The Rundown | Chicago News

A new report shows Black and Latino borrowers in the Chicago region continue to receive higher-cost, government-backed mortgage loans more often than other groups. Rural schools in Illinois will get a larger voice next year in state decisions. The Bank of America Chicago Marathon is expanding next year.

Jahmal Cole asked a question to the crowd of volunteers assembled in a church parking lot in the Chatham neighborhood on a recent Saturday.
 
 “How come there ain't no holiday lights on the South Side of Chicago?” he said into the microphone. “I've seen it in Edgewater. I've seen it in Greek Town. How come there ain't no holiday lights on the South Side of Chicago?” 
 
 Cole is the founder of the community organization My Block My Hood My City. For six years, they’ve decorated homes on Martin Luther King Drive with holiday lights, ornaments, inflatable Santas and other decorations. In this episode, we join the event – which is called “Be A Part Of The Light” – for the day, asking homeowners and volunteers why they decided to participate, and Cole why he thinks the simple act of putting up holiday lights can transform a community. 
 
 “What we're doing today is not just about putting up lights,” Cole said. “It’s about bringing light to an area that really needs it.”

Chicago alderpersons continue pointing fingers and placing blame over the failed construction of a migrant camp in Brighton Park. Some of Alderman Ray Lopez’s constituents used Posada as a backdrop to protest Chicago’s continued sanctuary status. Jurors get a firsthand look at the FBI raid on former Alderman Ed Burke’s office.

The Chicago Bears are reportedly looking into building a new stadium in the South Lot of Soldier Field. Small business owners in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood are pushing back against a chain store that is eyeing a location on Clark Street. Des Plaines is cracking down on travelers who leave their cars on residential streets when flying out of O'Hare.

When West Garfield Park shows up in the news, it’s often accompanied by a crime statistic. Chicago media tends to fixate on violence in the area, but community members offer a bigger story. 
 
 “If we can get rid of the violence, we’ll have the best community in the world,” says LiFE restaurant owner Joe Black. He is just one of many residents who continue to invest in the neighborhood when others might choose to leave.
 
 In this episode, we hear from Black and record shop owner Marie Henderson on why they’re committed to their West Garfield Park communities.

Another encampment for migrants could go up in the Chicago Morgan Park neighborhood with mixed reactions. A city council panel will take up whether police officers can contest discipline cases behind closed doors. A Muslim-American attorney says a Chicago law firm fired her for speaking up for Palestinian rights.

Political fallout continues from the dispute over a scuttled migrant base camp in Brighton Park. A fire raced through a home in North Lawndale on Chicago's West Side this morning, killing one man and critically injuring his mother. Chicago-based McDonald’s expects to open nearly 10,000 restaurants over the next four years, the fastest period of growth in the company’s history.

Chicago comedian Kenya Elan says she regularly makes her audiences scream.“It’s a lot of release,” Elan said. “I feel like my comedy is based in release, because I feel like once you let it out, you can move forward in some sort of way. You can take the next steps.” Elan is a cast member at The Lincoln Lodge in Logan Square (she’s part of a show Friday, Dec. 8 where the audience guesses each comedian’s zodiac sign). In this episode, she explains her Chicago roots in Hyde Park and Humboldt Park, why she started trying stand-up right before the pandemic, and why her brand of comedy involves poking at her everyday exasperations with the world.This episode was produced by Ari Mejia for WBEZ’s sister station Vocalo and their Chi Sounds Like series. 

A controversial plan to house migrants in a winterized tent in Brighton Park in Chicago’s southwest side will not be moving forward – local residents celebrated. A corporate executive with business in Ed Burke’s ward tells a jury he felt “weird” after a conversation with the former alderman. Chicago State University will be joining a new athletic conference and hopes to start a Division 1 college football team.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker’s office says the state will not move forward to house migrants at a Brighton Park site. Burger King executive Zohaib Dhanani testifies in the federal corruption trial of former Alderman Ed Burke. Illinois kids under 5 will soon be able to receive a monthly book from the Dolly Parton Imagination Library.

As we gear up for the 2024 presidential election, we often hear this refrain: “Just vote.” But voting is just one way to engage in our democracy.
 
 We wanted to get a sense of how to become more civically engaged on the local level, so we turned to Grace Del Vecchio, the editorial program coordinator for Documenters at City Bureau. They help train Chicagoans to document local government meetings, so they have seen firsthand the countless ways people engage in our city’s democratic process.
 
 In this episode, host Erin Allen has Del Vecchio break down the importance of civic engagement and how to have your voice heard by local elected officials. This conversation is part of our Democracy Solutions Project.

The state has halted work on the migrant tent city in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood to review environmental testing. A new study says most Chicago Public School students who enroll in college take more than four years to complete. Republicans and Democrats running for office in Illinois next year have finished submitting their nominating petitions.

A spokeswoman for Gov. J.B. Pritzker said construction of a base camp to shelter migrants in Chicago's Brighton Park neighborhood is temporarily paused. The C.E.O. of Chicago Public Media, the parent organization of WBEZ, is stepping down. A “clipper” weather system is expected to bring another period of snow to the Chicago region starting this evening.

Naomi Davis grew up in St. Albans, Queens. She recalls it as a walkable neighborhood where neighbors invested back into their community.
 
 Now, Davis helms Blacks In Green, a Chicago organization taking an environmental justice approach to Black community development. That includes BIG’s “Sustainable Square Mile” initiative. They want to help Black neighborhoods become self-sustaining in their local economy and energy grid.
 
 
 
 In this episode, host Erin Allen talks to Davis about what it would take to see more sustainable neighborhoods in Chicago and beyond.

A study commissioned by the city of Chicago found traces of contamination in the soil of the site selected to house a winterized camp for migrants. The Illinois State Police launched an online portal that lets residents submit anonymous tips about local, county or state officials they suspect of wrongdoing. Leaders of the Muslim Civic Coalition are revealing plans to introduce an act that would honor the legacy of a six-year-old Palestinian American boy who was stabbed to death.

Chicago has finished its fifth month in a row with a drop in murders compared to last year. A consultant's report finds Illinois prisons at Pontiac, Logan County, and Stateville at Joliet are nearly inoperable. Beer enthusiasts from around Chicago descended on Bronzeville last night for the opening of the Turner Haus Brewery's flagship taproom, the only Black-owned brewery taproom currently operating in Chicago.

Octavia Butler loved science fiction as a child, but she never saw any versions of herself depicted in the traditionally white, male genre.“So at about 14 she said, ‘Well, I guess I have to write myself in,’” said Candace Hunter, the creator of a new Butler exhibit at the Hyde Park Art Center. “And she did. And she did it to much applause and much fanfare.” Butler became one of the most celebrated science fiction authors of her generation, winning two Hugo awards, two Nebula awards and a MacArthur Fellowship before her death in 2006. Hunter, who developed the exhibit, is a distinguished artist in her own right. She’s a longtime artist-in-residence at HPAC who creates collages, paintings, installations and performance art to tell stories about the nuance of injustice and human experience. In her new exhibit, “Candace Hunter: The Alien-Nations and Sovereign States of Octavia E. Butler,” Hunter invites people into some of the worlds that Butler created. She explores themes like forced displacement – central to Butler’s “Parable” series – and racial integration – a key element of Butler’s “Xenogenesis” series. “She takes so many heady topics and bends them into science fiction,” Hunter said. “She is giving you truth in palatable ways in which you can then start examining yourself.”Hunter explained how sci-fi both shows us to ourselves and offers possibilities of what we can be. She also gave host Erin Allen a tour of the exhibit, which is open through March 3 at the Hyde Park Art Center.

U.S. Steel is laying off workers at its downstate Granite City, Illinois plant, but there are no such downsizing plans for its steel mill in Gary. Home care and child care workers are calling on Governor J.B. Pritzker for increased wages and a pathway to retirement. An AI chatbot is helping local renters address housing issues.

A lawsuit seeks to block Northwestern University from hosting concerts at its stadium. New seating protocols for Chicago City Council meetings spark backlash from good government and civil rights advocates. The Illinois Air National Guard will name its first Black general in the organization's history.

Anna DeShawn grew up in a religious household on the South Side, where she says she “had no connection to queerness.” Once she reached adulthood, she saw a need for more coverage of LGBTQ+ issues. And in 2009, she founded E3 Radio to start telling those stories.
 
 She was ready to be a radio personality. “Black women in radio from Chicago, it's a pretty lit lineup,” DeShawn said. “I didn't grow up thinking that this was something I could not do.” And earlier this year, she was inducted into Chicago’s LGBTQ Hall of Fame. 
 
 In this episode, host Erin Allen talks to DeShawn about E3 Radio, the Queer News Podcast and why it’s important for LGBTQ+ people to be the ones telling queer stories.

Jurors heard some of the most infamous secret recordings of former Chicago alderman Ed Burke. A new online tool provides a complete look at kids in each community area in Chicago. Meta officially opens its new data center in DeKalb.

United and American Airlines are asking Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson to scale back expansion plans at O'Hare Airport. The Chicago City Council is tightening public access amid a slew of chaotic meetings. Faculty at Second City Chicago may soon go on strike.

One of the most jarring political pieces on display at the new exhibit, “Faith Ringgold: American People,” depicts the stars of the American flag reading the word “DIE” and the stripes reading the n-word. Titled “Flag For The Moon,” the piece briefly got the artist arrested for flag desecration when she displayed it in 1970.“She felt the American government – what they were communicating to Black people – [was] that they could put a flag on the moon but disregard Black lives back in the United States,” said Jamillah James, the curator of the exhibit, which is open through Feb. 25 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.Ringgold is known for a variety of artforms, including quilts, paintings, soft sculptures, autobiographical work and children's books. In this episode, host Erin Allen talks with James about the political nature of Ringgold’s art and how it serves as a bridge to the work of young Black artists today. “She’s really a living legend,” said James. “And so influential, you can see the scale of her influence in so many younger artists that are exploring crafting, autobiography, narrative, et cetera in their work, and doing so unapologetically.”

Construction of a Brighton Park base camp for migrants is underway despite an environmental study’s findings not made public. Former Chicago Alderman – turned government mole – Danny Solis’ voice played throughout a federal courtroom as Ed Burke’s trial continues. It’s been unseasonably cold outside the past few days, but climate experts say the Chicago area may be in for a milder winter than average.

Construction may begin on a Brighton Park base camp to shelter migrants as soon as tomorrow. The federal corruption trial of former Alderman Ed Burke continues. A Chicago Sun-Times investigation finds used car dealers across the country are selling vehicles that have unaddressed safety recalls.

Director Andrew Davis has made films set in deserts and at sea. But when he directs movies based in cities, he always tries to bring them to Chicago. “I understood the city,” he said. “And I understood the fabric of how to get something to look tough, or look slick, or look classy.”
 
 Davis grew up in Chicago. You may know him for “The Fugitive,” but he started his career with a different Chicago-based movie.
 
 In this episode, host Erin Allen talks to Davis about his career and the 45th anniversary of his first film “Stony Island.”

Causes behind the recent surge of train accidents in Chicago. Incumbents in Illinois’ congressional delegation are facing challenges from within their own parties after campaign season opened yesterday. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker is commending Chicago for handling what he calls an “unmanageable” influx of asylum seekers.

Chicago’s controversial plan to build a tent city to shelter migrants in the Brighton Park neighborhood is on hold until a final environmental impact report is done. Just one person has filed to run to replace Kim Foxx as Cook County’s top prosecutor. The Bears take on the Vikings tonight on Monday Night Football following last week’s late collapse against the Detroit Lions.

The village of Oak Park has taken in about 160 migrants that were living in Chicago. A nonprofit in St. Louis wants to resettle hundreds if not thousands more.
 
 “There’s a tremendous need for employees,” said Jerry Schlichter, a civic leader and attorney in St. Louis. “If you look around the country at cities that are growing, it’s primarily from immigrants and children of immigrants. That’s what we’re trying to build here — to increase our population, make a more vibrant St. Louis and a more diverse St. Louis, which is a benefit for everyone.”
 
 In this episode, WBEZ reporter Esther Yoon-Ji Kang explains how and why these two communities are moving to take in hundreds of migrants living in Chicago and how local residents are reacting.

The November 2024 elections are still a year away, but the political season leading up to that vote officially gets underway today. Some City Council members want to see a pilot guaranteed basic income program become permanent. And officials are encouraging Chicagoans to buy local this holiday season.

The co-owner of Calumet Fisheries on Chicago’s Southeast Side says they intend to rebuild after a fire earlier this week. Members of the Chicago Bears served traditional Venezuelan fare to nearly 200 asylum-seeking Venezuelan migrants ahead of Thanksgiving. The city of Chicago plans to open its warming centers this week when temperatures drop to 32 degrees or below.

Lauren Viera’s new city guide to Chicago doesn’t read like a typical guidebook – no 72-hour itineraries or explanatory advice on how to ride the CTA. “The 500 Hidden Secrets of Chicago” is mostly just lists of unique places. Five dance clubs, five farmers markets, five nature outings, five small museums, five high-end cocktail bars, five city myths – totalling up to 500. “I'm not a fiction writer,” Viera said. “I'm very bad at making stuff up. So this is really just in my mind reporting times 500.” In this episode, Viera explains her favorite “hidden secrets,” how she chose the places she chose to include and how she welcomes feedback from Chicagoans ready to argue about what should be inside.

AAA recommends departing for Thanksgiving travel before 2 p.m. or after 6 p.m., and other travel tips. A Chicago group focused on helping formerly incarcerated people has found that cash pilots can help with housing instability and health. The Chicago Bears came up short on Sunday – but the team won the hearts of Venezuelan migrants who they served lunch to.

The Village of Oak Park voted narrowly to reallocate unused COVID recovery funds to shelter about 160 Venezuelan migrants through early February. The owner of about 150 Illinois Burger Kings has taken the witness stand in the corruption trial of former Chicago Alderman Ed Burke. The zones where flowers and vegetables across Illinois can survive and thrive are shifting.

For Thanksgiving, the food may be taken care of, but what about the feels? Jordan Wimby AKA “The Melanin Martha” is a chef and culinary preservationist.
 
 She talks to host Erin Allen about prioritizing identity, community and healing when you’re cooking and creating space during the holiday season.

Colleagues remember fallen Chicago firefighter Andrew Price as one of their department’s “very best.” Evanston’s mayor cast the tie breaking vote to greenlight Northwestern University’s $800 million football stadium rebuild. We hear one of the secretly recorded phone calls of former alderman Ed Burke played at his corruption trial yesterday.

The Chicago Fire Department says one person is dead after a freight train struck a FedEx semi-truck Monday morning. Former Chicago Alderman Ed Burke read the riot act to a Field Museum employee after his goddaughter didn’t hear back about an internship. Federal officials say the CTA Yellow Line train that crashed into a snowplow last week should have had a longer braking distance.

A young gay man named Matthew Shepard was murdered in Laramie, Wyoming, in 1998. Over a decade later, Congress passed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. 
 
 Sean Fader wanted to document the lives and deaths of LGBTQ+ people who were killed in that decade. He drove thousands of miles around the country to photograph sites of murders, and he has collected those photos in his project “Insufficient Memory.”
 
 In this episode, host Erin Allen talks to Fader about queer archives and his Chicago installation at Wrightwood 659.

Mourners will gather for the funeral of the Chicago firefighter who died in the line of duty last week. Chicago officials say increased case management will help ensure migrants don’t end up homeless in the face of new limits on shelter stays. Jurors in the federal corruption trial of former Chicago Alderman Ed Burke are expected to start getting an earful of wiretapped phone conversations this week.

Former Chicago Alderman Ed Burke and his two co-defendants presented their opening statements at federal court. Cook County prosecutors say they will no longer let 10 Chicago cops testify in criminal cases after they signed up for an extremist group. The CTA Yellow Line train crash that injured 38 people yesterday occurred when a faster moving Yellow Line passenger train ran into a slower moving snow removal vehicle traveling in the same direction on the same track, according to the Chicago Fire Department.

When Jessica Alvarado Gamez moved to Chicago earlier this year, she drove around to get her bearings. She couldn’t help noticing how close she came to cyclists. 
 
 “I can easily go into the painted bike lanes,” she said. Some Chicago cyclists have observed the same problem, resulting in the refrain, “paint is not protection.”
 
 Alvarado Gamez is WBEZ’s Roy Howard fellow. She focuses on data reporting, so she dug into city data to understand why cycling in Chicago is so dangerous and what cyclists want done.
 
 In this episode, host Erin Allen talks to Alvarado Gamez about the path toward safer biking infrastructure.

A new 60-day shelter deadline puts pressure on the need for permanent housing for asylum-seekers. The Peoples Gas Rate hike was slashed by over $100 million yesterday. Winter is coming, and the Illinois Department of Transportation is telling drivers to ‘get it together.’

Gov. J.B. Pritzker earmarked $160 million toward helping the thousands of asylum seekers now sleeping at Chicago police stations and O’Hare Airport. The Chicago Fire Department reports at least 19 people are injured as a result of a Yellow Line train crash at the Howard Street switching station. Northwestern University surprised the college football world this season: the team has a chance to make it to a postseason bowl game by winning one of their final two games.

The Chicago area is home to the country’s largest Palestinian American community. There are more than 18,000 Palestinians living in Cook County alone, the most of any county in the nation, and that’s only according to the available Census data.
 
 “Experts say that’s likely a huge undercount of the true population,” said WBEZ data reporter Amy Qin. “Some experts estimate the actual Palestinian population here in the Chicago area to be five times larger than what the Census has.” 
 
 Qin analyzed available data and spoke with experts about the history of Palestinian migration to Chicago. In this episode, she tells host Erin Allen about four significant periods, from the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, to the Arab-Israeli Wars of 1948 and 1967, to the largest wave of migration in the 1990s.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s first city budget passed. There are few details on a 60-day limit for migrants staying in Chicago city shelters. The Illinois Commerce Commission will issue its decision on the Peoples Gas $402 million dollar rate hike today.

The Chicago Police Department’s budget for next year will be nearly $2 billion, a slight increase from this year. The father of the suspect in last year's Highland Park mass shooting wore a shirt reading "I am a political pawn" when he showed up at the Lake County courthouse today to begin serving his jail sentence, leading a judge to threaten him with contempt. Chicago Bears quarterback Justin Fields is expected to return to the field on Sunday after missing the previous four games due to a thumb injury.

Can artists make the world a better place? “We have seen over and over again that the existing structures and hierarchies aren't working, the models aren't working,” said Megha Ralapati, the director of the fellowships program at CEC ArtsLink, “and artists are uniquely trained and experienced to dismantle, to understand them from a new angle – a new vantage point – to bring nuance, to bring a more 360 degree perspective that isn't binary and isn't reductionist.”“That's really speaking to the true transformative nature of art,” she added.Every year, Ralapati’s organization picks a city to host an international assembly of artists, activists and thinkers to share perspectives on how artists can help build a better world. This year’s ArtsLink Assembly is in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood on Thursday and Friday.In today’s episode, Ralapati explains how bringing people together from disparate parts of the world helps foster shared humanity. We also hear from one of the local artists presenting at the assembly, Patricia Nguyen, founder of Axis Lab in Uptown.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s first city budget will be voted on today. Chicago’s police oversight board says the city is not accurately tracking how much is spent each year on policing. There’s a new initiative with the mission of informing young people about PrEP to prevent H-I-V.

The Biden Administration’s National Climate Assessment is out today, and the Midwest is expected to grow warmer and wetter if the U.S. does not cut emissions. The head of Northwestern University is appointing a new advisory committee on preventing antisemitism and hate. The number of migrants arriving in Chicago has slowed for the first time in months.

Angela Allyn started the Old Lady Project because she didn’t see enough aging women on Chicago’s stages. “I’m kind of reclaiming old,” Allyn says. “I don’t understand why old is great for houses or valuable paintings, but it’s not okay for humans.”
 
 She solicited scripts and screenplays with the goal of producing a couple staged readings. But in the 2023 submission cycle, she received over 600 scripts from around the world. Between the overwhelming response and the recent success of older adults’ stories in “Everything Everywhere All At Once” and “The Golden Bachelor,” Allyn sees a hunger for complex narratives about aging.
 
 In this episode, host Erin Allen talks to Allyn about what we have to gain from telling and watching older adults’ stories.