Not everything is as it seems. What we're reading:
One Times One Is ... What Again? Terrence Howard, the star of Chicago-shot Empire, gave an interview to Rolling Stone in his penthouse overlooking the Chicago River that has reporter Heather Cherone picking her jaw up off the floor. Among the highlights: Howard said he planned to move to Winnetka as soon as he starts getting paid for appearing in Empire. Apparently, his paychecks are being garnished as part of a dispute over his second-most recent divorce. Also, Howard appears to have some, well, interesting ideas about math. He insists that one multiplied by one is two — not one, as everyone's first grade teacher insisted. His apartment is covered with plastic shapes he and his wife assembled to prove what he said was the truth of "universal math." More troubling, perhaps, is his repeated justifications and rationalizations for hitting women, incidents that landed in him in legal jeopardy several times.
Cold Cash: A new study by Airbnb says that the average Chicago host makes $8,300 per year listing their space. ChicagoInno.com says the numbers are based on 4,500 Chicago hosts who had 165,000 guests in their homes in a one-year period. More than half of the hosts use the Airbnb money to help pay their mortgages.
But it's not all easy money, says senior editor Andrew Herrmann, who's also catching up with a CBS2 report about a man who splits his time between California and Chicago's West Town neighborhood. When the man came back to Chicago, he found a tenant who he had rented a second bedroom to in West Town had used Airbnb to rent out the master bedroom to a couple while the owner was gone. The liquor supply was drained and a hookah was found on the dining room table. "Somebody invaded my nest," the owner told reporter Mike Parker.
