Chicago Sun-Times (Sunday)

CHICAGO POLICE BRASS REJECTED TROUBLED COP’S MOVE TO ELITE UNIT BEFORE HE FATALLY SHOT PARTNER

The cop who fatally shot his tactical team partner during a chase on the South Side last year initially had his appointment to that unit blocked by a top Chicago Police Department official because of his disciplinary history, but that decision was...

HOW YOU CAN HEAR PROMINENT CHICAGOANS READ CARL SANDBURG’S ICONIC ‘CHICAGO’

Carl Sandburg’s “Chicago” has been a beloved local anthem for more than a century. The 1914 poem, which coined the phrase “City of Big Shoulders,” has inspired prideful political speeches, launched a comic series and even decorated buildings. The work...

MAKE VENEZUELA GREAT AGAIN

Venezuelans across Chicago say they’re hopeful for their homeland after U.S. military forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who now faces criminal charges. But they also say they’re worried about how President Donald Trump is envisioning...

AN INSIDE LOOK ON HOW WE COVERED 2025

40-PAGE SECTION INSIDE

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,...

GREG BOVINO: THE STAR OF TRUMP’S DEPORTATION SHOW

As a boy, the Hollywood movie ‘The Border’ set the course for his life. He couldn’t believe the film’s Border Patrol agents were the bad guys. Now that he’s in charge of deportation efforts causing turmoil in Chicago and elsewhere, he sees himself as...

HOW CHICAGO KEPT KIDS IN CLASS AMID ‘BLITZ’

The streets of Little Village are just waking up when Baltazar Enriquez, with his stillwet black hair slicked back, walks briskly out of his house. He clears papers and a blow horn out of the back seat of his gray SUV before sliding into the driver’s...

A ROYAL MESS

In the beloved 1986 movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” the “Sausage King of Chicago” is a mythical man named Abe Froman. Ferris, a mischievous high school senior skipping school, says he’s Froman to get seated at a ritzy restaurant with his girlfriend...

CHICAGO’S DEATH GAP

Daevon Reynolds grew up in Austin on Chicago’s West Side, where burning off energy at the neighborhood park around people selling drugs wasn’t safe. His mom would take her two boys to the vast Columbus Park nearby to play. Reynolds and his brother...

ICE, CAMERA, ACTION

Nearly two months into President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement campaign, social media feeds from his administration and its right-wing allies paint a grim picture of Chicago: a city plagued by violent criminals that is at war with...

GETTING RICH OFF TRUMP’S BLITZ

Chicago-area companies that earned lucrative contracts supporting President Donald Trump’s deportation push also benefited from deals with the city, the Chicago Sun-Times found. A web of agreements shows the Trump administration and Mayor Brandon...

THE DITCH THAT MADE CHICAGO GREAT

What was the most significant event in the history of Chicago? The Great Chicago Fire? Wrong. The 1893 World’s Fair? Wrong. The Cubs winning the World Series in 2016? Tempting ... but no. Those don’t count. Because Chicago was already a dynamic city...

REIGN CHECK

More than a month after President Donald Trump sent federal agents to the Chicago region as part of a mass deportation effort targeting immigrants, opponents of that and other White House polices turned out in force Saturday to show what they...

CHA HAS PAID $22M TO BUSINESSES TIED TO BOARD MEMBER

In the spring of 2017, Debra Parker — a longtime Chicago public housing tenant activist from the South Side — and her boyfriend Charles Bell met at a Dunkin Donuts on 79th Street and Cicero Avenue for a board meeting of a new janitorial business: Parks...

MARCHING ORDERS

U.S. Border Patrol shot a woman Saturday on the Southwest Side, marking the second shooting involving federal agents in Chicago since President Donald Trump’s administration launched an aggressive immigration enforcement operation in the area last...

HELPING THOSE IN HIDING

Guided by a neatly written list of items on blue stationery, Karla navigates a suburban grocery store picking up a week’s worth of food for her family. She stands in front of rows of produce, questioning what her mother would pick before placing a...

A PORTRAIT OF IMMIGRANTS IN CHICAGO

Chicago’s immigrant population is at its highest point in nearly two decades. That’s according to new census data released as President Donald Trump’s administration continues its stepped-up deportation campaign in the Chicago area. An estimated...

COLD WAR

‘The president of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city … This is not normal’: Throngs of protesters take to downtown streets in defiance after Trump threatens ICE ‘Chipocalypse’

LEAD ALERT

As Gina Ramirez buckled her 11-year-old son into her car for their drive to school, she handed him a plastic water bottle. “I would love to be able to have him put a cup under the tap if he was thirsty,” Ramirez said. She can’t. Ramirez lives in a...

BACKING OFF ON POLICE DISCIPLINE

Chicago’s new police oversight chief has repeatedly wiped out or dramatically scaled back recommendations to fire officers following pushback from the city’s top cop, the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ have found. The reversals by the city’s Civilian...

AERIAL ARTISTRY

For the first time in the 13 years their son has been flying Air Force jets, Capt. Tim Wilson’s parents finally got to see him fly Wednesday as he took the controls of a C-17 Globemaster military transport jet. They got another chance Saturday at the...

COCAINE’S COMEBACK

In a lab in an undisclosed location in downtown Chicago, a brick of cocaine awaits testing by Oliwia Nazaruk, a forensic chemist with the Drug Enforcement Administration. The sugary, compressed white cocaine is stamped with an “L.A.” logo. The plastic...

CHICAGO TEENS ON THE JOB

They’re ringing you up at the register, stocking shelves, safeguarding swimmers, scooping ice cream and running social media accounts for a lot of grown-ups. These teenagers are on the job this summer, joining throngs every year who try to do more...

CHICAGO PET SURRENDERS SKYROCKET

Curtis Berry waited in line at Chicago Animal Care and Control on Monday for more than two hours. He was giving up his dog, Seven. Berry, 53, had the easy-going pocket bully for two years. But a veterinarian’s office quoted him $1,000 to treat Seven’s...

PAINFUL PRICE CHECK

Charlotte Maggio bought an upright freezer for her basement during last year’s holiday sales and has been stocking it with home-cooked meals. An avid tracker of grocery deals, the retired librarian also stocks up on coffee when she finds it at a good...

COULD HEAT WAVE HORROR HAPPEN AGAIN?

Three decades after Chicago’s devastating heat wave left more than 700 people dead, city efforts to keep people protected from extreme weather continue to fall short. This weekend marks the 30th anniversary of that disaster. Many lessons were learned...

TIME FOR THE CHECKERED FLAG?

Grant Park buzzed with energy Saturday morning as tens of thousands of attendees descended on the park grounds for the third NASCAR Chicago Street Race amid rising temperatures and a blazing sun. The third and final race weekend of NASCAR’s three-year...

THE FAILED DREAM OF LINCOLN YARDS

Someday, something will be done at the mostly fallow property at Lincoln Yards, the North Side repository for the best-waylaid plans in Chicago development. Land in the city is too coveted for Lincoln Yards to stay as it is. But the larger the site,...

MEDICAID HELPS KEEP THIS TODDLER ALIVE AND AT HOME

Marely requires 24/7 care — covered by Medicaid — after receiving a new heart at Lurie Children’s Hospital. But the GOP-controlled U.S. Senate is considering slashing the government health insurance program. Marely Chavarria Santos was born with a...

THE ROYAL OPPOSITION

People gathered Saturday in Chicago and around the country for coordinated “No Kings” protests opposing Trump administration policies they say are moving the country toward authoritarianism. The rallies and marches were held in downtown Chicago,...

CHICAGO’S KID CARJACKERS

At the age when many kids are busy with homework and sports, he already was a seasoned bandit. Just 12 years old and barely 5-foot-3, the boy had earned his stripes in a robbery crew, snatching iPhones on train platforms and flipping them for...

RACE AND TICKETING ON CAMPUS

Michael Burton was stopped by Southern Illinois University-Carbondale campus police so many times that he dreads driving anywhere near the college. “Any time I got behind the wheel, I was getting pulled over,” said the 21-year-old junior from...

THEY’RE OUTRAGED AT CPD’S REPEAT OFFENDERS

Alexus Byrd-Maxey had just finished her second month at the Chicago police academy, well on her way to fulfilling her childhood dream. The South Side native wanted to become a detective so she could bring closure to families who have lost loved ones...

CHICAGO’S BEST SPORTS SECTION IS INSIDE!

MAYOR CULPA

Mayor Brandon Johnson seems to know that he has dug himself into a political hole, in part, by failing to communicate. That’s not easy for the fast-talking preacher’s son to admit. But it’s a reality Johnson is confronting and changing as he...

GUN STOLEN FROM ROOM FULL OF CHICAGO COPS WAS LATER USED IN SERIES OF SHOOTINGS

STOLEN GUN’S 2ND LIFE

HOMEBUYERS’ NIGHTMARE

Acouple who bought their first home in 2023 on the Northwest Side and soon discovered a “putrid” odor is suing the seller, their inspector and their real estate agent after finding voluminous amounts of cat feces and urine in an unfinished attic. The...

CITY HALL’S FOOD DESERT PLAN HITS ANOTHER SNAG

Around the time the out-of-town owners of Chicago’s Save A Lot grocery stores locked down a $13.5 million deal with the city of Chicago to renovate the stores, the three founders were asked to share advice for young entrepreneurs. “Embrace the chaos,...

FAILURE TO TREAT, FAILURE TO PROTECT

Henry Graham, a lost soul in one of America’s wealthiest neighborhoods, was strolling Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. Again. It was June 29, 2023. For years, Graham had ricocheted back and forth around Chicago, Evanston and South Bend, Indiana. He’d...

‘WHERE IS THE GLOCK?’

Chicago police have used buybacks to get thousands of guns off the street, but at least two of them have resurfaced at crime scenes. In November, a 16-year-old boy was found with a Glock that went missing after it was handed in at a buyback at St....

IS THREAT FROM TREN DE ARAGUA TRUMPED UP?

With tens of thousands of immigrants having sought refuge in Chicago after crossing the southern border, only a few dozen have been labeled by police as potential members of the Tren de Aragua gang that President Donald Trump calls a terrorist...

FEWER CPD TRAFFIC STOPS — BUT MORE ENDING IN VIOLENCE

Chicago cops pulled over fewer drivers last year as the fatal shooting of Dexter Reed sent shockwaves through the city and led to promises of reform. But far more of the traffic stops ended in violence, an investigation by the Chicago Sun-Times and...

‘WHERE’S MY JUSTICE?’

Tom Wagner was working as a rideshare driver when he got shot during a carjacking on the West Side in 2021. The shooting left a jagged scar across his abdomen where bullets pierced his gallbladder, colon and liver. After three years of calling...

CHICAGO’S SHIFTING PROPERTY TAX BURDEN

Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit five years ago, property values have fallen downtown, and that’s shifted a greater portion of Chicago’s tax burden away from the heart of the Loop and onto homeowners and business owners elsewhere in the city, a Chicago...

Renting an apartment in Chicago is costing more — and it’s getting worse. Here’s why.

WBEZ’S AMY QIN AND ANDJELA PADEJSKI REPORT, PAGES 8-11

Behind-the-scenes drama played out in days leading up to COPA chief’s exit

Andrea Kersten’s tenure as the boss of the city of Chicago’s police accountability oversight agency was turbulent from the start. Her decision to recommend that slain Officer Ella French be suspended for her role in the wrongful raid of social worker...

Incubator baby from ’33 Chicago World’s Fair lived a ‘lucky’ life

Gerald “Jerry” M. Gordon had a tough start in life. He and his identical twin brother, Larry Gordon, were born several months premature in 1933, each weighing not even 4 pounds. The eugenics movement had gained ground early in the 20th century, and...

HOW WILL CITY COVER PRICEY PAYOUTS TIED TO EX-COPS?

Just one month into the year, the city of Chicago already has run through well over half of the $82 million that Mayor Brandon Johnson set aside for 2025 to cover police misconduct settlements and judgments. There still are more than 220 wrongful...

YOUR MONEY FOR NOTHING

Seven years ago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Gov. Bruce Rauner invited dignitaries to a 62-acre plot of land in the South Loop and offered a bold promise: The longvacant property would be transformed, with a high-tech research facility to be built there...

THE ‘DISABILITY CLIFF’

Seven months after he graduated from an occupational high school for students with disabilities on the Northwest Side, Carlos Mejia longs to walk the hallways again. “I feel kind of sad and devastated because I wish [school] could go all the way to 30...

CHICAGO’S BEST SPORTS SECTION IS INSIDE!

CLOSING THE GAP

Black Chicagoans have a life expectancy of nine years less than other Chicago residents. A big factor is uncontrolled high blood pressure, which is significantly more prevalent in Chicago’s African American population than among other groups. Here,...

He went in for a colonoscopy. His hospital charged $19,000 for two of them.

Tom Contos is an avid runner. When he started experiencing rectal bleeding in March, he thought exercise could be the cause and tried to ignore it. But he became increasingly worried when the bleeding continued for weeks. The Chicago health care...

MR. DUNCAN’S DISCIPLES

The Wendell Phillips High School a capella choir had celebrity status at a time when the school had 4,000 students, performing in Europe, recording albums and appearing all over Chicago. The bonds the members formed remain today — as do memories of...

HEROIN’S INVISIBLE TOLL

James Stewart got hooked on heroin in 1987. Life was a party then. He was in his early 20s, playing basketball and hustling drugs on the West Side. He experimented with cough syrup and other drugs. And he tried heroin. His body started to change. He...

POLITICS POLLUTE PLANS FOR AIR STUDY

For almost three years, Raed Mansour has been the city’s top official investigating two major health threats to Chicagoans: air pollution and extreme heat. Moving ahead on a plan to install about 140 air pollution sensors across the city — at a cost...

THE WATCHDOGS: With 2nd Trump term looming, local groups that serve migrants are bracing for the unexpected

After Donald Trump was elected, Vannessa Olivera’s oldest son asked her if it was true that all immigrants would be removed from the country. It’s what he heard at school. Olivera, whose family fled Venezuela and was sent to Chicago in 2022, tried to...

OPRAH’S SEASON OF GIVING

In 2004 Oprah crashed like a magnanimous meteor into the lives of thousands — most spectacularly with her declaration of “You get a car! You get a car! You get a car!” as stunned guests opened little boxes wrapped in red ribbon to find the keys to a...

YOUR COMED BILL IS GOING UP. HERE’S WHY.

You might have no clue what a data center does. But a boom in these high-tech operations in the Chicago area and around the country will hit home next year in the form of higher electricity bills. The average increase is expected to be $10.50 a month...

YOUR GUIDE TO HOLIDAY ENTERTAINMENT

This Sunday and next, the Sun-Times Holiday Entertainment Series will serve up stories and guides to entertainment and cultural arts events to help you celebrate.

PRITZKER PONDERS FUTURE UNDER TRUMP — & BEYOND

Gov. JB Pritzker is combing through thousands of pages of Project 2025, shoring up legal resources and finding ways to further expand reproductive rights and environmental protections — all while he explores his own political future. It’s not the...

POLES’ IMPACT AT THE POLLS

The ears of Polish Americans were perked up during the only presidential debate when Democratic nominee Kamala Harris warned that former President Donald Trump would sell out Ukraine to Vladimir Putin — and Poland would be the Russian leader’s next...

CPD’S MASS EXODUS

Juan Navarrete was 17 when he was robbed at gunpoint as he made a delivery for his family’s restaurant on the North Side. Another time, he saw his mother held up at knifepoint. And he witnessed domestic violence. Growing up in Chicago and later in...

COMPLAINTS PILE UP FOR SOME CAR INSURERS

When a driver crashed into Angela Crosby’s car, she assumed that insurance — either hers or the other driver’s — would pay for the $4,200 in damage to her car and cover the medical care for injuries that she and her passenger suffered. Crosby had a...

BECOMING BLUE MEN

The stage is bare, the drums silent, the video screens blank. Three figures stand in the glare of the stage lights. They couldn’t look less alike — one gaunt, another stocky with dark stubble, the third lithe and a little bug-eyed. They are...

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