Chicago Sun-Times
RAVINIA STAGE IS SET
Audiences who visit the Ravinia Festival this weekend for an opening concert featuring the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, pop artist Lizzo and classical pianist Yunchan Lim will likely see and hear a few improvements. They’ll be the first to experience...
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CASTING A SMELL
The Thornton Quarry has long been a scenic destination within Chicago’s south suburbs. But this week, the usual sights have been joined by an all-too-usual smell. The quarry, also known as the Thornton Reservoir, is nearly full after weeks of heavy...
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TEMPTING YOUR TASTE BUDS
The Taste of Chicago kicked off Wednesday morning with more than 80 vendors from across the city — from booths by local restaurants to food trucks to featured popups. And while there are plenty of Chicago classics up for grabs, including Connie’s...
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A FLOODING FIX?
Acknowledging the city’s persistent flooding problem, Mayor Brandon Johnson, flanked by other elected officials Tuesday, touted a West Side pilot project aimed at temporarily capturing rain underground before it can overwhelm Chicago’s outdated...
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HUMBLE ORIGINS TO HAIR CARE HISTORY
George E. Johnson, who founded Johnson Products Company, and along with it a new universe of hair care products tailored to Black consumers, died Monday morning. He died from natural causes at his Downtown Chicago condo, said his son John Edward...
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LAWMAKERS’ ARTIFICIAL ASSISTANCE
Illinois Rep. Bill Foster is using AI to draft legislation, while Sen. Tammy Duckworth ‘involuntarily’ uses it in Google searches. Meanwhile, others like Rep. Delia Ramirez are purposefully steering clear.
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HONESTLY SPEAKING
As the country celebrates its 250th anniversary, one of the soundtracks of this moment is Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait,” memorializing one of Illinois’ most famous sons. The widely heralded 1942 work features folk tunes, big brass parts and...
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DIBS IS NO PICNIC
Shortly after noon on a Sunday last August, police were dispatched to a forest preserve picnic grove near Chicago’s Edgebrook neighborhood for an unusual call. A “subject was trying to attack our complainant with a sword,” according to a police report...
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TOP COP CALLS IT A CAREER
When Mayor Brandon Johnson introduced Larry Snelling as the next leader of the Chicago Police Department in August 2023, he touted his pick as a “son of Englewood” with decades of experience policing Chicago streets. Less than three mostly...
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A MOTHER’S BIRTHRIGHT RELIEF
WASHINGTON — Many Chicago advocates and immigrant families say they are “excited” and “relieved” the Supreme Court has upheld a broad definition of birthright citizenship, rejecting President Donald Trump’s executive order which had declared that...
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HEAT HITS
City officials warned that sweltering temperatures gripping the Chicago area this week pose a significant risk to vulnerable communities, including older residents, people with disabilities, young children and those without access to air...
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POWER OF PRIDE
Ricardo Jiménez, director of public health initiatives for the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, has every reason to be quiet. His activism for Puerto Rican independence landed him a 90-year sentence on allegations of seditious conspiracy. He was granted...
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The latest breakthroughs in brain health research at the University of Chicago
• The latest breakthroughs in brain health research at the University of Chicago
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HOME COURTYARD ADVANTAGE?
Chicago’s entire class of vintage residential courtyard buildings — totaling in the thousands — could be headed for the National Register of Historic Places under a measure before a state panel Friday. The nine-member Illinois National Register...
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THE AIR UP THERE
Serap Erdal stopped at a light pole in the middle of Grant Park and pulled out her phone. Behind her, the city’s towering skyscrapers cut into a sunny, blue sky as she zoomed in on her palm-sized map of the city. The researcher barely noticed the hum...
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SOLO ACT?
The federal prosecutor whose nearly two decades of work in Chicago is going under a microscope tackled one of the city’s top fraud investigations before the “Broadview Six” case led to multiple claims that she’d acted improperly while seeking...
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Back to the future?
The last time the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry’s south entry was opened to the public, radio hadn’t yet been invented. Or aspirin. Half of all U.S. homes were also still being lit by natural gas, and the first motion picture camera wouldn’t...
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LONG WAIT FOR FLOOD RELIEF ON WEST SIDE
Andre Moseley’s Austin home was hammered by flooding twice in the summer of 2023, causing a lot of damage and leaving a stale smell of sewage in his basement. “It was horrible,” he said. “It was coming at such a fast rate.” The 2023 floods drenched...
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A STORYBOOK BEGINNING
Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama surprised Hyde Park elementary students at the Obama Presidential Center’s public library on Friday morning, just ahead of the doors opening to the public for the first time. The...
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SWEET HOPE, CHICAGO
Standing in front of his namesake presidential center near the neighborhood where he launched his historic political career, former President Barack Obama paid homage Thursday to the city that inspired him to run and led him to love. The South Sider...
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INAUGURATION DAY
Former Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden plan to attend Thursday’s dedication ceremony celebrating the opening of former President Barack Obama’s Presidential Center in Jackson Park, according to a source with direct knowledge of...
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SETTING THE BENCHMARK
On a mid-morning weekday in his lightfilled studio on the West Side, the furniture designer Norman Teague runs his hands along one of his latest creations in wood. “I’ve enjoyed walnut because of its softness, but it’s also dense,” says Teague, who is...
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Portrait of Obamas unveiled
The first official portrait of Barack and Michelle Obama — a large, detailed artwork that includes images of the significant moments, objects and places in their lives — was unveiled this week at the Obama Presidential Center. The framed 9-by-10 foot...
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END TO STATE’S DELTA-8 DEBATE?
The long-running tug-of-war between Illinois’ licensed cannabis and unregulated hemp industries reached a head at the end of the legislative session in Springfield, where lawmakers approved sweeping reforms to regulate delta-8 and other intoxicating,...
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THE CHI OF THE STORM
Bertha Young sat on her front porch, staring at a tree that had fallen in front of her home. Despite the damage surrounding her, she felt grateful the tree had not struck her house. Along 71st and Green streets, fallen trees and large branches blocked...
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RINGING UP ONE ‘SMASH’ AFTER ANOTHER
Most people hope for a moment that changes their life. Even better if it impacts the culture around them. By the summer of 2016, Cole Bennett had at least three such moments. Barely out of his teens, the burgeoning director had garnered 1 million...
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CPS CEO PLAYS DEFENSE IN D.C.
WASHINGTON — Republican lawmakers grilled Chicago Public Schools Supt./CEO Macquline King about transgender students, religion and sex education as she testified under subpoena Wednesday at a contentious U.S. House education committee hearing. The...
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Therapeutic theater
Northwestern University theater major Laura FajardoRiascos warms up her voice as her classmate, Kennedy Naseem, strums on a ukulele. The duo is sitting in a colorful playroom on the 17th floor of Lurie Children’s Hospital in Streeterville. They’re...
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IDLE MATTER
Amy Eickhoff says the charter buses that idle outside her 62-floor building spew fumes so noxious that people living there avoid going out on their balconies. “All those fumes do is go right up the side of the building like a chimney,” said Eickhoff,...
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INTERCEPTED
The Chicago Bears’ plan to relocate to Northwest Indiana just doesn’t sit right with Delores Davis and Gwen Williams, both lifelong North Siders. “How’s that going to sound? ‘Indiana Bears’ … it doesn’t sound right,” said Williams, 72. “No, no, hell...
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INSIDE FBI’S HIGH-TECH HUNT FOR BANK ROBBERS
The alleged leader of a bank robbery crew killed in a shootout on the West Side last week was tracked down in a weekslong manhunt powered by surveillance cameras, tracking devices and cellphone monitoring. Abdulhafedh Abdulhafedh, 25, was behind the...
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ALLIGATOR’S MUSICAL MILESTONE
The hometown label marks its milestone anniversary with a headlining set Friday at the Chicago Blues Festival. Here, founder Bruce Iglauer and artists Lil’ Ed Williams, Ronnie Baker Brooks and Nick Moss reminisce about the label’s legacy and look to...
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SHADES OF FEDS’ FALL BLITZ
Federal agents chased and detained a man Tuesday morning in Albany Park, crashing into a woman’s car during the pursuit and threatening residents who gathered at a chaotic scene. A Sun-Times reporter witnessed the scene and its aftermath. The arrest...
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WHERE DO BEARS GO FROM HERE?
Bears executives woke up Monday morning with a decision to make — that is, if they slept at all after a long, disappointing night in Springfield. At 3:39 a.m., the Illinois Senate passed a bill that would have allowed municipalities with at least...
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‘WE DIDN’T COMMIT A CRIME’
There’s the “boring suburban dad,” whose children told him to stand up for what’s right. The son of an immigrant, whose family already knew the sting of a federal prosecution. A rising political disrupter, who says her progressive campaign was...
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CALLING ALL ‘FREAKS, MISFITS & WEIRDOS’:
Mark Thomas estimates that he’s traveled 4 million miles around the world on a never-ending quest of “looking for weird s---. If you’ve ever been to his store, The Alley, you know he’s been successful in the mission. From the racks of chains and...
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‘HOW’S CHICAGO?’
VATICAN CITY — “How’s Chicago?” That was the first thing Pope Leo XIV asked Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson when the two met in a private audience Thursday afternoon at the Vatican. For Johnson, it was clearly a pastoral question. It also felt...
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JOHNSON’S SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
About a week before her death on June 9, 1995, while she was getting dressed for a church service, Pastor Wilma Jean Johnson stopped her son Brandon, the sixth of her 10 children, as he was about to leave the family home. She had something he needed to...
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THE MAYOR’S POPE HOPES
On Vatican trip, Johnson plans to thank world’s most famous Chicagoan for pushing back against Trump’s ‘godforsaken’ policies, get a blessing for ‘our Cubbies’ and jump-start a political revival
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STYLISH SHELTER
It used to be if you showed up at the old Diplomat Motel over on Lincoln Avenue, you were probably in for quite a time. What kind of time likely couldn’t have been discussed in polite company. But no longer. The former motel at 5230 N. Lincoln Ave. —...
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A reporter’s family connection to site celebrated by Xi Jinping
For most of my life, China existed in my family as a distant but persistent presence — a place spoken of in fragments, attached to old photos and diaries about a great-grandfather who spent decades there as an American missionary. I have never visited...
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THE LAST SCHLITZ
The bar had been open for two hours, and all the beer orders were identical. In the basement of Schubas Tavern in Lake View on Wednesday, only a quarter barrel remained. Tonight might be the night, the bartenders said, looking down the bar at the...
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CASE DEEP-SIXED
Chicago’s top federal prosecutor announced the permanent dismissal Thursday of charges against the remaining members of the “Broadview Six” in a stunning hearing that revealed apparent misconduct by his staff before a grand jury during Operation Midway...
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2 CHILDREN KILLED IN SUSPECTED ARSON
An 8-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy, as well as two adults have died after an extraalarm fire early Wednesday in West Englewood, leaving two others in critical condition, officials said. Police are investigating the blaze in the 6200 block of...
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SAFE & SOUNDS
Memorial Day weekend kicks off Chicago’s busy calendar of music festivals and neighborhood street fairs. And this holiday weekend, the city will play host to three major music festivals within a four-mile radius. In Grant Park, the reggaeton and Latin...
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CHICAGO? NOPE!
Mayor Brandon Johnson has “no plan” to keep the Bears in Chicago, Gov. JB Pritzker said Monday, declaring Johnson’s long-shot hope for city control over the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority “typical” for a mayor he says has accomplished little in...
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Life after losing a limb
Usually, they cry. Because losing a limb is not subtle, not a hidden loss, like losing a kidney. You see what is missing. Everybody does. A part of you is gone and never coming back. The absence affects your daily life — how you stand, walk, sit, if a...
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GETTING THEIR MUNE’S WORTH
White Sox rookie sensation Munetaka Murakami is ushering in “Mune mania” throughout Chicago — teeing up new business opportunities for the city’s small businesses and the team, from new offerings like Japanese-inspired hot dogs and rice lagers to...
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DIARY OF DARKNESS
Ryan Manon has been collecting John Wayne Gacy “murderabilia” for decades. He has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, and much of his 44 years, amassing more than 300 original paintings, letters, logbooks and other ephemera connected to Gacy, who...
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DINING ON DONORS’ DIME
Aswanky spot long anchoring Rush Street and the Gold Coast, Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse describes itself online as “a Chicago icon” that, besides its tasty Angus beef, offers “fresh fish, classic cocktails, an extensive wine list and exceptional...
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CAN ILLINOIS REIN IN AI?
With Congress yet to act on reining in artificial intelligence, that obligation has fallen into the laps of individual states. And as the 2026 spring session of the General Assembly in Springfield nears an end date of May 31, Illinois lawmakers are...
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MURDER TRIAL BEGINS IN 2021 LOOP STABBING
Aman who ran to help visiting graduate student Anat Kimchi after she was fatally stabbed in a random attack Downtown in June 2021 testified Monday that he saw defendant Tony Robinson attack her and that Robinson later threatened him with a knife. The...
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THEFTS INFLATING
In March, Kieran Degenaars woke up on a Saturday morning, glanced out the window and noticed a car parked on his street had been broken into the night before. “I saw a car with a smashed window and glass all over the ground,” he recalled. “I was like,...
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‘HIS HEART WAS PURE’
Slain Chicago Police Officer John Bartholomew was remembered Friday as a man who was “truly loved by all” and whose “heart was pure.” Hundreds of mourners, among them police, officials and loved ones, gathered at St. Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Church in...
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CHICAGO’S HAPPY ANNIVERSARY
In the year since Cardinal Robert Prevost was named Pope Leo XIV, what used to be a typical block in Dolton has become a landmark drawing tourists from all over the world to his childhood home. “It’s definitely been a blessing,” said Donna Sagna...
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GROWING TREND
Renee Costanzo cranked on the rusty pulley with both hands, watching the greenhouse roof creak open in sections. A breeze of spring air swept over 12,000 seedlings lined up in plastic trays in the Kilbourn Park greenhouse. Costanzo, the Chicago Park...
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WHY, ROBOT?
Delivery robots have some growing up to do. That’s the consensus among scientists and engineers who were analyzing the safety and efficiency of this developing technology before two of the robots crashed into CTA bus shelters in March. A 2025 study...
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THE FRUIT OF HIS LABOR
Shaka Rawls, the principal at Leo Catholic High School in Auburn Gresham, knew something was up on Monday when he saw all the cars in the school’s parking lot. What he didn’t know was that all those visitors, including friends, family and elected...
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HELPING THOSE IN FEAR
When videos emerged of immigrant men running from federal immigration agents last fall, Patricia Gamboa was flooded with memories of fleeing agents herself as a little girl. Gamboa was 6 when she and her family crossed the border from Tijuana into...
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CPS STUDENTS TAKE CIVICS TO THE STREETS
Eleven-year-old Ricardo Juarez stepped up to the people manning each table in the park across the street from his school and asked in a confident voice: “What do you do for the community?” “I just want to listen and see how they can help us,” said...
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GAS PAINS
Gas prices in Chicago have jumped to over $5 a gallon for the first time in four years — squeezing drivers who likely will see even higher prices in the coming months. Austin resident Malik Allen was gassing up at a BP station Thursday at North Wells...
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HERBIE BRINGS JAZZ HOME TO CHICAGO
Legendary piano man plays International Jazz Day All-Star Global Concert — streaming to millions across the world — today at Lyric Opera House
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IDOT’S WILD ABANDON?
In the creeks and rivers of southern Illinois, a school of bigeye shiners darting along the edge of a stream is a sign of healthy water. The freshwater fish, which is on the state’s endangered species list, has managed to survive despite habitat loss...
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SHOOTER PULLED GUN FROM BLANKET: PROSECUTORS
Prosecutors on Monday said a convicted felon somehow took a gun into Swedish Hospital after he was arrested this weekend, then pulled it from under a blanket after he undressed and shot two Chicago cops, killing Officer John Bartholomew. Alphanso...
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SHOULD YOU BE WORRIED ABOUT CHICAGO’S BRIDGES?
As Downtown Chicago enters its annual bridge-lifting season, raising its historic bascule bridges to allow recreational boats to pass underneath, questions remain about the city’s ability to repair several of them without worsening traffic. When the...
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HURRY-UP OFFENSE?
Property tax incentive legislation approved by the Illinois House this week needs serious changes to keep the Bears from jumping the border to Indiana, and state senators need to move quickly to keep that from happening, Gov. JB Pritzker urged on...
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CPS’ LUNCHROOM WORKERS FED UP
Sixty-one-year-old Kimberly Penson gets on the bus by 4:45 a.m. so she can make eggs, bagels or biscuits before the first bell rings for the elementary students she calls “her babies.” And then, as the sole cook at her school, she turns to preparing...
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DRIVE TO KEEP BEARS IN ILLINOIS NEARS THE RED ZONE
SPRINGFIELD — Illinois lawmakers inched closer to the red zone in keeping the Chicago Bears from crossing state lines into Indiana, with the Illinois House on Wednesday green-lighting a measure that would give the NFL team property tax certainty while...
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TOO FRIENDLY WITH FEDS?
Emails show State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke wouldn’t denounce Trump as he threatened to send in the National Guard because she wanted to keep ‘excellent working relationships’ with the feds. That’s fueling a push for a special prosecutor to probe...
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GOV’S PLAN TO SHUFFLE GAMBLING OVERSIGHT
ROBERT HERGUTH & MITCHELL ARMENTROUT REPORT,
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WHY DID EX-MORMON FIGURE’S PLANE PLUNGE NEAR ROCKFORD?
Richard McClung died in a plane crash Feb. 14 when the small aircraft he was piloting plummeted into a residential neighborhood between McHenry County and Rockford, narrowly missing homes, severing a gas line and horrifying locals. McClung’s online...
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HE SAID HE WOULD ‘DIE FOR HER’
After Officer Carlos Baker fatally shot his partner, Krystal Rivera, the Chicago cop told investigators he would “die for her.” But newly released body-camera footage shows Baker ran for cover after he fired the deadly gunshot and took more than 90...
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OWE, NO!
A cash-strapped City Hall has missed out on more than $8 billion in sorely needed revenue because it “lacks foundational management tools” to chip away at the mountain of delinquent debt it’s owed dating back three decades, Chicago’s top government...
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POURING PAIN
Hundreds of residents reported flooding in their homes after record-breaking rainfall levels hit Chicagoland on Tuesday. Sadie Douglas, 27, who lives on the garden level of a Rogers Park building, said the rainfall brought the worst flooding she’s...
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SEEKING SAFETY FOR CHICAGO’S SERVERS
Already this year, a pair of tectonic restaurant industry news reports have exposed years of alleged staff abuses by Trevor Fleming, the chef and former co-owner of Warlord, and Rene Redzepi, founding chef of Michelinstarred Copenhagen restaurant...
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