Chicago Sun-Times • 10/25/2025

Brighton Park businesses sign on to city's 'ICE-free zones' initiative

A red, blue and orange neon sign and an assortment of posters, photos and boxing memorabilia have greeted customers at 3 JMH Boxing in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood since the gym opened in 2022.On Friday, owner Miguel Hernandez added another sign to that collection.“Private areas. No trespassing,” the sign reads. “You do not have consent to enter for civil immigration enforcement purposes.”The sign is a part of an executive order Mayor Brandon Johnson signed this month. The order bars U.S...

Chicago Sun-Times • 10/15/2025

What to know about PIT, the driving maneuver feds used in Southeast Side car chase

Border Patrol agents intentionally rammed their vehicle into an SUV they were pursuing on Chicago’s Southeast Side Tuesday, causing the car to spin and crash.The maneuver, known as a precision immobilization technique, or PIT, is a driving tactic used by some law enforcement agencies to end a vehicle pursuit.However, some law enforcement professionals and legal experts say the move is ineffective and dangerous. Many police departments across the country, including the Chicago Police Department,...

Chicago Sun-Times • 10/15/2025

Hopleaf owner seeks new home for two 125-pound vintage cash registers

Michael Roper started working at bars in the 1970s, and for the first 40 years of his career, across 15 taverns, he rang up each drink on one of the same lines of mechanical registers.So when Roper, 71, opened Hopleaf in Andersonville in 1992, he purchased two of these machines — one from a Salvation Army store and the other from a moving and storage company — for $120 apiece, he said.These gear-and-motor-powered “bangers,” as they were called, now sit quietly in Hopleaf’s storage room. Built by...

Chicago Sun-Times • 10/10/2025

In 'Little Palestine,' crowd cautiously hopeful for ceasefire agreement between Israel, Hamas

Speaking to a crowd gathered Thursday in “Little Palestine,” Deanna Othman said she was cautiously welcoming the ceasefire agreement that could end the deadly two-year war in Gaza but remained skeptical that Israel will follow through with its promises. “President [Donald] Trump must honor his commitment to securing a permanent ceasefire and must not allow the Israeli government to manipulate him yet again,” said Othman, an organizer with the Chicago chapter of American Muslims for Palestine, re...

Chicago Sun-Times • 09/30/2025

Cubs fans pack Wrigley for Game 1 of wild-card series: 'Some more magic'

Joel and Stephanie Jerabek have been Cubs fans since elementary school.Growing up in Yorkville, Stephanie Jerabek, 68, recalls watching Cubs legends like Ron Santo and Glenn Beckert, hearing Jack Brickhouse’s play-by-play coverage and meeting Ernie Banks in person.The Jerabeks were among the tens of thousands of Cubs fans who descended upon the Friendly Confines on Tuesday for the team’s wild-card series opener against the Padres.This is the first time the Cubs have clinched a playoff spot in fr...

Chicago Sun-Times • 09/27/2025

ICE made unlawful arrests during Operation Midway Blitz, new court filing says

Federal agents recently detained at least three U.S. citizens amid President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation campaign in Chicago, according to lawyers mounting the most significant court challenge yet to the president’s “Operation Midway Blitz.”The arrests are detailed in a new federal court filing from the National Immigrant Justice Center and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, arguing that ICE arrested 27 people without warrants or probable cause and in violation of an exist...

Chicago Sun-Times • 09/21/2025

Hundreds plunge into Chicago River in city’s first open-water swim in nearly a century

About 300 swimmers plunged into the Chicago River on Sunday morning for the first organized open-water swim in almost a century as spectators lined the Dearborn and Clark Street bridges and the Riverwalk.“Reclaiming our river not only creates a recreational space for residents and visitors, but it also puts us on the map, along with other global destinations, where open-water swims have become part of city culture,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said at the 7 a.m. start.Participants who were swimming th...

Dallas News • 08/15/2025

‘Unacceptable’: Rural Collin County may lose fire protection as tax district vote nears

Jo Ann Graham’s family has called an ambulance twice and the fire department once in the eight years they have lived just outside McKinney. Each of those times, she said, help arrived in minutes.

The wait could soon be much longer, when first responders from McKinney next year halt service to areas outside the city. If that happens, the nearest alternative might be Weston’s volunteer fire department, which is about 12 miles away, much of it on two-lane county roads.

“You never know when a gras...

Dallas News • 07/18/2025

From schoolhouse to hub of hope: Esperanza Community Center aims to uplift neighborhood

A weathered red sign stood outside J. Frank Dobie Pre-K School on a recent afternoon, two months after it announced the last day of classes — and the end of the school itself. Across the street, Victoria Gonzalez, 59, has been keeping an eye on the schoolhouse. Her family has lived in the neighborhood for more than 30 years, and she worries that the building would sit empty and attract vandals. “We were pretty upset when they closed it, because we were like, ‘Wow, this is the perfect pre-K bui...

Dallas News • 07/01/2025

D-FW suburban rental markets surge amid affordable homeownership hurdles

Three years ago, a new job at Advanced Micro Devices in Plano brought Samuel Owens and his family to Dallas-Fort Worth, and they needed a new home. “I started with Plano and just circled out from there, trying to stay within a roughly 60-minute-or-less commute time,” Owens said. “There are definitely more apartments that are in my price range, but we were hoping to get an actual home.” Owens, 41, said the family ultimately settled down in Princeton, where he pays around $2,000 a month in rent...

The Daily Northwestern • 05/19/2025

Evanston resident Rachel Ruttenberg prioritizes economic justice, policy expertise in state Senate bid

Rachel Ruttenberg (Medill M.S. ’04) wears many hats: attorney, advocate, policy advisor, local party leader, community organizer and more. But when asked why she’s running for public office, she reached — without hesitation — for a personal answer.
“I am the parent of two young girls, and they are growing up in a country where they have fewer rights than I did at their age,” the Evanston resident said. “That is a key driver of why I am in this work. I want to be building and making people’s live...

The Daily Northwestern • 02/12/2025

In Focus: Colectivo Coffee workers allege toxic workplace environment, lack of accountability under current management

Interviews with seven current and former employees and internal communications obtained by The Daily reveal that the chain has faced a host of mismanagement allegations, including “inappropriate” behavior from the Evanston store manager, a “toxic” workplace culture and a lack of support from upper management.

These allegations contrast with the chain’s public image — Colectivo leaders have called their company “a deeply progressive organization,” and its members have been represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union since 2021.

“(Colectivo) say what they need to say and do certain things on the public scale that look good, that look like they are very pro-workers’ rights,” Ridenour said. “They want to look like a collective for Colectivo, and it’s not at all how they actually run their stores.”

Midstory • 09/13/2024

How America’s Quintessential Battleground Broke Down

As Ohio goes, so goes the nation. At least, it used to. The Buckeye State — the seventh most populous and 34th in size among the states — has been a longtime focus of politicians, pundits and political scientists alike for a simple but peculiar reason. In each presidential election between 1964 and 2016, the candidate that won Ohio also won the presidency. Ohio’s streak stands as the longest in American history. During this period, Ohio was not only a bellwether, but also the quintessenti...

Midstory • 08/28/2024

A New Federal Program Aims to Create the Nation’s Next Silicon Valleys — in the Midwest

When Silicon Valley — the iconic northern California tech cluster home to thousands of companies like Apple, Google and Netflix — started in the 1950s, it had all the right ingredients for innovation and tech-fueled growth: pioneers of the semiconductor, personal computer and internet industries, scholarship and research at area universities, and generous government funding. Now, a new federal program is trying to reproduce this recipe for the 21st century around the country — including in Am...

The Daily Northwestern • 02/08/2024

Downtown lease sparks concerns over cost, transparency amid discussion on Civic Center’s future

Growing up in Evanston in the 1980s, Emilio Vargas remembers the Lorraine H. Morton Civic Center as the building at the center of the city. His mother would bring him to art shows, book fairs and other events. Now, as an adult, Vargas said he most recently went to the Civic Center to vote.
The city, however, is poised to leave the Georgian Revival-style building at 2100 Ridge Ave. — the building that has been the heart of Evanston civic life since 1979 — before the end of the year. 
At its Jan....

Medill News Service • 12/08/2023

After China’s surprised chip breakthrough, Washington has new worries about future of export controls

WASHINGTON – When Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was in Beijing in August to discuss trade with economic officials, she and others in the tech industry were shocked by a new smartphone, unveiled by Chinese telecom giant Huawei. The phone was named the Mate 60 Pro, featuring a seven-nanometer processor developed by a Huawei subsidiary and produced at the Chinese semiconductor fabrication plant SMIC. It immediately set off alarm bells among Western nations because it meant that China had achieve...

Medill News Service • 10/31/2023

Biden signs executive order, takes ambitious step toward AI regulation

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden signed a long-anticipated executive order on artificial intelligence Monday, marking the federal government’s most comprehensive effort to rein in the technology to date. “One thing is clear: to realize the promise of AI and avoid the risks, we need to govern this technology, and there’s no other way around it,” Biden said during the signing ceremony. The executive order expanded upon a “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights” the Biden administration issued in 2022...

The Daily Northwestern • 04/19/2023

‘Democracy working in action’: Evanston, NU collaborate on participatory budgeting pilot program

PB Evanston invites community members to develop proposals for their ideas and then allows the community to vote on how the money is spent, according to the program website. Evanston received $43 million from the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021 and 2022 to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Hoping to identify areas of need, the city put $3 million toward a novel solution: participatory budgeting. The program allows residents, with the support of city staff and volunteers, to submit their ideas...