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A 17-year-old boy was shot and wounded Tuesday afternoon on the Far South Side. | Sun-Times file photo

The teen was on the sidewalk about 4 p.m. in the 10900 block of South Halsted Street when someone approached him and opened fire, striking him in the left foot, police said.

A 17-year-old was shot and wounded Tuesday afternoon in Morgan Park on the Far South Side.

The teen was on the sidewalk about 4 p.m. in the 10900 block of South Halsted Street when someone approached him and opened fire, striking him in the left foot, Chicago police said.

He was taken to Roseland Community Hospital, where he was in good condition, police said.

No one was in custody.

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CNN anchor John King speaks at a March 5, 2020, event in New York City. | Getty Images for WarnerMedia

Anchor reveals the MS diagnosis during an on-air discussion of COVID-19 vaccine manndates.

NEW YORK — CNN anchor John King revealed during an on-air discussion of COVID-19 vaccine mandates on Tuesday that he has multiple sclerosis.

“I’m going to share a secret I’ve never spoken before,” King said while leading a panel discussion on his “Inside Politics” show. “I’m immunocompromised. I have multiple sclerosis. So, I’m grateful you’re all vaccinated.”

King and his guests were talking about mandates in the context of the death of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who died Monday of COVID complications despite being vaccinated because he had cancer that compromised his immune system.

CNN mandates that all of its employees who come to work in an office or are out in the field with other people be vaccinated, and fired three employees this summer when they came to work unvaccinated.

King, 58, said his 10-year-old son can’t be vaccinated yet, and he’s concerned about bringing the virus home to him.

“I don’t like the government telling me what to do,” King said. “I don’t like my boss telling me what to do. In this case, it’s important.”

King has worked as a political reporter, White House correspondent and national correspondent for CNN after joining the network from The Associated Press in 1997.

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Chicago Police Supt. David Brown | Anthony Vazquez / Sun-Times

Of the 67.7% of police officers and civilians entered into the city’s online health portal, 82% are vaccinated, Chicago Police Supt. David Brown said Tuesday.

Twenty-one sworn Chicago police officers are in a no-pay status for refusing to report their vaccination status on the city’s online portal, Chicago Police Supt. David Brown said at a news conference Tuesday.

Of the 12,770 employees in the Chicago Police Department, 67.7% have filled out the portal verifying they have either been vaccinated or submitting to twice-weekly testing, up from 64.4% Monday. Of those reporting, 82% have been vaccinated, Brown said. The police department has the lowest compliance rate with the vaccine mandate of any city department.

Over the past several days, police leadership has met individually with each employee not entered into the portal, Brown said, first counseling them on what the city’s vaccine mandate requires, then sending them to human resources to enter no-pay status and finally facing a direct order to report to the portal from the bureau of internal affairs. Of the “several hundred” workers the police department has met with, only 21 refused to put their vaccine information into the portal, even after all three steps of the process, Brown said. Leadership has yet to speak with several hundred or even a thousand more employees not entered into the portal, he said.

“This process has been obviously very emotional,” Brown said. “We have given them the time and given them the explanation as best we can on the serious nature of violating the vaccine mandate.”

But at any point, even those 21 officers in no-pay status can choose to comply and return to work, Brown said.

“We want them to come back,” Brown said.

Brown blamed “misinformation” for why many employees, both civilians and sworn officers, did not initially enter their status into the portal and said officers “should be able to rely on some of their union leadership for accurate information.”

John Catanzara — president of Lodge 7 of the Fraternal Order of Police — has posted multiple videos online urging union members not to report their vaccination status. Catanzara has ardently opposed Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s vaccine mandate, though the mayor has stood her ground and refused to push back the Oct. 15 deadline for city employees to report their status.

Getting all police department employees into compliance, either by being vaccinated or being tested twice a week, is a matter of saving lives of officers, their families and the “people who we are sworn to protect in this community,” Brown said.

“This virus is no different than the gunfire we take as cops,” Brown said. “I will do everything I can, and I will say anything I need to, to convince officers to” comply.

Four CPD officers died in the line of duty in 2020 — all from COVID-19.

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A screenshot from body-camera video of a police raid in 2019 at the home of social worker Anjanette Young. The police were in the wrong home. | CBS 2 Chicago

Ferguson said his investigators interviewed “almost three dozen people” and reviewed “tens of thousands of pages of emails and other government records.” But with so much information kept from him, he said, he couldn’t recommend any disciplinary action.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s decision to hire a private law firm to investigate the police raid on the home of Anjanette Young — and use attorney-client privilege to conceal details of that probe — stymied efforts by the inspector general’s office to find out what happened, Joe Ferguson, the city’s now-retired inspector general, said Tuesday.

Before ending his 12-year run as Chicago’s top watchdog on Friday, Ferguson delivered a 163-page report on the botched raid on the wrong home that humiliated Young. The social worker was left handcuffed and naked for 40 minutes in a room full of male police officers.

Ferguson said he did the best he could under the circumstances. His investigators interviewed “almost three dozen people” and reviewed “tens of thousands of pages of emails and other government records.”

But he was unable to recommend disciplinary action against any city employees. That’s because Lightfoot asked former federal judge Ann Claire Williams and her Jones Day law firm to launch a “simultaneous” investigation that included interviews with 20 of those same city employees. Lightfoot’s administration then claimed “attorney-client privilege” to shield that information from him, Ferguson said.

“What that means is there are other statements that constitute possible evidence that, maybe is exculpatory, maybe is aggravating. But you can’t make a responsible determination about disciplinary findings when you know, in fact, that there is evidence other than what you’re able to collect yourself,” Ferguson said.

CBS 2 Chicago
Police body camera video shows the raid on the home of Anjanette Young.

“And so we characterize what we believe to be indicated by the evidence we gather. But, we say affirmatively the mayor’s inter-position of an outside law firm makes it impossible for us to responsibly draw a final bottom-line conclusion about whether or not there were full-blown violations because the administration claimed attorney-client privilege and would not share that separately-gained evidence.”

Lightfoot has been under fire for her changing story about what she knew and when she knew it about the botched raid.

A sobbing Young was captured on bodycam video telling officers more than 40 times that they had the wrong house; eventually, one officer finally gave her a blanket to cover up.

Lightfoot has met with Young and personally apologized to her for having been “denied her basic dignity as a human being.”

The mayor initially insisted she knew nothing about the raid until WBBM-TV (Channel 2) aired the video in December.

But after reviewing internal emails, the mayor was forced to admit she learned about the raid in November 2019, when a top aide warned Lightfoot about a “pretty bad wrongful raid” by Chicago police.

“I have a lot of questions about this one,” she wrote at the time to top aides.

The mayor has emphatically denied knowing anything about her Law Department’s efforts to block CBS2 from airing bodycam video of the raid. To underscore the point, she forced the resignation of corporation counsel Mark Flessner, a longtime friend who served together with Lightfoot in the U.S. attorney’s office.

Although the inspector general’s final report includes no recommendation of disciplinary action, Ferguson said Young was victimized by the initial raid and then “re-victimized” after-the-fact by every level of government.

“She was treated poorly in the context of her FOIA request. She was treated poorly in the context of her litigation. She was just treated poorly and, in some ways, unprofessionally by people who are supposed to be serving the greater public good and approached this in a transactional, litigated way, forgetting the fact that this woman is a victim of government conduct and misconduct and should be treated with respect and as a victim throughout,” he said.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
Anjanette Young, who was a victim of a botched raid by the Chicago Police Department in 2019, speaks to reporters outside CPD headquarters last year.

Lightfoot is a former Police Board president who, along with Ferguson, co-chaired the Task Force on Police Accountability in the furor that followed the police shooting of Laquan McDonald.

Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel was ordered to release the video of convicted Chicago Police officer Jason Van Dyke shooting McDonald sixteen times after the video was concealed until Emanuel had been safely re-elected in 2015.

The task force drafted the policy that requires the city to release, within 60 days, video from body- and dashboard-mounted cameras of police shootings and other incidents involving police shooting.

That’s why the accusation that she somehow played a role in the Law Department’s efforts to conceal the video hit so close to home.

“There’s a lot of trust that’s been breached. And I know that there is a lot of trust in me that’s been breached. We will do better. We will win back the trust that we have lost,” the mayor said in December.

On Tuesday, Ferguson characterized the Lightfoot administration’s handling of the Anjanette Young video as a “remarkable, troubling closing of a circle.”

“It brings us back where we were five or six years ago and where her career got its jump-start. Yet the city is engaged in similar activity — and in this instance, with respect to a living victim,” he said.

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Chicago Sky players celebrate their WNBA Championship title Tuesday at Pritzker Pavilion. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

Since 2006 the Sky have fought to gain a foothold in the hearts and minds of Chicago basketball fans, but largely to no avail. Tuesday, Chicago celebrated its first professional basketball championship since 1998, marking a huge leap for the franchise and for women’s sports in the city.

Silver anniversaries deserve sterling silver hardware and the Sky understood that assignment.

In the WNBA’s 25th anniversary season, the Sky made a playoff push that had them knocking on their first WNBA Finals door since 2014. They busted that door down, winning the franchise’s first-ever title on Sunday.

The celebration Tuesday fit the historic moment.

When the team met the thousands of fans who awaited them at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion after a championship parade up Michigan Avenue, Sky coach/general manager James Wade had a message.

“Remember the seat you’re sitting in,” Wade said standing at center stage. “We’re gonna make sure you’re sitting in the same one next year.”

Courtney Vandersloot walked into Wintrust Arena Tuesday morning wearing black sunglasses and a boot on her left foot. The sunglasses were maybe a style choice or maybe part of a hangover cure. The boot she wore as a precaution for her plantar fascia.

She looked tired but joyful from celebrating and the Sky’s first-ever WNBA Championship clinching win over the Phoenix Mercury on Sunday evening.

Candace Parker walked in side by side with her daughter, Lailaa, and WNBA Finals MVP Kahleah Copper was right behind them.

Two short days ago, Wintrust Arena was getting prepped to welcome 10,378 fans who would bear witness to the Sky’s 80-74, come-from-behind win over the Mercury.

“It still hasn’t set in that we won a championship,” Copper said.

When Parker won her first title with the Los Angeles Sparks in 2016, the team held a massive celebration at L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles. There was no parade.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced Monday that the Sky would not only have a rally but would parade up Michigan Avenue in a five-bus championship motorcade similar to the city’s previous sports champions — all won by men’s teams.

Parker’s parents, Sara and Larry, said it isn’t special the team is being celebrated with a parade; it’s what should be expected.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Candace Parker and Kahleah Copper cheer as Chicago Sky players celebrate their WNBA Championship title Tuesday at Pritzker Pavilion.

Lightfoot, a Sky season ticket holder with her wife, Amy Eshleman, since the franchise’s inaugural season, said she feels lucky to be Chicago’s mayor at this moment.

Chicago has long been viewed as a basketball city with a rich history in the sport that includes elite high school competition and the Bulls’ two three-peats for six NBA titles.

Since 2006 the Sky have fought to gain a foothold in the hearts and minds of Chicago basketball fans, but largely to no avail. Tuesday, Chicago celebrated its first professional basketball championship since 1998, marking a turning point for the franchise and for women’s sports in the city.

“It’s been our dream all along to see this city embrace this team as they’ve embraced all those men’s teams forever,” Sky majority owner Michael Alter said. “We’re here to stay, and Chicago has fallen in love with this team.”

As the Sky walked out of Wintrust Arena’s loading dock and boarded buses bound for Millennium Park, different chants erupted from the hundreds of fans who lined the street.

“Sky in four!”

“C-P-3!”

“Let’s go Sky!”

One fan threw his Bulls hat up to Parker on the double-decker bus for her signature. With an ear-to-ear grin, she signed it in permanent marker.

As the buses loaded up, the chants grew.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Thousands cheered as Chicago Sky players celebrated their WNBA Championship title at Pritzker Pavilion.

Parker squeezed by passengers and made her way to the front where the cooler was.

“I need to sneak past you to get my point guard some alcohol,” Parker said. “Yo, Sloot, you want an Angry Orchard?”

Vandersloot and Quigley played a significant role in Parker’s decision to play for the Sky.

Texts were sent, Portillo’s was mailed to Los Angeles and conversations were had about this exact championship moment. When the buses finally departed Wintrust Arena all three of them were wide-eyed, taking in the fans along the route.

Vandersloot stood facing east on bus No. 2. She was hunched over the rail, staring out, waving at the people who lined Michigan Avenue when she let out a deep sigh.

“I truly can’t believe this,” Vandersloot said.

There were few breaks in fans that lined the street and as the team drove by, they connected with as many as they could.

They noticed jerseys, posters and even recognized some fans from the team’s early days.

“From the beginning,” Quigley yelled to them.

When they finally arrived at Pritzker Pavilion the welcome was captivating. Fans from those early days were mixed with new ones.

Parker took the stage and addressed her home crowd, talking about the grit, grind and blue-collar values that she admires about the city.

In one season, she accomplished what she had set out to when she signed in February.

“Hey, guess what?” Parker asked the audience. “Sky in four!”

Cheers and applause rang out.

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Illinois isn’t the only state with the problem, but it can breed bad government.Read More

Spooky season isn’t complete without a scare on the big screen—whether it’s from a masked serial killer, the creatures of Raccoon City, or Jared Leto as a vampire. In the spirit of Halloween and longer nights, we’ve rounded up the best new horror movies coming to theaters…and your nightmares.

October 29, 2021

“Antlers” follows a small-town Oregon teacher (Keri Russell) and her brother, the local sheriff (Jesse Plemons) as they discover a dangerous secret in a young student’s house.

The movie is based on screenwriter Nick Antosca’s short story “The Quiet Boy,” originally published in January 2019. Additionally, “Antlers” is directed by Scott Cooper of “Black Mass” and “Hostiles” and produced by Guillermo del Toro of “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “The Shape of Water” fame.

See it here:

AMC River East 21 (322 E Illinois St, Chicago, IL 60611)
AMC DINE-IN Block 37 (108 N State St, Chicago, IL 60602)
Regal Webster Place (1471 W Webster Ave, Chicago, IL 60614)
Regal City North IMAX & 4DX (2600 N Western Ave, Chicago, IL 60647)

October 29, 2021

Prepare yourself for a mind-bending psychological thriller in acclaimed director Edgar Wright’s “Last Night In Soho.” The film follows Eloise (Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie), a passionate fashion designer who can mysteriously enter the 1960s. However, it’s only all glitz and glamour until She encounters wannabe singer Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy).

Staring Ex-Doctor Who Matt Smith and Thomasin McKenzie, movie director Wright, notable for “Baby Driver” and “Shaun of the Dead,” brings us on a wild time jump with dark twists and turns. Are you ready?

See it here:

AMC River East 21 (322 E Illinois St, Chicago, IL 60611)
AMC DINE-IN Block 37 (108 N State St, Chicago, IL 60602)
AMC DINE-IN 600 North Michigan 9 (600 North Michigan, Chicago, IL 60611)
Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema (2828 N Clark St, Chicago, IL 60657)

November 24, 2021

Fans of the Resident Evil franchise are in for a treat with this reboot as the film follows a small band of survivors whom fans of the video game franchise would recognize instantly. The group, including siblings Claire (Kaya Scodelario) and Chris Redfield (Robbie Amell), Jill Valentine (Hannah John-Kamen), and Leon S. Kennedy (Avan Jogia), must work together to make it through the night and uncover Umbrella Corporation’s secrets. 

Furthermore, the film also stars Tom Hopper as Albert Wesker and Lily Gao as Ada Wong. As you’d expect from anything Resident Evil, the group encounters plenty of twisted and gnarly creatures made of nightmares. So if you love creature-and-action-based horror films, the new Resident Evil will be quite a treat.

See it here:

Marcus Orland Park Cinema (16350 South La Grange Road, Orland Park, IL 60467)

January 14, 2022

We’re not sick of “Scream” just yet. In the fifth installment of the franchise, a new Ghostface targets a group of teenagers 25 years after the streak of brutal murders in small-town Woodsboro, California. Additionally, the new Scream sees the return of original cast members Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, and David Arquette reprising their roles as our favorite characters. Jack Quaid, Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, and Dylan Minnette will join the slasher as well. 

January 28, 2022

“Morbius” follows award-winning biochemist Michael Morbius (Jared Leto), who suffers from a rare blood disease. Instead of curing his condition, however, his search for a cure leads him to become a living vampire, complete with superhuman strength and speed, accelerated healing, and bloodlust. 

This story of the villain is the latest addition to Sony’s Spider-Man universe. Matt Smith, Tyrese Gibson, Adria Arjona, and Michael Keaton will also appear in the film. Therefore, for those of you who have been following the Spider-Man universe, Morbius will surely stand up to your expectations.

February 4, 2022

Directed by Scott Derrickson and produced by Jason Blum, “The Black Phone” is based on the 2004 short story of the same name by Joe Hill. In this film, a string of missing children plagues a small suburban Colorado town in the 1970s. Soon enough, we found out that 13-year-old Finney Shaw (Mason Thames) became the latest kidnapping of the serial killer known as The Grabber (Ethan Hawke).

Meanwhile, in a soundproof basement, Shaw discovers a disconnected phone that transmits the voices of the killer’s previous victims. What awaits Shaw? Would he survive, or would he follow the doomed fate of these fellow victims?

And hear us out: we have a phone in a horror movie that’s actually helpful and not sinister! 

Featured Image Credit: Sony Pictures

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A person walks though the dust cloud in Little Village after the botched implosion of the Crawford Generating Station smoke stack in April 2020. | Tyler Laiviere/Sun-Times file

The discipline recommendations come in a critical report by the outgoing inspector general about the demolition that left a community covered in dust.

Three city officials should be disciplined, including a possible firing, for the botched implosion of a former coal power plant that left Little Village covered in a massive blanket of dust on Easter weekend last year, Chicago’s watchdog said in a new report.

In his final public report, former Chicago Inspector General Joe Ferguson said his office forwarded the discipline recommendations to City Hall. A full report is expected to be released in the coming months once Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration has a chance to respond and either accept the recommendations or propose its own course of action.

The implosion April 11, 2020 showed the city did not adequately prepare for the dust storm created when an almost 400-foot chimney came crashing down at the Crawford Generating Station at West 36th Street and South Pulaski Road. Caught on video, the dust cloud coated homes, cars and yards. At the time, Lightfoot echoed residents’ outrage.

The procedure was planned, overseen and executed by multiple city departments, including the Department of Buildings and the Department of Public Health. While the full details of Ferguson’s report are not yet public, the report singles out individuals from both departments and even suggests a possible “discharge” of an unnamed public health official.

The recommendation includes “discipline against two Department of Buildings officials commensurate with the gravity of their violations” and “discipline up to and including discharge against one Department of Public Health official,” the inspector general’s quarterly report stated.

“That’s exactly what should have happened,” said Kim Wasserman, executive director of Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, which has criticized the city’s oversight and response to the incident. The Department of “Buildings and [the health department] signed off on this.”

Two months after the implosion, Buildings Commissioner Judy Frydland announced she was leaving the city, citing a desire to spend time with family.

Citing “personnel matters,” a city spokesman declined to comment. The city is required to provide the inspector general a written response within 30 days, though Lightfoot officials can ask for an extension.

Wasserman criticized the lack of transparency at City Hall more than a year and a half after the event and said city officials ignored repeated community pleas to hold off on the demolition at the time.

The Crawford plant was demolished throughout 2020 to make way for a new warehouse development for Hilco Redevelopment Partners, which is now leasing the building to retailer Target. The smokestack incident led to a change in the way the city approves implosion demolitions and Hilco was issued multiple citations.

The development continues to be a major source of concern and anger in the Little Village community. After fighting for years to get the Crawford coal plant shut down, which occurred in 2012, community activists said they were promised to be included in city planning discussions about what would replace it. A warehouse that draws hundreds of diesel-fuel trucks to the neighborhood was not what most of the community wanted, Wasserman and others said.

Late last year, Hilco and a pair of contractors agreed to pay $370,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by the state over air pollution violations related to the chimney demolition. Community advocates have called the dollar amount and penalty disappointing.

Brett Chase’s reporting on the environment and public health is made possible by a grant from The Chicago Community Trust.

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Robert Quinn is ninth in the NFL with 5.5 sacks. | Kirk Irwin/AP

Quinn is having one of the best seasons of his career with 5.5 sacks in the first six games.

Bears outside linebacker Robert Quinn is having a tremendous comeback season, but that’s on hold after the team put him on the reserve/COVID-19 list Tuesday after testing positive for the virus.

While it’s not definitive because teams don’t disclose a player’s status, Quinn appears to be vaccinated based on not wearing a mask for press conferences at Halas Hall. If he is vaccinated, the return-to-play protocol is simple: Quinn is eligible to return once he has two negative tests that are 24 hours apart. That would give him a chance to play against the Buccaneers on Sunday.

Quinn, 31, has been essential to the resurgence of the Bears’ pass rush and is ninth in the NFL with 5.5 sacks. He is second only to Khalil Mack (six) on the Bears, who lead the league with 21.

Last season, after signing a five-year, $70 million contract, Quinn had just two sacks.

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Image of video released by COPA showing a fatal police shooting on Sept. 19, 2021, in the 6500 block of South Harvard. | Civilian Office of Police Accountability

Police encountered Turrell Brown, 28, while answering a domestic call on the morning of Sept. 19 in the 6500 block of South Harvard Avenue.

The agency that investigates use of force by Chicago police released body camera video Tuesday showing an officer fatally shooting a man who refused to drop a knife in an Englewood apartment last month.

Police encountered Turrell Brown, 28, while answering a domestic call on the morning of Sept. 19 in the 6500 block of South Harvard Avenue, according to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.

Two officers were called to the apartment by a woman who said she was hit in the face by her boyfriend who was also armed with a knife, according to a 911 call released by COPA.

After the officers arrived, the woman tells them her boyfriend had hit her all over her side and face. “He pulled a knife on me too,” she says, adding that he is still in the apartment with a knife, according to body cam video.

As the officers walk through the apartment, Brown can be heard yelling at them and the officers pull out their guns and retreat just outside of the apartment, the video shows.

Brown emerges from a room waving what appears to be a knife in his right hand. “Put it down, put the knife down, put it down,” an officer yells.

Brown is obscured by a wall for a brief moment, and when he reemerges he doesn’t appear to be holding anything in his right hand, but his left hand is obscured, the video shows.

Brown slowly steps closer to the officers and appears to extend his right arm toward the door of the apartment to try to close it. An officer again tells him to put the knife down before firing three shots, striking him.

A knife appears to fall from his left hand, according to the video.

“Officers gave verbal commands to drop the knife, which resulted in an officer discharging his firearm, fatally striking the individual,” COPA said. The agency, which also released documents and other recordings, said it is continuing to investigate the shooting.

Two weeks after the encounter, police fatally shot another man in a domestic call under similar circumstances. Police responded to a “domestic disturbance” the morning of Oct. 4 and saw a man and woman fighting inside a second-story apartment in the 7700 block of South Carpenter Street in Gresham, police said.

Police fatally shot Michael A. Craig, 61, and said they recovered a knife, although police would not say if Craig was holding a knife when he was shot. Video of the shooting has not been released yet.

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