Chicago Sun-Times
GUST ANOTHER DAY IN CHICAGO
Cole Rapp and Joey Cleary were on board a Frontier Airlines flight from Austin, Texas, to Chicago when the strong winds buffeting the city turned their four-hour trip for St. Patrick’s Day festivities into a 12-hour adventure. “That was probably the...
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PAC-ING A $26.9M PUNCH
National special-interest groups, which now include deep-pocketed cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence interests, have spent tens of millions of dollars to influence four hotly contested Democratic congressional primaries in the Chicago...
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TORNADOES’ TOLL
Nick Cronin rummaged through the remnants of his mother’s home, where she was found in a bathtub hours earlier after a tornado ripped through a small neighborhood in Kankakee. Cronin picked up a license plate and tossed it back down as he stepped...
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SAFER TRAVELS?
The Chicago Transit Authority is deploying sheriff’s deputies on its trains, installing high-barrier entry gates to deter fare evasion, and starting “farecard inspection missions” after the agency’s federal funding was threatened. The CTA presented...
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SERIOUS SHORTAGE OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Chicago’s affordable housing shortage is placing severe financial strain on low-income renters, according to a new report released by Housing Action Illinois and the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The study found only 31 affordable homes are...
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HE WAS FAMILY
The Rev. Jesse Jackson was the family member who always showed up — and on Friday, Chicago and much of the country showed up for him. Thousands came to the South Side’s House of Hope to say goodbye to the civil rights leader and twotime presidential...
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FIRED AND ICE
Illinois Democrats are celebrating the ouster of controversial Department of Homeland Security head Kristi Noem — months after she led aggressive immigration operations in the Chicago area that left one person dead and another surviving being shot five...
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A HOLY HOME FOR LATINO MUSLIMS
In the basement of one of the Chicago area’s newest places of worship, all the fixings of a traditional Mexican meal were laid out to enjoy. “We have mole, birria, spaghetti verde, arroz. We even have flautas,” Cesar Cortina, 39, told the SunTimes...
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THE NEED FOR SEED
Under the warm light of a hanging lamp, Marty Landorf carefully crumbled the dried flower head of a black-eyed Susan between her fingers, teasing apart the chaff to uncover its puny black seeds. Each one was destined for long-term cold storage...
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JESSE’S GRAND HOMECOMING
GREENVILLE, S.C. — Back in 1960, the story goes, a teenaged Jesse Jackson entered the whitesonly branch of his hometown library with seven comrades-in-arms who’d be christened the Greenville Eight after getting arrested for their civil...
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ROLE OF A LIFETIME
Acold night with temps plunging below zero in Chicago can’t stop Buddy Guy. A standing-room-only crowd packed into his Legends club on a frigid January night, waiting in anticipation for not just the master of the blues, but the genre’s protector and...
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IT’S PAYBACK TIME
Thousands of Chicago motorists ticketed and overcharged for more than a decade for parking, city sticker and other compliance violations could be in line for nearly $104 million in refunds at City Hall’s expense. Circuit Judge William Sullivan put...
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PRESSURE & PROGRESS
For the late Rev. Jesse Jackson, social justice was also entwined with economic justice and labor organizing, including organizing boycotts, pushing for job opportunities and supporting unions to pressure businesses. “Like the entire generation that...
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HER FIGHTS ‘LEFT US WITH A LOT OF LIGHT’
The blue Ford Mustang that Ofelia Giselle Torres Hidalgo’s father gifted her helped escort the 16-year-old’s ivory coffin to St. William Parish on Friday morning in the Northwest Side’s Montclare neighborhood. Dozens of mourners hugged as they left...
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INDIANA’S FIRST DOWN
The Hammond Bears? Indiana state legislators sure seem to think that’s where Chicago’s football team is headed after taking another legislative step toward the state border Thursday, though the Bears stopped short of committing to pulling up stakes...
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CHICAGO EMBRACED JACKSON — AND HE DID IN RETURN
In 1964, Jesse and Jacqueline Jackson drove into Chicago from North Carolina, where they had met, married and had their first child. In the car, with 1-year-old Santita in tow, a pregnant Jacqueline looked around at the tall buildings Downtown and...
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CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER AND A CHICAGO ICON
“I may be poor ...” began the calland-response Rev. Jesse Jackson led in various forms before rapt audiences for more than half a century. “But I am ... somebody! I may be on welfare. But I am ... somebody! I may be in jail. But I am ... somebody! I...
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WARM WASHES
The temperature hits a record high in February, and where’s your first stop? The obvious answer: The car wash. People all over Chicago used Monday’s warm weather to turn their cars from salty reminders of winter to shiny and springready vehicles....
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BRAND OF LINCOLN
You can believe something all your life and then, confronted with new evidence, suddenly realize how ridiculous your thinking was. Well, I can anyway. Many people cling to error as if their lives depend on it. Maybe they do. To me, the ability to...
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THEY WERE SUPER MODELERS
For 35 years, Columbian Model & Exhibit Works has given the city glimpses of the future. The West Loop company designed and built architectural models for developers and architects that provided an advance look — often with astonishing accuracy and...
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LEARNING UNDER LOCKDOWN
Alma’s 11-year-old boys had difficult questions for her after their school, Jungman Elementary in Pilsen, went on lockdown because federal immigration agents were nearby. Her fifth graders remember being rushed back into their classrooms during...
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‘TOGETHER, WE ARE’ CHICAGO
During his Super Bowl halftime show, Bad Bunny name-dropped and displayed flags of numerous nations and territories in the Western Hemisphere. His message of unity struck a chord with hundreds of thousands of Chicagoans born in those places.
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SHOTS, LIES? AND VIDEOTAPE
The Border Patrol agent who shot Marimar Martinez in October appeared to turn his steering wheel to the left, toward Martinez’s car, in body-camera footage of the incident released Tuesday by federal prosecutors in Chicago. The agent did so right...
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BREAKING THE SILENCE
There’s a common phrase in Urdu that Rabia Amin hates: “Log kya kahenge.” The 27-year-old law clerk said it translates to, “What will people say?” When Amin’s father was picked up by federal immigration agents last September and detained for more...
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Hotel’s brush with greatness
Hotels are not famous for fine art. Just the opposite. Once showcases for generic massproduced canvases ranging from kitsch to trash, lately they lean toward cutesy black-and-white photos echoing the visual cliche of the moment. Vintage cars. Soda...
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TRUMP’S RACE TO THE BOTTOM
Illinois Democrats are condemning President Donald Trump for sharing a racist video that includes a depiction of former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama as primates in a jungle. And Democrats aren’t the only group calling out the president...
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DIVERSITY BOOM IN THE BURBS
A decades-old Jewish diner, an African grocery store and a Chinese restaurant — all steps apart in Skokie — illustrate how dozens of suburbs have transformed from majority white to melting pots
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LEADER OF ENGLEWOOD SCHOOL GETS HER FLOWERS
Kamren Lake remembers being 6 years old accompanying his mom to graduate school classes. Bored and tired, he wanted to leave. But his mom, Regina Latimer-Lake, was committed to staying. “She stayed … not just for herself but for her students,”...
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CHECKS FAILED — BUT HOW?
Legal experts are perplexed over how a substitute teacher convicted of abusing children passed a background check and worked as a substitute teacher for the Archdiocese of Chicago for over a year. And no one has an answer why. Brett J. Smith passed...
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‘I AM THEIR VOICE’
Marimar Martinez began to realize she’d been shot by a Border Patrol agent last fall when she lost control of her right hand. Driving away from a collision with three agents at 39th and Kedzie, Martinez felt her fingers go stiff. Her body began to...
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SUBURBAN TEEN BROTHERS ON FRONT LINES DOCUMENTING ICE
On Jan. 24, 17-year-old Ben Luhmann was behind the wheel with his 16-year-old brother Sam in the passenger seat, like they had been countless times before. As they drove through frigid Minneapolis to yet another scene where federal immigration agents...
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SIGNS OF STRESS
David Tapia-Rodriguez didn’t pay much attention to politics or news until last year. He couldn’t avoid videos of federal immigration agents aggressively targeting Chicago. He’s seen them roaming his Gage Park streets, too. And the thought of the...
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TRADING FIRE ON ICE
Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton went on the offensive Monday night against U.S. Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly in the first livebroadcast debate in the heated Democratic primary race for retiring U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin’s seat. Stratton attacked...
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‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH’
The cries for justice reverberated off Michigan Avenue’s high-rises Sunday afternoon. Thousands of protesters, collectively fed up after a second person was killed by immigration agents in Minneapolis, filled Congress Plaza and spilled out into the...
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BABY, DON’T YOU WANNA GO… …BACK TO THAT SAME COLD PLACE?
If New York City can be wall-towall tourists from Thanksgiving week through New Year’s Day, why can’t Chicago do the same — or at least come close? Chicago’s leading tourism tandem posed that question and answered it this week during a polar plunge...
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THROWN FOR ANOTHER LOSS
Federal authorities slapped all kinds of sinister labels on Chicago’s Juan Espinoza Martinez when they arrested him last fall, and they did it for all the world to hear. They called him a “high-ranking member of the Latin Kings.” They called him...
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TURNING THE PAGE ON THE DIGITAL AGE?
A line of shoppers is often seen outside the Andersonville stationery shop Paper & Pencil. At the front of the line, a store employee acts as a bouncer — preventing overcrowding in the 400-square-foot shop. The store’s capacity has been tested since...
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MAYOR PUTS BUYBACK PLAN IN PARK
Mayor Brandon Johnson said Tuesday that City Hall has dropped out of the competition to take back Chicago parking meters after determining that the $3 billion asking price “would have made a bad deal even worse.” “The price is too high and requires...
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VIDEO GAMBLING THIEVES HIT JACKPOT TIME & AGAIN
Nearly a century ago, serial robber Willie Sutton reportedly explained why he was sticking up banks by saying wryly: “Because that’s where the money is.” These days, crooks in the Chicago area seem to be centering on a new source of cash:...
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GOOD, BETTER, BUST
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Drake Maye threw three touchdown passes, Marcus Jones returned one of C.J. Stroud’s four interceptions for a touchdown and the Patriots defeated the Texans 28-16 on Sunday to advance to the AFC Championship Game for the first time...
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GAME CHANGER
Competition changes everything. Winning doesn’t hurt, either. Indiana’s courtship of the Bears and the Hoosier State’s offer to build a stadium for the team has lit a political fire under Gov. JB Pritzker and Illinois lawmakers. Bears President Kevin...
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CHICAGO LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY LOSES A CHAMPION
Longtime activist Rick Garcia, who helped strengthen the gay community’s voice and successfully pushed for local gay rights, died Monday from heart failure, friends said. He was 69. “There’s just no question in my mind that without Rick doing what he...
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PLAYING HARDBALL
While Bears fans are thinking about the divisional playoff game this Sunday at Soldier Field, team executives are asking them to think about a new stadium across the border in Indiana. The Bears sent a survey to season-ticket holders Monday asking how...
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Families search for answers
dren’s grandfather, her hardships don’t make sense considering what she is accused of doing. “There was nothing that ever led us to believe that she’d hurt those children,” said Davis, 66. Court records show Tolbert, 46, armed herself with a kitchen...
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ILLINOIS ON TRACK FOR SLIGHT DECREASE IN AFFORDABLE CARE ACT ENROLLMENT
Illinois is on track to have slightly fewer people enrolled in the Affordable Care Act marketplace this year following the expiration of enhanced tax subsidies that were at the center of last year’s federal government shutdown. The 4% decrease in...
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STUCK BETWEEN HERE & HOME
Jose Perez, a Venezuelan attorney who arrived in Chicago in 2019, had been contemplating going back to his home country for months. Rather than risk deportation after President Donald Trump’s administration revoked his temporary protected status last...
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THINKING OUTSIDE THE MUSIC BOX
As many movie theaters struggle to attract audiences in the age of streaming, Chicago’s Music Box Theatre is preparing to double its screen count. The art-house cinema announced in December that it has acquired The Heights Theater just outside of...
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SEPARATED, SCARED & SCARRED
Days after her dad was handcuffed and dragged off his landscaping job site by masked federal agents in November, 9-yearold Danna was visibly out of sorts at school. When one of her favorite teachers at Eliza Chappell Elementary School in Lincoln...
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LADIES FIRST
As others welcomed the new year with resolutions, Melissa Nunez and Elizabeth Branske became the first couple of 2026 to marry in Cook County. They made history as the county’s first lesbian couple to win the annual lottery and take part in the...
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‘A WALKING MIRACLE’
Gentry Hunt stared at the sky while first responders stanched the bleeding from his gunshot wound. Moments earlier, he was shot when gunfire broke out Sunday afternoon near St. Sabina Church in Auburn Gresham. One thought ran through his mind: “Thank...
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COLD SWEATS
Alone fisherman, bundled up like an Arctic explorer, jiggled his lure at the edge of Lake Michigan this month, getting few if any bites. Two seagulls skimmed the icecrusted water. A crash, as a woman nearby cannon-balled into the lake. A few moments...
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THE SUN-TIMES IS POSSIBLE BECAUSE OF YOU.
Every story we tell, every neighborhood we visit, every conversation we spark—it all happens because you believe facts still matter and that Chicago deserves a strong, independent source of local news.
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FEDERAL AGENTS IN THE CITY AND A CHICAGO-BORN POPE
Chicagoans have faced constitutional abuses, soaring costs and political turmoil over the past 12 tumultuous months. But they also got one of their own to lead the Vatican, plus an occasionally shirtless coach who just might be leading the Bears to...
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Celebrating the start of Kwanzaa
Kwanzaa is more than an annual holiday for many who celebrate it. Kwanzaa’s seven principles can become a guide for life. “The principles can be lived by everyone,” said Barbara Meschino, dean of Malcolm X College, which on Friday kicked off a week of...
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THEY FLED A WAR. NOW THEY’RE IN A BATTLE TO STAY.
Ilkhom, Shakhnoza and their three sons, who came to the U.S. via a Biden administration program to aid Ukrainian refugees, thought they wouldn’t be targeted by the president’s deportation campaign until Ilkhom texted, ‘I was arrested by ICE’ When her...
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JOHNSON BACKS DOWN IN BUDGET BATTLE
Mayor Brandon Johnson says he will not veto a 2026 budget that he has called “morally bankrupt,” instead allowing it to go into effect and staving off political gridlock and the risk of an unprecedented government shutdown. “I will not add the risk...
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COMFORT AND JOY — FOR ALL
Melissa Little sat beside her son, Matthew, in his wheelchair as “Jingle Bells” filled the auditorium. Little leaned in, shook handheld bells and sang along with the Evanston Symphony Orchestra playing on stage. This joyous moment was a long time...
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STEPS TOWARD A LONGER LIFE
Outside the iconic Garfield Park Fieldhouse on the West Side, Glydan “Momma” Hoffman stands in a large circle with about 50 people to warm up for a 1-mile walk. She tries to jostle her knees high, one at a time. “Oh, I hate that one,” Hoffman says...
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A NEW VIEW OF THE ‘BLITZ’
The first of four unmarked U.S. Border Patrol vehicles rolls onto a narrow one-way street in Albany Park. An agent in the back seat starts his body camera. At first, the footage includes no audio but shows the driver putting on his face mask. The...
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HITTING THE GIG TIME
Chicago isn’t ready to let go of its feel-good story of the year. The Leo High School choir, which captured hearts while placing fourth on “America’s Got Talent” in September, is booking gigs around town at an unparalleled clip — with no end in...
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HAND-WRINGING IN THE NEW YEAR
Rebecca George has had a cancel button looming over her for weeks. The 45-year-old Chicagoan was automatically reenrolled in a health insurance plan through the Affordable Care Act marketplace starting Jan. 1. But it would cost $796 a month — up from...
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HOLIDAY Deals
Smithfield has a solution for the most important part of any meal: premium, high-quality meat. We take our meat duties seriously. After all, the rest of the meal is just a side dish. Smithfield products were first introduced in 1936 in Smithfield,...
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CHANCE’S CHEER
One hundred children rode away from a Chicago Ridge Raising Canes on a chilly Monday with new bicycles and helmets, courtesy of the fast food chain and Chicago’s Chance the Rapper. The students did not just leave with bicycles; they left with holiday...
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NATIVITY SCENE STATEMENTS
Holding candles and flowers, a crowd gathered around an Evanston church’s Nativity display, where the familiar figurines stood quietly in the snow. But the Nativity display of Lake Street Church looked different this year, transformed to pay tribute...
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KICKED OUT
As last remaining residents were forced to leave troubled South Shore building raided by feds, some were relieved to close this chapter of their lives. But others were still struggling to figure out what’s next.
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BLIZZARD OF COMPLAINTS
The prelude to winter has pummeled Chicago with more snow this early than the city has seen in nearly 50 years, and people are slipping and sliding their way through uncleared sidewalks and streets. And they’re complaining about it. With record...
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SHE BROKE UP WITH HIM BEFORE FATAL SHOOTING
The mother of Chicago Police Officer Krystal Rivera filed a wrongful death lawsuit Wednesday in which she says her daughter’s partner, Officer Carlos Baker, was struggling to accept her decision to end their romantic relationship when he fatally shot...
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