Good morning, Chicago.
Nine years after the death of Sue Gin, a pioneering Chicago entrepreneur, her newly active foundation is taking up the fight against gun violence in the city where she built her career.
The Sue Ling Gin Foundation announced its first major gift today, a $21 million, three-year donation to Chicago CRED, a nonprofit community intervention program that focuses on reducing gun violence in some of the city’s most underserved neighborhoods.
“It’s by far our largest Chicago-based donation,” said Arne Duncan, the former secretary of the U.S. Department of Education and CEO of Chicago Public Schools, who co-founded Chicago CRED. “It’s a transformational gift for us.”
Read the full story from the Tribune’s Robert Channick.
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Many heirs in Chicago and across the country are struggling to recover their family homes because their relatives did not have an estate plan when they died, leading to what is called a “tangled title” or “heirs’ property.” But, over the last decade in Cook County, an increasing number of homeowners, particularly older adults, are using transfer on death instruments, or TODIs, a cheaper and simpler estate planning tool.
New online tool helps Cook County property taxpayers see where their dollars go
It was all-systems-go on the renovation of a Burger King on Chicago’s Southwest Side in 2017 when the project’s field representative got a strange call from then-Ald. Ed Burke’s longtime ward assistant, who said work had to stop over a permit issue.
“I was concerned and a little bit startled,” Pam Smith, a supervisor with Tri City Foods, testified Monday in Burke’s corruption trial, saying the Oct. 24, 2017, call from 14th Ward aide Peter Andrews Jr. was the first interference from an alderman’s office she’d ever experienced.
Rosalynn Carter tributes highlight her reach as first lady, humanitarian and small-town Baptist
Hundreds turned out to salute Rosalynn Carter on Monday with the former U.S. first lady and global humanitarian’s final journey from her rural hometown to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta as her family began three days of memorials following her death at age 96.
Covered bridge, one of few left in Illinois, severely damaged by truck
The 160-year-old bridge is woven into the fabric of Princeton, Illinois. Generations of children used to jump from gaps in its red-clad cedar siding for a swim on hot summer days, or ice skate in its shadow when the creek froze for the winter. Today, it serves as a backdrop for wedding and graduation photos. Its image is used to draw visitors to Princeton, population 7,800, and the surrounding county, 115 miles west of Chicago.
But the future of the local landmark — believed to be one of only five 19th century covered bridges left in Illinois — is uncertain. On Nov. 16, despite multiple signs warning against doing so, the driver of an 18-wheeler tried to cross the bridge, causing extensive damage to the structure.
The siblings of children killed by gun violence and how they cope
Swaysiana Rankin was a bit of a loner even before her brother died.
At 17, she’s worked a few jobs. She tried cheerleading, but it wasn’t her thing. The Chicago teen preferred to hang out in her neighborhood with a handful of close friends or her little brother, Swaysee.
But the day before her senior year of high school began, her “big little brother,” as she calls him, was killed. Swaysee was shot to death at the end of their block in the South Shore neighborhood on Sept. 4.
He was 15, one of 59 children shot to death in Chicago in 2023, according to data from the Cook County medical examiner’s office through mid-November.
Swaysiana is still here. Around her, life appears to have returned to its usual patterns, but it doesn’t feel normal, she said.
You cannot make any sweeping conclusions from the final result Monday night at U.S. Bank Stadium after Cairo Santos knocked a 30-yard field goal through with 10 seconds remaining to lift the Bears to a 12-10 victory over the Minnesota Vikings. You can’t do it if you’re resisting the element of weekly referendums on coach, quarterback and others. But, boy, everyone involved needed this outcome.
When Andre Dawson was voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2010, he was forced to accept the Hall’s decision to display him wearing an Expos cap on his Hall plaque. The decision was made without consulting him, which stuck in his craw, writes Paul Sullivan.
As opponents continue to carve up the defense, coach Billy Donovan has a simple goal for the Bulls: get in the way.
American Blues Theater opens a new home on Lincoln Avenue, carved from a former Walgreens
In a cheering piece of news for Chicago’s struggling theater scene, American Blues Theater will cut the ribbon today on its new, $7 million home at 5627 N. Lincoln Ave.
Review: Funny, moving ‘Who’s Holiday’ at Theater Wit is the Malört of holiday shows
After spending a boozy hour in Cindy Lou Who’s trailer, you’ll never again see the classic Dr. Seuss tale the same, writes Emily McClanathan. It turns out that the Grinch is not only a Christmas-hating misanthrope; he’s also a groomer and a deadbeat husband. Jaded, 40-year-old Cindy — now living as an outcast outside Whoville — is determined to set the record straight.
For a dozen years in the aughts and 2010s, Theater Wit was home to “The Santaland Diaries,” David Sedaris’ cynical take on the capitalistic rat race of the holidays. With “Who’s Holiday,” the Lakeview theater offers up another irreverent comedy for those who want a little spice to counter the sweetness of the season’s abundant “Nutcrackers” and “Christmas Carols.”
