Levy, the chief technology correspondent for Newsweek magazine and a longtime Apple watcher, received an iPod by courier from the company the day the digital music player was announced in 2001.

But it took the author of the new book "The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Culture, Commerce and Coolness" a while to discover what he thinks is the device's defining feature. He'd never had 1,000 songs in his pocket before. How do you decide what to listen to, manage your music, find a song?