A man was shot Nov. 9, 2021, in Hyde Park. | Sun-Times file

About 2 p.m., he was in the 5400 block of South Ellis Avenue when he suffered a gunshot wound to his chest, Chicago fire officials said.

A man was shot and critically wounded Tuesday afternoon in Hyde Park.

About 2 p.m., he was in the 5400 block of South Ellis Avenue when he suffered a gunshot wound to his chest, Chicago fire officials said.

The man was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was in critical condition, officials said.

Chicago police didn’t immediately release details.

About two hours earlier, someone fired shots from a Hyundai Sonata blocks away at 53rd Street and South Harper Avenue, according to a security alert from the University of Chicago.

No injuries were reported, but several vehicles and two businesses were damaged by gunfire, the alert said.

The Sonata had been reported stolen Monday, according to the alert.

This is a developing story.

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On Monday Night Football, all eyes were on Chicago Bears rookie quarterback Justin Fields. This was his Monday Night Football debut, and a chance to take another big step in his development. Needless to say, Fields did exactly that. He was so brilliant, in fact, that Pro Football Focus graded him as the best quarterback of […] Chicago Bears prove again on MNF why Matt Nagy must be fired – Da Windy City – Da Windy City – A Chicago Sports Site – Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, Fighting Illini & MoreRead More

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A section of Israel’s separation barrier divides the Israeli settlement of Modi’in Illit (right) and the West Bank village of Nilin, west of Ramallah. | Nasser Nasser / AP

Nearly two decades after Israel built the barrier in Qaffin during a Palestinian uprising, it has become a seemingly permanent fixture even as Israel encourages its citizens to settle on both sides.

QAFFIN, West Bank — Three days a week, Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank village of Qaffin line up at a yellow gate and show military permits to soldiers so that they can tend their crops on the other side of Israel’s separation barrier.

The farmers say that, because of increasingly tough Israeli restrictions, they no longer can live off their land, which is suffering without proper cultivation. The olive groves just beyond the gate are scorched from a recent fire — firefighters also need permission to enter.

Nearly two decades after Israel sparked controversy worldwide by building the barrier during a Palestinian uprising, it has become a seemingly permanent fixture — even as Israel encourages its citizens to settle on both sides.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians navigate its checkpoints every morning as they line up in terminals to enter Israel for jobs in construction and agriculture. Farmers in Qaffin and dozens of other villages need permits to access their own property.

Israel says the barrier helped stop a wave of suicide bombings and other attacks by Palestinians who slipped into the country during the 2000-2005 uprising and is still needed to prevent deadly violence.

Eighty-five percent of the still-unfinished barrier is inside the occupied West Bank, carving off nearly 10% of its territory.

The Palestinians view it as an illegal land grab, and the International Court of Justice in 2004 said the barrier was “contrary to international law.”

In Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Bethlehem, the barrier is a towering concrete wall several yards high crowned with barbed wire and cameras. In rural areas, it largely consists of barbed-wire fencing and closed military roads.

Along Israel’s main north-south highway, it’s concealed by earthworks and landscaping, so drivers get no more than a passing glance at the reality of military rule.

Palestinians in Qaffin say the wall has lopped off 1,100 acres of their farmland, all of it inside the West Bank.

Ibrahim Ammar says he used to grow crops including watermelon and corn but now is limited to olives and almonds because they require less attention. Even during the annual olive harvest, which began last month, he can enter his land only three days a week and must apply for permits to bring family members along to help.

“My father, my grandfather, they were totally dependent on the land,” he said. “Now, I can’t provide for myself and my children.”

He drives a taxi to supplement his income. Other villagers work menial jobs inside Israel and its West Bank settlements. One resident, frustrated by the restrictions, grows vegetables on the roof of his home.

“Three days is not enough to serve the land,” said Taysir Harashe, who was mayor of the village when the barrier was built. “The land is getting worse and worse.”

The United Nations estimates that 150 Palestinian communities are in a similar situation and that 11,000 Palestinians live in the so-called Seam Zone inside the West Bank but west of the barrier, requiring Israeli permits just to stay in their homes.

HaMoked, an Israeli rights group that helps Palestinians secure permits, says the farmers’ situation is worsening. It says data obtained from the military shows 73% of applications for permits were denied last year, up from 29% in 2014, with fewer than 3% denied for security reasons.

In 2014, Israel stopped granting permits to relatives unless they are listed as agricultural workers on larger plots. In 2017, the military began dividing larger holdings among the members of extended families and ruled that anything smaller than 3,500 square feet was agriculturally unsustainable. Owners of so-called “tiny plots” are denied permits.

“There’s no security justification,” said Jessica Montell, the director of HaMoked, which is challenging the regulation before Israel’s Supreme Court. “They’ve decided you own a plot of land that they think is too small to warrant cultivation.”

Asked about the restrictions, the military said its forces aim to “ensure a smooth fabric of life for all sides.”

Israel has always said the barrier wasn’t intended to delineate a permanent border, and some supporters said at the time that, by reducing violence, it would aid the peace process.

“The fence was built according to the needs of security only,” said Netzah Mashiah, a retired Israeli colonel who oversaw construction of the barrier until 2008. “We understood while building it that it might be a border in the far future… but this was not the goal of this fence.”

Israelis and Palestinians live on both sides, and Israel is building settlements and settlement infrastructure east of the barrier.

There have been no substantive peace talks in more than a decade, and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett opposes the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and other territories Israel seized in the 1967 war.

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The Bulls’ Ayo Dosunmu revs up the United Center crowd after hitting a shot against the Brooklyn Nets. | Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

The Morgan Park High School product has already jumped Troy Brown Jr. in the rotation, but with combo guard Coby White’s return on the horizon, what then? Considering Dosunmu’s small sample of a resume, White might be a trade chip.

Ayo Dosunmu wasn’t simply handed Troy Brown Jr.’s minutes.

The Bulls rookie took them.

In Monday’s 118-95 blowout win over the Nets, Dosunmu confirmed why the decision was a smart one.

During the avalanche that was the 42-17 fourth-quarter domination, the Morgan Park High School product was key in the home team’s run.

There was the drive-and-one with 9:41 left that put the Bulls up four and started the blowout. There was the grip and rip of a LaMarcus Aldridge apparent offensive rebound, stealing a possession away from Brooklyn. Then there was the dagger three with 4:56 left that put the Bulls up 14, snatching any life that the Nets had left.

Moments like that have coach Billy Donovan describing Dosunmu as having that “it factor.”

“To me, it’s all about his makeup, to me,” Donovan said of Dosunmu. “You can watch a guy play for 10 minutes and you can figure out if he can play or not. It takes a long time to figure out that it factor. He’s got the it factor. And what I mean by that is, he’s gonna impact the game. And he’s got a great drive. He’s incredibly motivated. He balances really well that line of being confident but not coming across arrogant. He’s a fearless competitor. And I think that kind of mindset is gonna serve him well going forward. He can’t lose that, because to me that’s gotta be his identity.”

An identity that has Dosunmu firmly imprinted into the Bulls rotation, while Brown continued slipping into the shadows.

In four of the first five games to start the regular season, Brown was given double-digits in playing time, averaging 15.25 minutes per game. Dosunmu was mostly mop-up, and even got the DNP [Did Not Play] Coach’s Decision in Toronto.

Oh how things have changed.

In the last five games, Dosunmu is averaging 17.8 minutes per game, while Brown has five total minutes logged over that span, with three DNPs.

The reason is simple: Dosunmu just impacts winning. Sure, the United Center crowd feeds off of cheering on one of their own in Dosunmu, but he’s just more impactful than Brown. The crowd recognizes that, and Dosunmu’s teammates feel it.

“Whether it’s guarding somebody, being ready to knock down a shot, being in transition, being aggressive, getting downhill, finishing,” veteran forward DeMar DeRozan said of Dosunmu. “He does a lot of things that you don’t see in a lot of young guys in their first year.

“And it makes it even sweeter being home for him, getting the crowd behind us. If he sneezes out there, the crowd will get excited. So you definitely gotta feed off it.”

But for how long?

Coby White has been cleared for full contact in the wake of offseason shoulder surgery, and was scheduled to start practicing with the team. The reason Brown and Dosunmu were getting playing time was because there was a minutes vacancy left by White.

With the second unit looking for scoring, especially from beyond the three-point line, White would seemingly be a better fit. One problem — White isn’t a two-way player like Dosunmu has shown to be. The Bulls may need that more than a streaky shooting addition like White.

The Sun-Times labeled White as a possible trade candidate in the preseason, and there is growing momentum nationally that he could be looked at come deadline time.

Until then, however, Donovan will be walking a fine line with a crowded backcourt on making sure White is producing while Dosunmu continues developing.

“Whether Coach Donovan plays me two minutes or 15-20 minutes, I try to come in with energy and positivity and just have fun,” Dosunmu said of whatever happens. “I try to impact the game any way I can.”

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Kyle Rittenhouse waits for the start of his trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse in Kenosha, Wis., on Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2021. Rittenhouse is accused of killing two people and wounding a third during a protest over police brutality in Kenosha, last year. | AP

The video, zoomed in and slowed down by a forensic imaging specialist, was played as the prosecution’s case appeared to be winding down after a week of testimony in which some of its own witnesses often bolstered Rittenhouse’s claim of self-defense.

KENOSHA, Wis. — The jury at Kyle Rittenhouse’s murder trial Tuesday watched drone video that showed Rittenhouse wheeling around and shooting Joseph Rosenbaum at close range during a night of turbulent protests on the streets of Kenosha.

The video, zoomed in and slowed down by a forensic imaging specialist, was played as the prosecution’s case appeared to be winding down after a week of testimony in which some of its own witnesses often bolstered Rittenhouse’s claim of self-defense.

The footage showed Rosenbaum following Rittenhouse before Rittenhouse suddenly spins around and fires his rifle at him. Rosenbaum falls, and Rittenhouse runs around a car.

Dr. Doug Kelley, a forensic pathologist with the Milwaukee County medical examiner’s office, said Rosenbaum was shot by someone who was within 4 feet of him.

It was the clearest video yet of the fatal shooting in August 2020 that set in motion the bloodshed that followed moments later: Rittenhouse, then 17, killed Anthony Huber, a 26-year-old protester seen on bystander video hitting Rittenhouse with a skateboard. Rittenhouse then wounded Gaige Grosskreutz, a protester and volunteer medic who came at Rittenhouse with a gun of his own.

Kenosha Detective Ben Antaramian testified that at some point in their investigation, authorities learned someone had recorded drone video. The video had played on a Fox News segment.

Prosecutors said they received a low-resolution copy earlier in their investigation but weren’t given a high-definition one until Friday, Day 5 of the trial.

Rittenhouse, a former police youth cadet from Antioch, Illinois, had gone to Kenosha with an AR-style semi-automatic rifle and a medical kit in what he said was an effort to safeguard property from the sometimes-violent demonstrations that broke out over the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a white Kenosha police officer.

Prosecutors have portrayed Rittenhouse as the instigator of the bloodshed that night. His lawyers have argued that he acted in self-defense, suggesting that he feared his rifle would be taken away and used against him.

Rittenhouse, now 18, could get life in prison if convicted of the most serious charges against him.

Last week, witnesses testified that the first man to be shot, Rosenbaum, 36, was “hyperaggressive” and “acting belligerently” that night and threatened to kill Rittenhouse at one point. One witness said Rosenbaum was gunned down after he chased Rittenhouse and lunged for the young man’s rifle.

On Tuesday, Rittenhouse turned his head and averted his eyes from a defense-table monitor as prosecutors displayed medical examiner photographs of Huber’s body laid out on a gurney, a gunshot wound to his chest clearly visible, and breathed deeply as autopsy photos of Rosenbaum showing his injuries were displayed for the jury.

A few jurors also seemed to find it difficult to look for long at the images, one glancing up at a monitor over her shoulder, then looking straight ahead.

On Monday, Grosskreutz testified that he pointed his own gun at Rittenhouse before he was shot. But he said he didn’t mean to and had no intention of firing it.

“I thought the defendant was an active shooter,” said Grosskreutz, 27. Asked what was going through his mind as he got closer to Rittenhouse, he said, “That I was going to die.”

Rittenhouse shot Grosskreutz in the arm, tearing away much of his bicep — or “vaporized” it, as the witness put it.

Wisconsin’s self-defense law allows someone to use deadly force only if “necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm.” The jury must decide whether Rittenhouse believed he was in such peril and whether that belief was reasonable under the circumstances.

Grosskreutz said he had gone to the protest in Kenosha to serve as a medic, wearing a hat that said “paramedic” and carrying medical supplies, in addition to a loaded pistol. He said his permit to carry a concealed weapon had expired and he did not have a valid one that night.

“I believe in the Second Amendment. I’m for people’s right to carry and bear arms,” he said, explaining why he was armed. “And that night was no different than any other day. It’s keys, phone, wallet, gun.”

While Rittenhouse is white, as were those he shot, the case has stirred racially fraught debate over vigilantism, the right to bear arms, and the unrest that erupted around the U.S. that summer over police violence against Black people.

___

Bauer reported from Madison, Wisconsin; Forliti from Minneapolis.

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Former Georgia Senator Max Cleland salutes delegates before introducing Sen. John Kerry at the Democratic National Convention Thursday, July 29, 2004 at the Fleet Center in Boston, Mass. Cleland, who lost three limbs to a Vietnam War hand grenade blast yet went on to serve as a U.S. senator from Georgia, died on Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2021. He was 79. | AP

The former VA chief died at his home in Atlanta from congestive heart failure, his personal assistant said

ATLANTA — Max Cleland, who lost three limbs to a hand grenade in Vietnam and later became a groundbreaking Veterans Administration chief and a U.S. senator from Georgia until an attack ad questioning his patriotism derailed his reelection, died Tuesday. He was 79.

Cleland died at his home in Atlanta from congestive heart failure, his personal assistant Linda Dean said.

Cleland was an Army captain in Vietnam when he lost his right arm and two legs while picking up a fallen grenade in 1968.

For decades, he blamed himself — until he learned that another soldier had dropped it.

He spent many months in hospitals ill-equipped to help so many wounded soldiers.

Fellow veterans cheered when President Jimmy Carter appointed Cleland to lead the Veterans Administration, a post he held from 1977 to 1981. The VA and the wider medical community recognized post-traumatic stress disorder — what had been previously been dismissed as shell-shock — as a genuine condition while Cleland was in charge, and he worked to provide veterans and their families with better care.

Cleland’s 2002 Senate loss to Republican Saxby Chambliss generated enduring controversy after the Chambliss campaign aired a commercial that displayed images of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and questioned Cleland’s commitment to defense and Homeland Security. Sen. John McCain was among those who condemned the move by his fellow Republican.

Cleland also served in the Georgia Senate from 1971-1975 and was Georgia’s Secretary of State from 1983 until 1996.

President Joe Biden, who served in the U.S. Senate with Cleland, saluted him Tuesday as someone with “unflinching patriotism, boundless courage, and rare character.”

“His leadership was the essential driving force behind the creation of the modern VA health system, where so many of his fellow heroes have found lifesaving support and renewed purpose of their own thanks in no small part to Max’s lasting impact,” Biden said in a statement.

President Bill Clinton praised Cleland as an extraordinary public servant, saying “I will be forever inspired by the strength he showed in supporting normalization with Vietnam after having made profound personal sacrifices during the war.”

A native of the Atlanta suburb of Lithonia, Cleland suffered grievous injuries on April 8, 1968, near Khe Sanh, as he reached for the grenade he thought had fallen from his belt when he jumped from a helicopter.

“When my eyes cleared I looked at my right hand. It was gone. Nothing but a splintered white bone protruded from my shredded elbow,” Cleland wrote in his 1980 memoir, “Strong at the Broken Places.”

After fellow soldiers made a frantic effort to stop his bleeding and he was helicoptered back to a field hospital, Cleland wrote that he begged a doctor to save one of his legs, but there wasn’t enough left.

“What poured salt into my wounds was the possible knowledge that it could have been my grenade,” he said in a 1999 interview.

But later that year, former Marine Cpl. David Lloyd, who said he was one of the first to reach Cleland after the explosion, came forward to say he treated another soldier at the scene who was sobbing uncontrollably and saying, “It was my grenade, it was my grenade.”

Before Vietnam, Cleland had been an accomplished college swimmer and basketball player, standing 6-foot-2 and beginning to develop an interest in politics. Returning home a triple-amputee, Cleland recalled being depressed and worried about his future, yet still interested in running for office.

“I sat in my mother and daddy’s living room and took stock in my life,” Cleland said in a 2002 interview. “No job. No hope of a job. No offer of a job. No girlfriend. No apartment. No car. And I said, ‘This is a great time to run for the state Senate.”‘

Nevertheless, he won a state Senate seat, becoming part of a cadre of young senators that included Barnes, the future governor. After a failed 1974 campaign for lieutenant governor and his stint heading the VA, Cleland was elected as Georgia’s Secretary of State in 1982.

He won the seat of retiring Sen. Sam Nunn a dozen years later, but served only one term. Polls showed he had been leading in his re-election effort before the devastating Chambliss ad.

“Accusing me of being soft on homeland defense and Osama bin Laden is the most vicious exploitation of a national tragedy and attempt at character assassination I have ever witnessed,” Cleland said at the time.

Cleland wrote in his second memoir, “Heart of a Patriot,” that he lost his fiancee, his income, and his sense of purpose when he left the Senate. He ended up back at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he himself was diagnosed with PTSD, decades after the explosion.

“I was totally wounded and wiped out – hopeless and overwhelmed,” Cleland wrote. “Just like I had been on that April day in 1968 when the grenade ripped off my legs and my right arm. Emotionally, spiritually, physically and mentally, I was bleeding and dying.”

Cleland recovered and served as a director of the Export-Import Bank; later, he was appointed by President Barack Obama to be secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission.

Sen. Jon Ossoff, the first Democrat to hold the seat since Cleland’s defeat, called him “a hero, a patriot, a public servant, and a friend.”

As senator, Cleland voted to authorize President George W. Bush’s plan to go to war in Iraq, but later said he regretted it, becoming a fierce critic of Bush’s Iraq policy and likening American involvement to Vietnam.

“He never asked me to do anything that was not absolutely right,” H. Wayne Howell, Cleland’s longtime deputy secretary of state and chief of staff in the Senate, told the AP Tuesday in a phone interview.

In the conclusion to his first memoir, Cleland explained that book’s title, saying that through crises and defeats, “I have learned that it is possible to become strong at the broken places.”

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Scottie Pippen’s recent criticisms of Michael Jordan will likely hurt his reputation more than MJ’s. | NBAE via Getty Images

Sure, Pippen wants to sell books and the more controversy the better. But at what cost?

Naive, bitter, sad, embarrassing, confusing, jealous, petty, aggrieved, spiteful.

Those are just a few words when it comes to word association with Scottie Pippen and his new book “Unguarded.” The book was released on Tuesday.

Pippen sounds like all of those things, most notably when he goes after former teammate — and former friend? — Michael Jordan.

Pippen is unhappy with his depiction in the ESPN-Jordan documentary “The Last Dance,” which first aired in the spring of 2020 while the NBA was on its COVID-19 hiatus. He feels slighted and wants to settle scores in the book.

“He couldn’t have been more condescending if he tried,” Pippen wrote of Jordan’s role in “The Last Dance,” adding, “Now here I was, in my mid-fifties, seventeen years since my final game, watching us being demeaned once again. Living through it the first time was insulting enough.”

Pippen is in the midst of a media tour to promote and sell more copies of the book.

An excerpt of the book and a video Q&A ran in GQ, The New York Times published a Q&A with Pippen and he appeared Monday on NBC’s “Today.”

Sure, he wants to sell books and the more controversy the better. But at what cost? His reputation? Pippen is entitled to write the book he wants. But the way Pippen comes off is probably not the way he wants to be remembered.

To some degree, Pippen is misguided and misleading one way or another — his ire for Jordan in particular.

While he skewers Jordan in the book, Pippen a decade ago also asked Jordan to be his presenter at the 2010 Basketball Hall of Fame ceremony.

Pippen wanted Jordan there at one of the most special events of his professional career, and in his Hall of Fame speech, Pippen said, “MJ, you have touched so many people’s lives, but none like mine. Thank you for being the best teammate. I will always cherish that experience and I will cherish our relationship forever.”

Hmmm.

Whatever has changed, it’s not a good look for Pippen.

Pippen appears jealous of Jordan, and it doesn’t make sense for several reasons.

As a basketball player, Pippen is respected. He made the league’s list of 50 greatest players 25 years ago, is on this season’s list of 75 greatest players and was ranked the 22nd greatest player in NBA history in USA TODAY’s recent list. He’s a Hall of Famer, six-time champ, seven-time All-Star and seven-time All-NBA performer, 10-time All-Defense and two-time Olympic gold medalist.

There is no disputing what he brought to the court. His game is recognized.

His squabbles are petty, such his complaint that Jordan made $10 million from “The Last Dance.” Ignoring that Jordan donated the earnings is disingenuous and considering Jordan’s role as an executive producer, it’s naive to think Jordan wouldn’t see financial benefits. Without Jordan signing off on the project nearly three decades ago, the behind-the-scenes footage would not have been possible. There is no “Last Dance” without Jordan or his approval.

If Pippen was surprised that the documentary was all about Jordan and Jordan’s perspective, then that’s Pippen’s lack of awareness. We all know who Michael Jordan is in that regard. Of course, it was going to be about him. And that’s what fans wanted to see.

What do you think the LeBron James documentary will look like in 20 years? Some of the same NBA Entertainment filmmakers who had access to Jordan have similar exclusive access to James. That will have James’ slant, not Kyrie Irving’s, not Kevin Love’s, not Anthony Davis’ and not even Dwyane Wade’s.

The doc also revealed some of Jordan’s flaws. It’s not a surprise his singular pursuit of winning was off-putting at times. It’s who he was as a competitor. Just as we know Pippen always has felt slighted — like when Phil Jackson ran a late-game play for Toni Kukoc instead of Pippen, and Pippen refused to enter the game.

Pippen showed us a part of who he is then and showing us a part of who he is now.

Read more at usatoday.com

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