Chicago Sun-Times
COLLECTOR CREW’S BLACK ART BOND
For one group of collectors, Expo Chicago is not just an art fair but a family reunion. On Thursday afternoon, they trickled into Navy Pier’s Festival Hall, offering enthusiastic hugs and handshakes. The cohort included everyone from health care...
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CHICAGO’S FED ON ROCKY FIRST YEAR
When Chicago’s top federal prosecutor is asked if his office takes marching orders from Washington, he doesn’t mince words. “You should write this down,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros recently told a Chicago Sun-Times reporter. “[There is] not a...
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Holy Name parishioners reflect on calls for peace, Leo’s Easter message
A line stretched out of Holy Name Cathedral, down the sidewalks from State Street and around the corner onto Chicago Avenue ahead of Easter morning Mass Sunday. Rev. Gregory Sakowicz reflected on “the violence in our city, nation and wars throughout...
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SALUTE TO A HERO
Friends and loved ones of fallen Chicago firefighter Michael Altman said their final goodbyes during a funeral Tuesday morning in southwest suburban Oak Lawn. The private funeral service was held at Blake-Lamb Funeral Home at 4727 W. 103rd St. after...
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CHICAGO NEEDS NEWS THAT’S FOR CHICAGO
The stories shaping our city deserve to be told right. The Chicago Sun-Times covers every corner of Chicago with fact-based, independent reporting. We help you understand our city, care for our neighborhoods and make the most of life here.
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MINIMUM WAGE BATTLE AT TIPPING POINT
Some restaurant owners and servers say Chicago’s hotly debated law to increase the tipped minimum wage harms workers and the industry, after Mayor Brandon Johnson’s veto of the City Council’s vote to freeze tipped workers’ hourly pay. Supporters of the...
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CHEER LEADERS
Not long ago, Naliyah Saintil was cheering her brothers on from the sidelines. Now, her dad shows up to cheer for her. The 13-year-old from Greater Grand Crossing dances and tumbles with the South Side cheer team Black Onyx Allstars, where her rapid...
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BETTOR UP
Logan Reilly’s group chat with his friends was lighting up Thursday, the same as every year, for Major League Baseball’s Opening Day. But this time, the chatter was about which bets to place. “Three years ago, we’re just talking about who we think’s...
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MEDICAL EMERGENCY
West Suburban Medical Center is temporarily shutting its doors and furloughing “many” employees as it struggles to pay staff, according to the Oak Park hospital’s owner, Manoj Prasad. Prasad, the CEO of Resilience Healthcare, said in an email...
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HIGHER GAS PRICES ARE JUST THE BEGINNING
Chicagoans are feeling squeezed by rising gas prices, following the U.S. and Israel’s attack on Iran last month. And experts say the financial pain on consumers from the Iran war won’t stop at the pump. “It’s going to be like a snake that swallowed a...
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PROSECUTORS: FIGHT WITH FRIENDS LED ‘SUICIDAL’ MAN TO START FATAL FIRE
A man with a history of burning tents in Chicago parks was feeling “suicidal” when he ignited a mattress at a Rogers Park apartment last week and sparked a blaze that led to the death of a Chicago firefighter, Cook County prosecutors said...
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With ICE headed to airports, TSA union demands pay
After President Donald Trump threatened to deploy federal immigration agents to airports amid a Department of Homeland Security funding fight in Congress, union members in the Midwest are expressing concern about agents’ lack of training and their own...
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Marking Eid on South Side
Muslims around Chicago celebrated Eid al-Fitr Friday as they brought the Islamic holy month of Ramadan to a close. Eid is a time of celebration typically marked with prayer, food, sweets and family gatherings. The holiday comes after Muslims spent...
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LOYOLA MOURNS STUDENT GUNNED DOWN AT BEACH
A Loyola University freshman was shot to death early Thursday while she was walking with friends at a Rogers Park beach. Sheridan Gorman, 18, was walking with the friends in the 1000 block of West Pratt Boulevard around 1:30 a.m. when a gunman —...
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Recording Artist and DePaul Alumna Expands Her Reach Using Business Acumen
Coming soon for Chinatown-Bridgeport (she claims both) native Gayun Cannon, an up-and-coming musician, producer and performing artist, are T-shirts and stickers featuring Cannon as her friend’s version of her as an animated character. The...
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JUBILANT JULIANA
Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton has won the competitive Democratic primary race to replace U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin — on the heels of a late campaign surge and millions in support from longtime running mate Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. Stratton’s momentum was...
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STATE OF CHANGE
Illinois’ representation in Washington will look vastly different this time next year — and for many years to come — all based on what voters decide today. The state’s most pivotal primary election in a generation comes to a head Tuesday after a...
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CTA’S MONTHLY PLATFORM PERIL
A59-year-old River Forest man walked from his home to the Harlem Avenue L stop on the morning of Dec. 1 to take the train to Rush University Medical Center, where he volunteered when not working his regular job as a grocery clerk at...
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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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