Ebert: 'I ain't a pretty boy no more'

Roger Ebert, acclaimed film critic and Urbana native, explains in this e-mail why he's attending his festival despite his illness:

My Ninth Annual Film Festival opens Wednesday night at the University of Illinois at Urbana, and Chaz and I will be in attendance. This year I won't be speaking, however, as I await another surgery.

Also on this date

• Ebert will have best seat in the house
• Township seeking financial assistance from city
• Champaign man to get new trial
• Drug crime nets man term concurrent to murder case
• Testimony begins in retrial of Paxton man's murder case
• Man found guilty of sex abuse
• Man charged in theft, break-in cases
• Coal mines home to large fossilized forest bed
• Brief talks produce 3-year contract for Georgetown teachers
• Obituaries

» More