SWAT officers were called after a person opened fire from the second floor of an apartment Monday morning on the Northwest Side. | Sun-times file

About 1:20 a.m., SWAT officers were en route after a person opened fire from the second floor of an apartment building in the 4000 block of West Lawerence Avenue, police said.

SWAT officers responded after a person opened fire from the second floor of an apartment in North Mayfair on the Northwest Side.

About 1:20 a.m., SWAT officers were en route after a person opened fire from the second floor of an apartment building in the 4000 block of West Lawerence Avenue, Chicago police said.

Officers were still responding as of 3:40 a.m., police said.

No injuries have been reported and no other details were immediately available.

This is a developing story, check back for details.

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Moon Alert

There are no restrictions to shopping or important decisions. The moon is in Aries.

Aries (March 21-April 19)

This is the perfect day to discuss how to share or divide something like an inheritance or shared property or jointly held possessions. This is also a good day to ask for a loan or mortgage. The reason for this is you’ll be laughing all the way to the bank!

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

Choose today for an important heart-to-heart talk with a close friend or partner because people are agreeable and mutually supportive. They’re more willing to see the big picture. They will also feel more generous to others. These qualities help cement relationships.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

Today is a fabulous way to begin your week! Your work experience will be positive. Coworkers will be upbeat and helpful. Everyone is more likely to be more generous to each other. Dealings with foreign countries and people from other cultures are favored.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

Whoa! A fun-loving Monday! Lucky Cancers are away enjoying a vacation. Grab every chance to enjoy the arts, sports events, playful activities with kids, romantic diversions, flirtations, a long lunch, dinner with a friend, social get-togethers and good times. Enjoy!

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22)

This is a great day for a family discussion. Likewise, it’s a positive day to do anything to improve or expand something related to your home. This same positive influence will also benefit your family. Also a good day for real estate speculation!

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

This is a wonderful way to begin your week because you feel positive and hopeful about your future. Because of this, you’re entertaining big ideas and hopes. Enjoy interacting with daily contacts. You will love to learn anything that expands your mind.

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

Heads up! This is a solid money day, which favors financial negotiations, business, signing contracts, exploring money-making ideas and generating new ways to boost your income or make a little money on the side. Ka-ching! (Go do that voodoo that you do so well.)

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

Today you are unstoppable! You feel hopeful about your future! This kind of optimism makes you entertain big ideas and be open to suggestions from others. You’ll enjoy schmoozing with friends as well as members of the general public. Great way to start your week!

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)

This is a feel-good day in a quiet, personal way. You feel content and happy to be in your own skin. You will enjoy reading or solitary research. This is a lovely day for a vacation, a small get-together with someone, or a chance to kick back and relax. Enjoy your day!

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

This is an excellent day to enjoy the company of others, especially in groups, clubs and organizations. You’re happy to participate in things because you want to be part of something bigger than yourself. You want to make the world a better place. Perfect day to examine future goals.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)

Lookin’ swell! Today you look successful and sexy to others. You shine! The fact that you project success might be due to your own personal success, or it might have nothing to do with your reality. It might just be smoke and mirrors. Nevertheless, people admire you!

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)

Travel plans and a chance to do anything to broaden your horizons will delight you today. You want adventure and a chance to see new places and meet new faces. You want to learn new things, which is why this is a great day to study and explore opportunities in publishing, higher education medicine and the law.

If Your Birthday Is Today

Actress Shailene Woodley (1991) shares your birthday. You have a natural appreciation for beauty. You are well liked because you are generous, warm-hearted and friendly. You care about others. Personally, you are well disciplined and hard-working — qualities that contribute to success. This is the year to create some solid structure in your life — literally and figuratively. Take charge of your health this year. Focus on physical exercise.

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A hearing scheduled Monday with the Chicago Police Board could determine embattled Fraternal Order of Police president John Catanzara’s future with the Chicago Police Department. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

Catanzara is facing possible termination over a series of obscene and inflammatory social-media posts.

A hearing scheduled Monday with the Chicago Police Board could determine embattled Fraternal Order of Police president John Catanzara’s future with the Chicago Police Department.

Catanzara, the fiery first-term president of the Chicago police union representing rank-and-file officers, is facing possible termination over a series of obscene and inflammatory social-media posts.

In all, he’s accused of violating 11 CPD rules in connection with 18 allegations that include making false reports and being insubordinate or disrespectful to supervisors.

In one post, according to records from the Police Board, Catanzara wrote: “Wtf its [sic] seriously time to kill these motherf——,” though it was not clear who Catanzara was referring to. Catanzara previously said the comment was made in reference to people who have killed police officers.

In several other posts, Catanzara suggested someone perform a sex act on him, referred to Muslims as “savages” and called a superior officer in the CPD “spineless,” records show.

Chicago Police Supt. David Brown filed the charges against Catanzara, with the recommendation of termination, in January. The Civilian Office of Police Accountability had previously recommended that Catanzara be fired for his comments.

Since he joined the department in 1995, Catanzara has been one of its most frequently disciplined members. Last year, he became the first president of the FOP to be elected while stripped of his police powers.

Catanzara has remained at odds with Mayor Lori Lightfoot, often criticizing her for her response to crime. Most recently, the two have butt heads over the city’s vaccine mandate.

In a video published to the FOP’s YouTube channel Friday, Catanzara accused the mayor of wanting to make a “circus” out of his case.

“She has made it very clear that I am not going to win this case, that I will never be in a police uniform again,” Catanzara said. “I guess we shall see if the members of the Police Board are going to do the right thing or do what they’re told. Time will tell.”

The hearing is scheduled for 11 a.m.

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Caruso was a cult-hero in Los Angeles, but looked at his experience with the Lakers as the place that taught him about winning. So while this is a two-game homecoming for him, it’s also a chance for his new team to take some valuable steps forward.

LOS ANGELES — Bulls guard Alex Caruso scanned the busy practice gym, examining each of his teammates as he repeated the question.

”Who in here would win ‘Squid Game’?” Caruso said, taking one more glance at a handful of the younger players getting a scrimmage in. ”I know this sounds biased, but it would have to be me. I really think I’m versatile and smart. . . . I’d just figure it out somehow. Yeah, me. I’d just figure it out.”

Doubt him? Then explain how Caruso, an undrafted free agent in 2016, was cut by the 76ers and Thunder and spent some time in the development league before catching on with the Lakers during the 2017 Summer League.

All he did with the Lakers was go from afterthought to cult hero and earn an NBA championship along the way.

So returning to Los Angeles with the Bulls for back-to-back games Sunday and Monday against the Clippers and Lakers wasn’t only important for Caruso from a basketball standpoint. It also was a reminder of where he came from and what he had learned and gave him a chance to talk with his teammates again about the will to succeed.

”Any of the games we lost this year, it wasn’t because we didn’t play hard,” Caruso said. ”There’s always a couple of games for every team every year where you kind of lay an egg with effort, but that’s kind of the lull of the NBA season. That hasn’t been in question with this group. That’s something we can be proud of.

”The first day we showed up before camp even started — voluntarily and then into training camp, the preseason, now — I think everybody on this team wants to win and everybody knows what it takes to win. I’m just trying to help that process, when asked.”

That’s because all Caruso knows is high effort. He wouldn’t have become a rotation player and a key defensive presence with LeBron James & Co. if he didn’t.

”We’re fine in that department,” Caruso said. ”It’s more so about this group evolving and getting used to playing together more than effort, which is great. When you have that, it makes it easier to show up and do your job. It’s different when you don’t have to worry about guys playing hard.”

Caruso also knows there are many more steps the Bulls must take to get where they want to this season.

Facing the Clippers and Lakers in his personal two-game homecoming were great starting points, but they were steps on a very long staircase — one in which he has to remember his priorities.

”I know . . . there is a lot of attention, a lot of people that care about things off the court that might make a big deal of me returning here, but for me it was always about basketball,” Caruso said when asked about his cult-like following. ”I had to try and keep that first because I didn’t have any room for error, didn’t have that room for a misstep or a missed opportunity.

”It just happened to work for me in L.A. And to win a championship with that team, those teammates [and] the coaches, it kind of turned into what it turned into. But for me it was always about basketball first, and I think I kept it like that. I think that’s why I’ve had some success in this game.”

In NBA games and, in his opinion, ”Squid Game.”

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Ana Maria Martinez stars as the title character in the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s production of “Florencia en el Amazonas” (Florencia in the Amazon). | Cory Weaver

Much of the opera’s Chicago success is due to Puerto-Rican soprano Ana Maria Martinez, voluptuously dark-voiced, authoritative and formidable in the title role.

The lush jungle, alive and intensely green, saturated by the sun, is the first thing that hits you as you take your seat at Lyric Opera of Chicago. The spectacle is dense and glorious — then vaguely unsettling — as you become aware of mysterious skitterings behind the leaves.

“Florencia en el Amazonas” (Florencia in the Amazon) takes place on a boat trip up the Amazon, its destination Manaus, the inland capital of the Amazonas region, far up the river where, unbeknownst to these travelers, cholera looms. The vessel’s passengers are onboard for reasons they don’t quite understand, driven variously by love, or the fear of it, or the fading of it.

In the case of Florencia Grimaldi, a famous diva of the European opera stage, her visit is a quest born of the desire to rekindle a long lost love. She once said goodbye to him in Manaus, she thought temporarily, in pursuit of an international career that was dangled after her Brazilian success. (He was a butterfly hunter back then, a specialist in his own right, chasing his own rare prize, the Emerald Muse.)

So is this “Love Boat,” with music and a happy ending? It might have been, were it not for the lush music of the late Mexican composer Daniel Catan, who lived many years in Los Angeles and died in 2011. Catan’s opera, mystical in concept, is sung here in the original Spanish, and it is awash with the romantic spirit of Puccini and the exotic colors of Debussy and Ravel. It’s the first time ever that a work in the Spanish language has been performed on Lyric Opera’s mainstage.

Much of “Florencia’s” success in Chicago is due to Puerto-Rican soprano Ana Maria Martinez, who is voluptuously dark-voiced, authoritative and formidable in the title role. She has starred as Florencia with major companies elsewhere, and it’s little surprise that her understanding of the character is finely tuned: She is also comfortable at Lyric, with ten Chicago roles under her belt, including Marguerite in Gounod’s “Faust” and Cio-Cio-San in Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly.” So she knows about divas, and how to portray them.

“Florencia en el Amazonas” first appeared in 1996 at the Houston Grand Opera. Martinez was in a supporting role for the premiere run, graduating to the marquee in subsequent revivals. The action occurs on a river boat, which turns in the waters, affording seamless scene changes as we peer into the passengers’ lives. The concept is the brainchild of the sure-footed director Francesca Zambello, who has been associated with the work since the beginning.

Cory Weaver
Mario Rojas (from left) Gabriella Reyes, Deborah Nansteel and Levi Hernandez in a scene from Lyric Opera of Chicago’s production of “Florencia en el Amazonas” (Florencia in the Amazon).

As shaped by librettist Marcela Fuentes-Berain, the story meanders some as various couples on the boat go through their travails, and Catan’s lush music would have done well with additional tension and tightening. Yet taken as a whole, this opera is a significant work of the 1990s that, much like John Adams’ “The Death of Klinghoffer” and Philip Glass’ interstellar “The Voyage,” charts a course decidedly away from atonal European post-modernism. Audiences have loved its romance and beauty from the start.

A strong ensemble cast is led by mezzo-soprano Deborah Nansteel and baritone Levi Hernandez as Paula and Alvaro, a middle-aged couple thoroughly disenchanted with each other, and their counterparts, soprano Gabriella Reyes and tenor Mario Rojas as Rosalba and Arcadio, a young couple tempted by, but terrified of, serious romance. Their card-playing quartet is a classic set-piece that starts as an amiable get-together and ends in a double hiccup of hesitation and reversal, played smartly and with no little humor by all involved.

Reyes is also in a memorable scene with Martinez toward the end of the opera, when the younger woman (who is a writer seeking a scoop) figures out that the great diva is actually right there on the boat. But these are better moments musically than they are dramatically. The digression into this sub-plot is a bit weak, the story-turn perhaps one too many.

Several important factors heightened the magical nature of the story: the conjuring, rather Shakespearean spirit Riolobo (baritone Ethan Vincent), who was riveting while remaining a mystery; the orchestral washes of sound conjured by conductor Jordan de Souza and the Lyric Opera Orchestra, which performed superbly. Lyric company dancers added a mesmerizing element as water sprites, a fluid reflection of nature’s magic, and its menace. Star billing as well goes to the shimmering lighting of Mark McCullough and the projections of S. Katy Tucker. They wrapped the stage in ever-changing colors from first to last.

Cory Weaver
“Florencia en el Amazonas” (Florencia in the Amazon) takes place on a boat trip up the Amazon. Read More

White has been on the shelf the entire offseason and through fall camp after undergoing shoulder surgery, but he is going to come off the bench with the second unit.

LOS ANGELES — The Bulls could use another 15 points off the bench, as well as a player who can space the floor with the second unit.

They will get it Monday against the Lakers, and executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas didn’t have to make a phone call or a trade.

According to coach Billy Donovan, team doctors have cleared guard Coby White to start playing in games again after he had offseason shoulder surgery that sidelined him through the summer and training camp.

”Provided everything goes well with his stuff here [Sunday] — no setbacks, which we don’t anticipate there being any — he’ll be cleared to go,” Donovan said.

So what will that look like, exactly?

White undoubtedly will have a lot of rust to work through. He has been playing five-on-five for the last week, but the major concern is on the defensive end. Donovan explained that White has been working on his shot regularly throughout his rehab, but simulating playing defense is tough to do.

”It’s not like he’s playing afraid or tentative on defense,” Donovan said. ”It’s not even about that. He’s just got to get into the physicality of the game. He’s got to work on that kind of stuff. He’s not shying away from playing defense, he just hasn’t done it for six months.”

As far as what White’s role will be, Donovan pointed out the obvious move would be to flip White with rookie Ayo Dosunmu. The problem is that Dosunmu has played really well with the second unit and brings a different set of skills than White does.

While White is a streaky shooter and really improving in catch-and-shoot, Dosunmu is an energy guy who plays defense and seems to give the second team a jolt.

”I think [Dosunmu has] played too well and has played some good basketball for us,” Donovan said. ”We’ve got to find a way to utilize both of those guys.

”I haven’t talked to [the] medical [team] yet. I don’t know if there will be a minutes restriction on Coby. If there is, that kind of helps it a little bit in terms of when Coby gets to a place where he can play a normal allotment of minutes.

”Clearly, going into his first game, there’ll be a lot of anticipation on his part, and we’ll have to see what he looks like. There’s probably going to be a lot of rust on him. Whatever happens to him [Monday], he’s always had the mentality to come back and work and try and figure it out to make it better.”

Vucevic update

Donovan said he has remained in contact with center Nikola Vucevic, who is home in Chicago dealing with a positive test for the coronavirus. And while Vucevic will miss at least the rest of the trip, Donovan was optimistic he will return sooner than later.

”I talked to him [Saturday] a little bit,” Donovan said. ”The symptoms haven’t gotten worse. Kind of feels like more he’s got a cold. He’s doing fine. [Unlike] some others who have been hit really hard by the virus, that hasn’t necessarily been the case for him right now. So that part is positive. He’s doing well.”

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The Chicago Bulls’ Scottie Pippen, left, and Michael Jordan talk during the third quarter of their playoff game with the Atlanta Hawks May 6, 1997, in Chicago. Phil Jackson and Michael Jordan say they feel betrayed by Scottie Pippen, who has said he’ll never again play for the Chicago Bulls. Jackson said Monday, Dec. 1, 1997, that the Bulls have recovered from the initial shock of Pippen’s public trade demand last week. But the coach also said there might be lingering resentment even if the All-Star forward changes his mind and returns to the team he helped win five NBA titles. | MICHAEL S. GREEN, AP

MJ is a living legend and his legacy is almost mythical, no matter how much Scottie Pippen tries to tarnish it

Why are we still so fascinated with Michael Jordan?

The guy hasn’t played basketball in almost two decades, doesn’t do TV shows (we’ll get to “The Last Dance”), doesn’t do political stuff, is barely visible in public (even though he’s the majority owner of the Charlotte Hornets), doesn’t have a podcast, blog, movie, or reality show that we know of.

And yet people still buy his shoes in astounding numbers. And not just his shoes. They buy all kinds of Jordan stuff.

Nike says that revenue for the Jordan brand rose 31% to $5 billion for fiscal year 2021.

Jordan’s women’s collections more than tripled during the same period, Nike said. MJ’s personal take for all this? More than $100 million a year. Year after year. Yes, he’s a billionaire.

There’s a phenomenon going on here, one that likely can’t be duplicated. It weaves around things as varied as achievement, place in time, aesthetics, drama, athletic dominance, tragedy, championships, and — perhaps most important of all — stardom just before technology reduced everything to bits and bites and vids for the social-media blender.

You see Jordan on film for the Bulls and he looks as dominant or better than any player today, and yet cellphones aren’t there, cheapening all. It’s a truism that mythology can’t exist when everything is recorded and known. And what is Jordan now but a living myth?

Maybe none of this would matter if Jordan’s former trusty sidekick Scottie Pippen hadn’t just released a book, ”Unguarded,” that basically is a sour-grape fest over many things and players — such as Kevin Durant and the recent champion Warriors and, pointedly, Michael Jordan.

The book has merit. It explains the world view of a small-town kid, the youngest of 12 children, who grew late and starred even later. But its main effect will be to grab headlines, earn a few bucks, and remind people that Pippen complains about the unfairness of having to have played alongside probably the greatest player ever, a man who is well-known for being cocksure and even blatantly cruel and vindictive over slights real and perceived.

Pippen was a great player. Make no mistake.

But he isn’t Jordan. Not close.

Yes, Jordan had that “The Last Dance” series that came out at the perfect time while Americans were holed up in the first wave of COVID quarantining. Was the ESPN film done from Jordan’s perspective? Absolutely. He had some control and producer’s credit.

But without him signing off years before, and then with the series production, the 500 hours of archived NBA Films footage of the Bulls’ final championship season never would have come to light. Players like Luc Longley, Ron Harper, Toni Kukoc, and, yes, Pippen barely seem to exist in the Jordan swirl-o-rama.

But that’s OK. We know they were there. No man wins a championship by himself.

But Jordan’s charisma, beautiful physique, ballet skills and movie-star looks make him the focus of any light. Nobody would tune in to see an eight-part Pippen story.

Consider a couple things.

On March 27, 1998, the Bulls played the Hawks in the Georgia Dome in front of 62,046 people, still the largest crowd in NBA history. Jordan scored 34 points in an 89-74 Bulls win. Pippen? He didn’t dress.

(In their previous home game the Hawks drew 14,592.)

Then there’s that 1.8 seconds in 1994 when Jordan was playing baseball, and Pippen wouldn’t go into a game because the final play wasn’t drawn up for him. He was deeply wounded. We understand. Still.

Jordan? He would have changed the play in the huddle, screamed at coach Phil Jackson, possibly threatened him, or stolen the ball from designated shooter Kukoc.

It may surprise you, but Jordan made far less money — about $16 million less — than Pippen over the course of their basketball careers. Yet Pippen always whined about being underpaid. Jordan said nothing, always honoring his contract.

Quite possibly Jordan was the most underpaid athlete in pro sports history.

One other thing. Jordan’s ability to work a room is legendary. Pippen’s is almost nonexistent. Maybe it’s a facade for Jordan, but it’s a valuable facade nonetheless.

I watched Jordan charm rapt advertisers and wealthy fans at a private luncheon at the Hotel Nikko; I watched Pippen arrive late, isolate himself, and leave early from a guest appearance at a downtown nightclub.

None of this makes Jordan a king. Nor does it make Pippen a bad guy. They’re both human, fallible.

It just means one of them rolls on.

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Chicago police work the scene where 3 people were shot, including a 1-year-old baby boy in the 7500 block of South State Street, in the Chatham neighborhood, Thursday, Nov. 11, 2021. The other two people shot were 18 and 28 year old men. | Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

During the daytime shootout, fragments of a round of ammunition struck the 1-year-old and lodged in his head as he rode in a vehicle with his mother, grandmother and siblings.

Bail was denied Sunday for a teenager who was shot during a daytime gun battle last week at a gas station in Chatham that also left two other people wounded, including a 1-year-old boy who was riding in a passing vehicle with his two young siblings.

Maalik Lumpkins, 19, of Fernwood, was charged with two counts of attempted murder in the shootout Thursday at a Shell station at 7453 S. State St., according to Chicago police and Cook County prosecutors. At the time, Lumpkins had a warrant out for his arrest in an unrelated felony gun case.

About 1:25 p.m. Thursday, a 28-year-old man parked at the Shell and went inside the station’s store, according to Assistant State’s Attorney James O’Connor. Meanwhile, Lumpkins and four accomplices circled the gas station twice in a 2019 Nissan as they waited for the man to come outside.

When he emerged, Lumpkins and three others got out of the Nissan, chased the man and opened fire, O’Connor said. The man, who was shot six times, pulled a gun from his waistband at some point, aimed behind his back and shot Lumpkins in the chest.

During the shootout, fragments of a round of ammunition struck the 1-year-old and lodged in his head as he rode in a 2011 Acura with his mother, grandmother and siblings, ages 8 and 10. The Acura’s front and rear windshields were both shattered, O’Connor said.

The boy, who was “bleeding profusely from his head,” underwent surgery at Comer Children’s Hospital, O’Connor said. While he has since been released, O’Connor said the boy requires more surgery to fully remove the bullet fragment from his skull.

After being shot, Lumpkins jumped into the Nissan with his accomplices and took off, O’Connor said.

The entire gunfight was captured on surveillance video, which showed that one of the shooters fired an assault rifle-style weapon, O’Connor said. Thirty-five shell casings were found at the scene, including 9mm, 40-caliber and rifle rounds.

Lumpkins later showed up at St. Bernard Hospital in the Nissan complaining that he’d been shot in the chest, O’Connor said. Gunshot residue was found on his clothing, which matched what he was seen wearing at the gas station.

He was ultimately transferred to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he and the other wounded man both remain hospitalized.

Lumpkins hasn’t been convicted of a crime as an adult, but his juvenile record includes convictions for possession of a stolen motor vehicle in 2017 and aggravated vehicular hijacking in 2020, O’Connor said. He was sentenced to probation and 16 months, respectively.

He’s also currently facing a felony count of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon stemming from an arrest in May in Oak Lawn, O’Connor said. A warrant had been issued for his arrest in that case after he failed to appear in court.

Lumpkins’ attorney declined to provide mitigating evidence during the hearing, which he didn’t attend. And while Judge Mary Marubio said Lumpkins will essentially be entitled to “a fresh bond hearing,” he was denied bail in both the suburban case and the new case in Chicago.

He’s expected in court Tuesday in the gun case and Friday in the case stemming from the shootout.

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Emergency services outside Liverpool Women’s Hospital in Liverpool, England, Sunday, Nov. 14, 2021. | Peter Byrne/PA via AP

Police said the explosion had not been declared a terrorist attack, but counter-terrorism police were leading the investigation and the men were detained under the Terrorism Act.

LONDON — Counter-terrorism police in Britain have detained three men in connection to an explosion at a hospital Sunday in the city of Liverpool that killed one person and injured another.

The Press Association reported that counter-terrorism police said the three men, whose ages ranged from 21 to 29, were detained in the Kensington area of the city.

Police were called to reports of a blast involving a taxi at Liverpool Women’s Hospital on Sunday morning. Police said the explosion had not been declared a terrorist attack, but counter-terrorism police were leading the investigation and the men were detained under the Terrorism Act.

“So far we understand, the car involved was a taxi, which pulled up at the hospital shortly before the explosion occurred,” Merseyside Police said in a statement. “Work is still going on to establish what has happened and could take some time before we are in a position to confirm anything.”

The male passenger of the car died and the driver was being treated for non life-threatening injuries. Police said they were “keeping an open mind” about what caused the explosion.

The Liverpool Women’s Hospital said it immediately restricted visiting access until further notice and diverted patients to other hospitals “where possible.”

Fire services said they extinguished the car fire rapidly, and a person had left the car before the fire “developed to the extent that it did.”

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