Chicago Sun-Times
FUNERAL HOME OF HORRORS
Latasha Johnson had given the eulogy and ended her mother’s funeral service at the South Chicago Chapel, 2939 E. 95th St., Thursday afternoon when she and her family noticed their vehicles were blocked in by Chicago police. Not long after, officers...
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‘A GOOD FIGHT’ AGAINST BIG OIL
Jessica Skalka, 37, rounded the corner of a homemade bar in her dad’s garage, passing a framed collage of cutout newspaper clips marking the end of the 99-day strike at BP’s Whiting, Indiana, refinery in 2015. A row of championship banners for the...
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FIRST & GOAL
Players cycled through warmups, worked at individual position drills and scrimmaged under the watchful eyes of coaches and gathered media Wednesday at Chicago State University. It was a lot like any other media day for a lot of Division I football...
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FINDING HUMOR IN PUBLIC ‘BATCH-ROOMS’ — & BEYOND
Musician and comedian Al Scorch thinks he got the “last gasp” of an old-school childhood growing up in the 1980s and ’90s on Chicago’s blue-collar Northwest Side. “Pre-cellphone, pre-internet … where you’re just kind of running around the neighborhood...
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DID COPS JUMP THE GUN IN ARRESTING ANTI-VIOLENCE VOLUNTEER?
Nakia Smith says he walked into a Far South Side police station to get a gun off the street. Instead, he walked out in handcuffs. Three years later, the 51-year-old antiviolence volunteer is set to go on trial Monday on gun charges that could send him...
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GIANNOULIAS LAUNCHES MAYORAL BID, KNOCKS ‘REVOLVING DOOR’ AT CITY HALL
Taking aim at Mayor Brandon Johnson’s revolving door of senior leadership, Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias joined the race for mayor Sunday, portraying himself as the coalition builder needed to solve Chicago’s enormous...
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POURING REIGN
Zara Larsson As sweeping visuals of sun-kissed skies and crashing waves flashed behind her, Swedish popstress Zara Larsson stepped onto the T-Mobile stage and wasted no time before kicking into “Midnight Sun,” to the delight of the swelling crowd,...
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LOLLA’S HOT LINES
Even with Lollapalooza in full swing at Grant Park, some fans of British pop star Charli xcx found themselves in Wicker Park yesterday for a conversation with fans ahead of the musician’s headlining Lollapalooza performance Friday. Tickets to the...
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LOSS OF A CHICAGO HOOPS LEGEND
Tim Bankston, a South Side basketball star at Simeon and current boys basketball coach at Thornton Fractional North High School in Calumet City, was found fatally shot Wednesday morning inside a home in Auburn Gresham, according to Chicago...
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SPEAKER’S UNRESOLVED SCANDAL
When Emanuel ‘Chris’ Welch became speaker, a women’s group and fellow state rep called for an investigation into domestic violence and sexual harassment accusations made against him. Five years later, one person says, ‘I don’t think it was ever spoken...
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GOV’T HELP GONE IN A SNAP
Small hands helped load five boxes of food into the trunk of Irene Salinas Torres’ van. “I carried this one,” one child proudly said in Spanish. Salinas Torres and her family had stopped by a nonprofit in Pilsen for its monthly food distribution this...
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CHICAGO’S FIRST PRESIDENT
VILNIUS, Lithuania — Valdas Adamkus is one of the most beloved political figures in his country, serving as Lithuania’s president for two separate five-year terms in a transformative period just before and after it joined the European Union and...
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WNB-YAY SURPRISE
Fourteen-year-old London Harris has dreams of someday being president of the United States, and on Friday morning, she got to see a former commander in chief up close. Former President Barack Obama surprised London, along with nearly 100 other ninth...
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PARKS AND RESTORATION
Some of the city’s best architecture is found not just around Chicago’s parks, but in them. Yet for decades, the Chicago Park District allowed many of its structures to fall into embarrassing disrepair. Do I have to name names? For starters, how...
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MEXICO SEEKS JUSTICE FOR 17 ICE ‘HOMICIDES’
Mexico’s government has begun taking legal action to seek accountability for the deaths of 17 of its citizens during U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations — 14 of them in ICE custody, and three during other “arrest operations.” They...
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WHALE OF A DEBATE
In special steel containers marked “live animals, this side up,” the mammoth sea creatures arrived in Chicago in the pre-dawn hours Tuesday. It was the first phase of a beluga whale rescue mission Shedd Aquarium staff call “urgent” and...
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Former Illinois public health chief Nirav Shah drops Maine Senate bid
Illinois’ former public health chief who oversaw a series of fatal Legionnaires disease outbreaks at the Quincy veterans home has dropped his bid for the U.S. Senate in Maine — one of several Democrats who are instead supporting the candidacy of Troy...
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SUPPLY-RIDE ECONOMICS
The way Bob Singh sees it, the taxi industry has drastically changed, but he and other cabbies are still playing by the old rules, struggling to stay afloat as ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft dominate the market. “Financially, it’s...
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BEACH BUMMER
Thick, acrid smoke still blanketed the Chicago area Friday, prompting closings and cancellations in the city and suburbs. An air quality alert is in effect through Saturday night, though the concentration of pollution in the air had begun to decrease...
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HAZY SHADE OF SUMMER
Chicagoans woke up to the smell and taste of thick smoke Thursday, an unpleasant start to the summer day. Polluted air from Canadian wildfire smoke made it dangerous for anyone to be outside for long periods of time, government officials warned. For...
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GUT CHECK
Concerns over a statewide cyclospora outbreak have caused some Chicago shoppers to rethink where they buy their produce. Enter farmers markets. Chelsa Moore, an urban planner who works near the Pullman Farmers Market, said the recent outbreak has...
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NOT COOL
Chicagoans caught outside on Tuesday sought relief from the heat any way they could as the city entered its second stretch of 90-degree-plus temperatures in a month. Popsicles, cold water and Gatorade were the provisions provided to beat the heat for...
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REVERSING TIME’S TOLL
There’s a warm nostalgic spot in Chicago’s brick, concrete and glass heart for those big vintage outdoor signs that were once plentiful in this town, especially the signage that told us the time and temperature. It’s a shame that signs like these have...
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WILL HE, OR WON’T HE?
Gov. JB Pritzker has consistently said he’s focused on winning a third term for governor this November — and despite the speculation, those close to him insist he hasn’t made a decision on whether he’ll run for president in 2028. But the governor is...
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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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