In the deadliest and most violent weekend this year in Chicago, 99 people have been shot over the long Fourth of July weekend, 17 of them killed.

Among the wounded were at least 11 children and two Chicago police supervisors. Five of the kids were shot within nine hours Sunday evening through early Monday.

Both the number of fatal shootings and the number of shootings overall are highs for 2021, according to a Chicago Sun-Times database of shootings. By 5 p.m. Monday, Chicago had recorded 2,000 shootings this year, the Sun-Times’ database shows.

In one of the holiday weekend incidents, a 15-year-old boy was critically hurt in a drive-by shooting Monday evening at 5:50 p.m. when a dark-colored vehicle drove by and someone from inside pulled out a gun and fired shots in the 6600 block of South Langley Avenue in Woodlawn, police said.

About a half-hour earlier, a 48-year-old was arguing with a person in a home about 5:20 p.m. in the 8600 block of South Aberdeen Street when he was shot and killed, police said.

That followed an incident when two people were killed and four wounded, including a 12-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy in Washington Park on the South Side.

That happened around the same time that a 6-year-old girl and a woman were shot in West Pullman and about four hours after an 11-year-old boy and a man were shot in Brainerd on the South Side. And late Sunday afternoon, a 5-year-old girl was shot in a leg, also in West Pullman.

The Washington Park shooting happened around 1:05 a.m. Monday in the 6100 block of South Wabash Avenue, where a large group of kids and adults gathered outside in a parking lot outside an apartment building to socialize and light off fireworks. Someone inside a car that drove by a group of people there started shooting, according to the police.

A 21-year-old man, shot twice in the head, and a 26-year-old man, shot in the torso, were pronounced dead at the University of Chicago Medical Center, police said.

The 12-year-old was struck in the buttocks and taken to Comer Children’s Hospital, according to the police, who said the 13-year-old was shot in a hand and also taken to Comer to be treated.

A woman, 29, was struck in the elbow and taken to the hospital in good condition, and the sixth victim, a 34-year-old woman, suffered two graze wounds, according to the police.

“I wish that whatever this madness is going on, I wish that it would stop,” said Toni Watkins, who lives in an apartment complex that overlooks the parking lot where the shooting was and has lived in the area for seven years. “Usually, I feel safe around here. But now this has me questioning it because it’s close to home right now.”

Brian Rich / Sun-Times

She said she’s fearful for her own 16-year-old daughter.

“I tell her every day, ‘If you’re going out or going to work, please be careful, and come back home to me. Stay away from those knuckleheads,’ ” Watkins said.

Watkins said she cried when she heard about an earlier shooting in which a 1-month-old baby was shot last week while in a car. She said she’s distraught over kids being shot: “They didn’t ask to be hurt. I just pray and hope that the kids are OK that got hurt.”

Brian Rich / Sun-Times

Several people who live near the parking lot where the shootings happened said groups of 100 or more people often gather there.

A 27-year-old man who said he has lived on that block for 15 years said that “street beefs” mean “everything revolves around retaliation.” But what he said he can’t understand is, “You see a whole bunch of kids, something should click in your head saying not to shoot.”

Shelley Childs recently moved with her 9-year-old son into a lower-level apartment that overlooks the parking lot.

“We’re sitting up there, having a good time, enjoying ourselves, celebrating Fourth of July, and you’re out [there] plotting to kill people,” Childs said of whoever was behind the shootings. “That’s why I’m getting my son and myself away.”

Childs, 25, said she had left the neighborhood Sunday, and, “Something told me don’t come home, it’s so crazy.”

Childs said the violence is “becoming normal.” She said someone was shot and killed about a month ago outside her mother’s house in Hyde Park.

“I saw the body,” her son said.

The 9-year-old said that he tried “to stay calm, think of something else and think of something peaceful.”

“It’s scary,” said his mother, who’s working toward a nursing degree. “I feel like I need to carry a gun, and I don’t want to. But it’s been a trend of kids and women being shot more and more and more around here. And it’s scary. I cannot wait to leave.”

Police commander, sergeant shot on West Side

A Chicago police commander and a sergeant were shot and wounded early Monday after the police disperse a crowd on the West Side.

The officers were hit when someone on foot fired shots around 1:30 a.m. in the 100 block of North Long Avenue, police said.

The commander was struck in the foot, and the sergeant was grazed in the leg, according to police.

Driver fatally shot in Little Village

A man was killed while driving Monday in Little Village on the Southwest Side.

He was driving a gray SUV about 9:15 a.m. in the 3400 block of West 26th Street when someone fired shots at his vehicle, striking him multiple times, police said.

The 34-year-old crashed into a parked car after the shooting, police said. He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

1 killed, 1 hurt in Lawndale shooting

A man was killed and another man wounded in a shooting Monday morning in Lawndale on the West Side.

The men were outside just after 2 a.m. in the 1800 block of South Kildare Avenue when they were struck by gunfire, police said.

One man, about 30 years old, suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the body and was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital, according to police. He has not yet been identified. The other man, 62, suffered a gunshot wound to the knee and was taken to the same hospital where his condition was stabilized, police said.

Woman shot to death in Austin

One person was killed and three others wounded in a shooting Sunday night in Austin on the West Side.

About 10:45 p.m., two men and a woman were standing in an alley in the first block of North Menard Avenue when a 33-year-old man began shooting at them, police said.

A woman, 30, suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police.

A man, 32, was struck multiple times in the body and taken to Stroger Hospital where his condition was stabilized, police said.

Another man, 49, suffered a gunshot wound to the buttocks and was taken to the same hospital where his condition was also stabilized, police said.

A 49-year-old man, who was a concealed carry license holder, witnessed the incident and shot at the offender, according to police.

The offender, a 33-year-old man, was struck in the arm and hip, police said. He was placed into custody and taken to Stroger Hospital in serious condition.

Old Town fatal shooting

Just after 6 a.m. Sunday, a man was walking across the street in the 200 block of West Division Street when someone approached him and the two exchanged words, police said. The other person then began firing several shots towards the man, striking him in the torso, police said.

He was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital where he later died, police said.

Teen killed on Near West Side

A 19-year-old man was killed while riding in a vehicle late Saturday on the Near West Side.

Just after 11 p.m., the teen was riding as a passenger in a vehicle in the 2600 block of West Van Buren Street when someone fired several shots, police said.

He suffered five gunshot wounds throughout his body and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said.

Another teen fatally shot in West Pullman

A 17-year-old boy died after he was shot Saturday night at a West Pullman neighborhood home on the Far South Side.

About 9:30 p.m., the teenager was in the basement of the home in the 12000 block of South Yale Avenue with several others when someone opened fire, police said. He was shot twice the head and was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.

The teen, identified as Amari Brown, was pronounced dead at 7:50 a.m. Sunday at the hospital, the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.

Little Village shooting

A man was killed and two others wounded in a shooting Saturday evening in Little Village on the Southwest Side.

About 7 p.m., a concerned citizen called in a tip about a vehicle driving slowly and bumping against a curb, police said. Responding officers found the man, thought to be about 20 years old, inside the vehicle in the 4200 block of South Cicero Avenue with three gunshot wounds to the torso, police said.

He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said. His name hasn’t been released.

Two other men, 32 and 27, were struck in the arm and taken to the same hospital, where they were listed in good condition, police said.

Teen shot to death in Belmont Cragin

A member of the National Guard and aspiring Chicago police officer was found shot to death early Saturday in Belmont Cragin on the Northwest Side.

Chrys Carvajal, of Portage Park, had attended a house party Friday night with his girlfriend and at one point went to get something from his car, his sister Jennifer Ramirez said.

About 1:25 a.m., officers responded to a call of shots fired in the 2200 block of North Lockwood Avenue and found Carvajal, 19, lying unresponsive on the sidewalk with gunshot wounds to the back and abdomen, police said. He was transported to Illinois Masonic Medical Center where he was pronounced dead, according to police.

Carvajal was found early Saturday lying unresponsive on the sidewalk in the 2200 block of North Lockwood Avenue with gunshot wounds to the back and abdomen, police said. He was transported to Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

“We are all very upset and we’re heartbroken,” Ramirez said Sunday. “My mom, she’s really devastated, too. She’s been crying. She has a sore throat because of all the crying, she’s just heartbroken.”

Ramirez said it’s hard to imagine life without her brother, whom she’ll remember as a man with a “big loving heart” who was always willing to help others. She pleaded for anyone with information to come forward.

“We just want people to help. If they saw something, if they know something to help, because if it was their family member, and we saw something, and my family saw something or witnessed something, we would speak up,” she said. “That’s the right thing to do.”

“The finger-pointing must end”

Last weekend, 10 people were killed and 68 others wounded in shootings across Chicago.

Amid the notoriously violent weekend, the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition on Sunday hosted a Fourth of July cookout and party at the Concordia Place Apartments on the Far South Side.

At the event, Jackson urged people to put down their guns and called on city officials, including Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Police Supt. David Brown, to actively work together to tamp down gun violence.

“The finger-pointing must end,” Jackson said.

He later added that, “We need better and we deserve better.”

Jackson’s comments come two days after City Council members spent six hours interrogating Brown over his plans to curb the latest surge in summertime gun violence.

“We urge people… to put down their guns, stop the violence. Of course, when they see violence — [an] attempt to overthrow our government and they’re treated with kid gloves, it decreases the message: If you pick up a gun and shoot somebody, you’re not walking away,” Jackson said. “We deserve a better America.”

Read more on crime, and track the city’s homicides.

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Two teenagers were shot, one critically, Monday night in Uptown on the South Side.

They were walking about 8:30 p.m. in the 4400 block of North Clarendon Avenue when someone fired shots, Chicago police said. Officers said they were possibly shot by someone inside a passing black car.

A 17-year-old boy was struck in the back, hip and leg, police said. He was taken in critical condition to Weiss Hospital and later transfered to Illinois Masonic Medical Center.

A teen girl, 16, was grazed by a bullet on the ankle and transported to Illinois Masonic Medical Center in good condition, police said.

Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times, Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

No one is in custody as Area Three detectives investigate.

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GREEN BAY, Wis. — Reigning NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers says he has spent this offseason focusing on improving himself in every respect, and that goes beyond making sure he’s in top physical shape.

Rodgers skipped Green Bay’s mandatory minicamp last month amid reports that he doesn’t want to return to the Packers. At a Monday news conference to promote his participation in Tuesday’s televised golf event with Tom Brady, Bryson DeChambeau and Phil Mickelson, Rodgers was asked how the last few months have gone for him.

Aside from a brief ESPN interview in late May, Rodgers hasn’t commented much about his football future since ESPN reported in the hours before the draft that he doesn’t want to return to the Packers.

“Sometimes, the loudest person in the room is not the smartest person,” Rodgers said. “Sometimes the loudest person in the room is not the person who has all the facts on their side or the truth on their side. Sometimes there’s a lot of wisdom in silence. Sometimes there’s a lot of wisdom in being selective on what you say. This offseason I’ve spent a lot of time working on myself.”

Rodgers then went into detail on just what type of work he had done.

“I’ve focused on in the offseason about how to take care of myself — the total package,” Rodgers said. “Not just my physical self with workouts but my spiritual self with my own mindful practices, my mental health as well. What’s the best way to take care of that? And that’s what I’ve been doing this offseason. That’s why I’ve taken the time I’ve taken and done the things or not done the things that I’ve done. And I’m very thankful for that time.

“I’m very thankful for the opportunity to work on my mental health. I haven’t dealt with bouts of depression or anything that for whatever reason are OK to talk about if you’re talking about mental health. I’ve just been really trying to think about what puts me in the best frame of mind.”

Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst has said he has no plans to trade Rodgers. Packers officials have said they want to keep Rodgers in Green Bay in 2021 and beyond.

Rodgers was promoting “The Match,” a made-for-TV event that pits the Packers quarterback and DeChambeau against Brady and Mickelson.

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Have you ever thought hard about the word “amateur”?

Probably not.

For some reason, we in America love the notion of the amateur athlete, the idealized jock doing his or her sport for nothing, carefree and innocent, like a fawn in a meadow, happy just to play the game even if those around him or her make fortunes off that play.

It’s telling that we know the word “amateur” best by its opposite. An amateur is someone who is not a professional.

But who is a professional? Or rather, who isn’t?

Little Johnny gets free hot dogs from Joe’s Deli when his fifth-grade travel baseball team wins? Little Susie gets a free uniform from the town bookstore that sponsors her soccer team?

Pros.

Poorly paid pros, yes.

But you get the point. It’s a fact that adhering to the unenforceable, unrealistic concept of amateurism and the alleged purity that comes with not getting paid for being superior at what you do is behind more than 100 years of conflict and pain caused to athletes under the NCAA’s control.

Now, at last, the U.S. Supreme Court has brought the NCAA’s cartel-like restraint of trade into the first stages of anti-trust breakup. Abruptly, college athletes can dip their toes into the waters of the free market, where their overlords have been splashing about from the get-go. From Florida to Alaska, sea to shining sea, college jocks — male and female, in all sports — are now able to capitalize on their identity, their fame, even their grades!

It’s not just star quarterbacks who will be cashing in. Indeed, the possibilities for smart, scholarly, outgoing, decent, entrepreneurial athletes of every sort to market their likenesses or do endorsements or be part of businesses that use them as paid role models —

well, that gives new meaning to the NCAA’s cynically created term “student-athlete.”

No, it’s not an absolute Wild West free-for-all. Individual states have some say in this. And colleges can set reasonable limits. This is developing capitalism.

But consider that incoming Tennessee State freshman basketball player Hercy Miller just signed a $2 million brand ambassador deal with Web Apps America, a software development company in Los Angeles. Well, yes, it helps that his dad is rap mogul Master P.

I mean, duh. But as the 19-year-old Miller said, “This is like playing in the pros now.”

It’s likely that many lesser athletes and stars alike will now stay in school for all of their eligibility, as long as they can, because of the perks of being that thing known as an “influencer.”

For those who don’t like this upending of the “amateur” world, who enjoyed having unpaid TV and stadium superstars entertaining them without voice or income — well, sorry. Just know this could have been resolved decades ago. It could have been resolved any time the wealthy, white-haired, sanctimonious NCAA field bosses with the figurative bullwhips in hand and the politicians, boosters, sponsors and TV networks in their pockets decided to.

Folks, this is what I wrote in a book called “The Hundred-Yard Lie” published 32 years ago (now re-released as “The College Football Problem”), with in-person observations going back to the early 1970s and document research back to the mid-19th century: “I marvel that amateurism still exists, in the face of the case against it.”

Of course, the Olympics went pro years ago. Don’t forget those college coaches making up to $10 million a year. Why wasn’t an academic scholarship good enough for them?

As essayist William T. Foster wrote in the Atlantic Monthly, “Only childlike innocence or willful blindness need prevent American colleges from seeing that the rules which aim to maintain athletics on what is called an ‘amateur’ basis . . . are worse than useless because, while failing to prevent men from playing for free, they breed deceit and hypocrisy.”

He wrote that in

1915. Back before rap. Before boy bands from Korea, even.

Amateurism is also described as something being done by somebody in an “incompetent or inept” way. Does that describe sports in the Big Ten? In the Pac-12? At Clemson, where quarterback Trevor Lawrence, this year’s No. 1 overall NFL draft pick, came from?

I daydream about what I could have done while playing football for Northwestern many years ago if we’d had these new rules. Maybe a deal with Vienna Beef here in Chicago? Or Nathan’s in New York? I do love hot dogs. That’s on my permanent record. What a spokesman I could have been! Joey Chestnut, back off!

So, amateurism, bye-bye. It’s been said before: Better late than never.

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In the deadliest and most violent weekend this year in Chicago, 99 people have been shot over the long Fourth of July weekend, 17 of them killed.

Among the wounded were at least eight children and teenagers and two Chicago police supervisors. Five of the kids were shot within nine hours Sunday evening through early Monday.

Both the number of fatal shootings and the number of shootings overall are highs for 2021, according to a Chicago Sun-Times database of shootings. By 5 p.m. Monday, Chicago had recorded 2,000 shootings this year, the Sun-Times’ database shows.

In one of the holiday weekend incidents, a 15-year-old boy was critically hurt in a drive-by shooting Monday evening at 5:50 p.m. when a dark-colored vehicle drove by and someone from inside pulled out a gun and fired shots in the 6600 block of South Langley Avenue in Woodlawn, police said.

About a half-hour earlier, a 48-year-old was arguing with a person in a home about 5:20 p.m. in the 8600 block of South Aberdeen Street when he was shot and killed, police said.

That followed an incident when two people were killed and four wounded, including a 12-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy in Washington Park on the South Side.

That happened around the same time that a 6-year-old girl and a woman were shot in West Pullman and about four hours after an 11-year-old boy and a man were shot in Brainerd on the South Side. And late Sunday afternoon, a 5-year-old girl was shot in a leg, also in West Pullman.

The Washington Park shooting happened around 1:05 a.m. Monday in the 6100 block of South Wabash Avenue, where a large group of kids and adults gathered outside in a parking lot outside an apartment building to socialize and light off fireworks. Someone inside a car that drove by a group of people there started shooting, according to the police.

A 21-year-old man, shot twice in the head, and a 26-year-old man, shot in the torso, were pronounced dead at the University of Chicago Medical Center, police said.

The 12-year-old was struck in the buttocks and taken to Comer Children’s Hospital, according to the police, who said the 13-year-old was shot in a hand and also taken to Comer to be treated.

A woman, 29, was struck in the elbow and taken to the hospital in good condition, and the sixth victim, a 34-year-old woman, suffered two graze wounds, according to the police.

“I wish that whatever this madness is going on, I wish that it would stop,” said Toni Watkins, who lives in an apartment complex that overlooks the parking lot where the shooting was and has lived in the area for seven years. “Usually, I feel safe around here. But now this has me questioning it because it’s close to home right now.”

Brian Rich / Sun-Times

She said she’s fearful for her own 16-year-old daughter.

“I tell her every day, ‘If you’re going out or going to work, please be careful, and come back home to me. Stay away from those knuckleheads,’ ” Watkins said.

Watkins said she cried when she heard about an earlier shooting in which a 1-month-old baby was shot last week while in a car. She said she’s distraught over kids being shot: “They didn’t ask to be hurt. I just pray and hope that the kids are OK that got hurt.”

Brian Rich / Sun-Times

Several people who live near the parking lot where the shootings happened said groups of 100 or more people often gather there.

A 27-year-old man who said he has lived on that block for 15 years said that “street beefs” mean “everything revolves around retaliation.” But what he said he can’t understand is, “You see a whole bunch of kids, something should click in your head saying not to shoot.”

Shelley Childs recently moved with her 9-year-old son into a lower-level apartment that overlooks the parking lot.

“We’re sitting up there, having a good time, enjoying ourselves, celebrating Fourth of July, and you’re out [there] plotting to kill people,” Childs said of whoever was behind the shootings. “That’s why I’m getting my son and myself away.”

Childs, 25, said she had left the neighborhood Sunday, and, “Something told me don’t come home, it’s so crazy.”

Childs said the violence is “becoming normal.” She said someone was shot and killed about a month ago outside her mother’s house in Hyde Park.

“I saw the body,” her son said.

The 9-year-old said that he tried “to stay calm, think of something else and think of something peaceful.”

“It’s scary,” said his mother, who’s working toward a nursing degree. “I feel like I need to carry a gun, and I don’t want to. But it’s been a trend of kids and women being shot more and more and more around here. And it’s scary. I cannot wait to leave.”

Police commander, sergeant shot on West Side

A Chicago police commander and a sergeant were shot and wounded early Monday after the police disperse a crowd on the West Side.

The officers were hit when someone on foot fired shots around 1:30 a.m. in the 100 block of North Long Avenue, police said.

The commander was struck in the foot, and the sergeant was grazed in the leg, according to police.

Driver fatally shot in Little Village

A man was killed while driving Monday in Little Village on the Southwest Side.

He was driving a gray SUV about 9:15 a.m. in the 3400 block of West 26th Street when someone fired shots at his vehicle, striking him multiple times, police said.

The 34-year-old crashed into a parked car after the shooting, police said. He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

1 killed, 1 hurt in Lawndale shooting

A man was killed and another man wounded in a shooting Monday morning in Lawndale on the West Side.

The men were outside just after 2 a.m. in the 1800 block of South Kildare Avenue when they were struck by gunfire, police said.

One man, about 30 years old, suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the body and was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital, according to police. He has not yet been identified. The other man, 62, suffered a gunshot wound to the knee and was taken to the same hospital where his condition was stabilized, police said.

Woman shot to death in Austin

One person was killed and three others wounded in a shooting Sunday night in Austin on the West Side.

About 10:45 p.m., two men and a woman were standing in an alley in the first block of North Menard Avenue when a 33-year-old man began shooting at them, police said.

A woman, 30, suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police.

A man, 32, was struck multiple times in the body and taken to Stroger Hospital where his condition was stabilized, police said.

Another man, 49, suffered a gunshot wound to the buttocks and was taken to the same hospital where his condition was also stabilized, police said.

A 49-year-old man, who was a concealed carry license holder, witnessed the incident and shot at the offender, according to police.

The offender, a 33-year-old man, was struck in the arm and hip, police said. He was placed into custody and taken to Stroger Hospital in serious condition.

Old Town fatal shooting

Just after 6 a.m. Sunday, a man was walking across the street in the 200 block of West Division Street when someone approached him and the two exchanged words, police said. The other person then began firing several shots towards the man, striking him in the torso, police said.

He was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital where he later died, police said.

Teen killed on Near West Side

A 19-year-old man was killed while riding in a vehicle late Saturday on the Near West Side.

Just after 11 p.m., the teen was riding as a passenger in a vehicle in the 2600 block of West Van Buren Street when someone fired several shots, police said.

He suffered five gunshot wounds throughout his body and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said.

Another teen fatally shot in West Pullman

A 17-year-old boy died after he was shot Saturday night at a West Pullman neighborhood home on the Far South Side.

About 9:30 p.m., the teenager was in the basement of the home in the 12000 block of South Yale Avenue with several others when someone opened fire, police said. He was shot twice the head and was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.

The teen, identified as Amari Brown, was pronounced dead at 7:50 a.m. Sunday at the hospital, the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.

Little Village shooting

A man was killed and two others wounded in a shooting Saturday evening in Little Village on the Southwest Side.

About 7 p.m., a concerned citizen called in a tip about a vehicle driving slowly and bumping against a curb, police said. Responding officers found the man, thought to be about 20 years old, inside the vehicle in the 4200 block of South Cicero Avenue with three gunshot wounds to the torso, police said.

He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said. His name hasn’t been released.

Two other men, 32 and 27, were struck in the arm and taken to the same hospital, where they were listed in good condition, police said.

Teen shot to death in Belmont Cragin

A member of the National Guard and aspiring Chicago police officer was found shot to death early Saturday in Belmont Cragin on the Northwest Side.

Chrys Carvajal, of Portage Park, had attended a house party Friday night with his girlfriend and at one point went to get something from his car, his sister Jennifer Ramirez said.

About 1:25 a.m., officers responded to a call of shots fired in the 2200 block of North Lockwood Avenue and found Carvajal, 19, lying unresponsive on the sidewalk with gunshot wounds to the back and abdomen, police said. He was transported to Illinois Masonic Medical Center where he was pronounced dead, according to police.

Carvajal was found early Saturday lying unresponsive on the sidewalk in the 2200 block of North Lockwood Avenue with gunshot wounds to the back and abdomen, police said. He was transported to Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

“We are all very upset and we’re heartbroken,” Ramirez said Sunday. “My mom, she’s really devastated, too. She’s been crying. She has a sore throat because of all the crying, she’s just heartbroken.”

Ramirez said it’s hard to imagine life without her brother, whom she’ll remember as a man with a “big loving heart” who was always willing to help others. She pleaded for anyone with information to come forward.

“We just want people to help. If they saw something, if they know something to help, because if it was their family member, and we saw something, and my family saw something or witnessed something, we would speak up,” she said. “That’s the right thing to do.”

“The finger-pointing must end”

Last weekend, 10 people were killed and 68 others wounded in shootings across Chicago.

Amid the notoriously violent weekend, the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition on Sunday hosted a Fourth of July cookout and party at the Concordia Place Apartments on the Far South Side.

At the event, Jackson urged people to put down their guns and called on city officials, including Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Police Supt. David Brown, to actively work together to tamp down gun violence.

“The finger-pointing must end,” Jackson said.

He later added that, “We need better and we deserve better.”

Jackson’s comments come two days after City Council members spent six hours interrogating Brown over his plans to curb the latest surge in summertime gun violence.

“We urge people… to put down their guns, stop the violence. Of course, when they see violence — [an] attempt to overthrow our government and they’re treated with kid gloves, it decreases the message: If you pick up a gun and shoot somebody, you’re not walking away,” Jackson said. “We deserve a better America.”

Read more on crime, and track the city’s homicides.

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Beachgoers behind the wheel were forced to shell out $30 over the Fourth of July weekend to park their vehicles near any lakefront parks.

That’s about five times more than Chicagoans typically have to cough up for a four-hour beach visit by car.

“Chicago, keeping poor folks off the beaches for 100 years,” one Twitter user lamented. “Shame on Chicago!” another said.

It caught many revelers off-guard on the way to their first proper Independence Day festivities in two years, but the higher holiday parking rate has been in place since 2018, according to Chicago Park District spokeswoman Michele Lemons.

“Similar to other parking lots across the city, the Chicago Park District imposes a holiday rate along the lakefront over the Fourth of July weekend,” Lemons said in an email. “The $30 flat parking rate is consistent at all lakefront locations.”

But rates were jacked up in at least one other lot that’s nowhere near the lake: Big Marsh Park on the Far South Side, about five miles removed from the closest beach.

Lemons didn’t immediately respond to a question about the inland pricing elevation, or what weekends will be $30 affairs in the future.

Still, the flat rate likely ended up as a discount for those who spent a full day at a downtown beach. Navy Pier charges $53 for a 24-hour stay, for example.

The temporary hike came several weeks after the city’s controversial installation of meters at Montrose Beach, which had been Chicago’s last bastion of free parking for a lakefront outing.

Parking prices return to regular levels Tuesday.

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Columbus Blue Jackets goaltender Matiss Kivlenieks died of chest trauma from an errant fireworks mortar blast in what authorities described Monday as a tragic accident on the Fourth of July.

Police in Novi, Michigan, said the firework tilted slightly and started to fire toward people nearby Sunday night. The 24-year-old Kivlenieks was in a hot tub and tried to get clear with several other people, police Lt. Jason Meier said. Authorities earlier said the Lativan had died of an apparent head injury during a fall, but an autopsy clarified the cause of death.

The fire department and EMTs got to the private home shortly after 10 p.m. and took Kivlenieks to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Meier said. The Oakland County Medical Examiner’s office reported preliminary autopsy results Monday afternoon.

Prior to the autopsy, police said Kivlenieks was believed to have slipped and hit his head on concrete while running from a malfunctioning firework.

“At the moment, we’re pretty certain this was a tragic accident,” Meier said.

Columbus general manager Jarmo Kekalainen tweeted: “Life is so precious and can be so fragile. Hug your loved ones today. RIP Matiss, you will be dearly missed.” Blue Jackets president of hockey operations John Davidson called it a “devastating time” for the team.

“Kivi was an outstanding young man who greeted every day and everyone with a smile and the impact he had during his four years with our organization will not be forgotten,” he said.

Kivlenieks’ death came on the eve of Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final in Montreal, where the Tampa Bay Lightning had a chance to clinch the championship against the Canadiens on Monday night. Bell Centre held a moment of silence for Kivlenieks prior to the national anthems.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said Kivlenieks’ “love for life and passion for the game will be deeply missed by all those who have been fortunate to have him as a teammate and a friend.”

The Latvian Hockey Federation called Kivlenieks’ death “a great loss not only for Latvian hockey but for the entire Latvian nation.”

Kivlenieks most recently represented Latvia this spring at the world hockey championship in which he played four games. He played two games for the Blue Jackets and eight for the American Hockey League’s Cleveland Monsters this past season.

A native of Riga, Latvia, Kivlenieks signed with the Blue Jackets as a free agent in May 2017 and played eight games for the club overall. He was seen as a possible No. 2 goaltender next season if Joonas Korpisalo or Elvis Merzlikins is traded.

Kivlenieks was at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington last Tuesday as a guest of IndyCar driver Alexander Rossi.

Rossi announced that day he was going to race the Baja 1000 in Mexico in November, and Kivlenieks took a ride around Mid-Ohio in a Honda Ridgeline to help promote both Rossi and Sunday’s IndyCar race.

“This hits hard,” Rossi tweeted. “Prayers to the family and the team.”

How the events of Sunday night unfolded came into focus Monday as Meier said the autopsy findings prompted officers to re-interview some witnesses. He said police will continue trying to interview as many people as they can who were present at the time.

“We’re starting to put together a pretty good picture of what occurred,” he said.

Meier said police who responded to the emergency calls said there was a “large gathering” at the home but he didn’t have an estimate of how many people were there or how many people police want to speak with.

Meier would not provide the address of the property in Novi, a northern suburb of Detroit. A police report hasn’t yet been completed.

“What a tragic loss for all of us who knew him and I am thinking and praying for his family,” former Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno tweeted. “Heaven gained a darn good goalie and better person… Just, way too soon.”

Former Columbus defenseman David Savard learned of the accident from Foligno.

“That was a brutal wakeup this morning,” Savard said in French. “That was a good kid with a lot of talent who was going to be a part of the team next year or in the future. That’s extremely sad.”

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Public Affairs with Jeff Berkowitz

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Berkowitz w/ Chicago GOP Chair Steve Boulton on insuring voter rights, ballot integrity and preventing fraud in elections, Cable & Web

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By Jeff Berkowitz,
today at 8:29 pm

Tonight’s Chicago edition of Public Affairs celebrates our nation’s 246^th birthday, featuring guest Steve Boulton, Chair, Chicago Republican Party discussing with show host Berkowitz how best to insure fair and honest democratic elections

The show airs in the City of Chicago at 8:30 pm and midnight on Cable Ch. 21 (CAN TV).

You can also watch the show 24/7 by clicking here.  

The Berkowitz- Boulton discussion was taped just two days before the U. S. Supreme Court issued a ruling on Thursday of this week supporting the Arizona election law that significantly curtails ballot harvesting and requires votes cast outside of the voter’s precinct to be discarded.

Tonight’s show discussion should give viewers some perspective to understand and assess the Supreme Court’s opinion.  

Election laws have recently been changed in other states, including Georgia and Florida, and as in Arizona, some argue those election laws are designed to discourage minority voting, are discriminatory against minorities and violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  Others, including the majorities in the legislatures in those states disagree and argue the laws are designed to prevent fraud and insure ballot integrity and security.   

The Department of Justice 10 days ago filed a lawsuit against Georgia arguing on similar grounds to those argued by the Democratic Party in the lawsuit involving Arizona that the new Georgia election law violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Georgia will of course argue it’s law was constitutional and not illegal, in part because Georgia has a compelling need to prohibit voter fraud and moreover, the law had neither a racially discriminatory intent nor effect, all of which the Supreme Court found in it’s decision this past week holding the Arizona law constitutional .  

We explore the above and other issues with attorney Boulton, an expert in voting laws and regulations, and provide a foundation for understanding some of the likely benign motivations of the Georgia legislators- even though our show was taped two days before the Supreme Court handed down it’s decision in the Arizona case.

The show also airs this week on cable in:

— Chicago tomorrow night at 9:41 pm on Cable Ch 21 (CAN TV)

— Aurora, Wednesday, 6 pm, Cable Ch 10

— Rockford & surrounding areas, Thursday, 8:30 pm, Cable Ch 17 

— Chicago, Saturday, 9:41 am, Cable Ch 21

—  Chicago, Sunday, 9:11 am, Cable Ch19

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Max Lewis didn’t have to make the trek downtown.

The affable 20-year-old University of Chicago junior had the option to work from home for the competitive internship he’d landed at a Loop investment firm, but he “loved getting to know as many people as he could,” according to his best friend.

“He loved the grind,” Zach Cogan said of his classmate and fraternity brother.

Lewis was commuting home during rush hour Thursday when a bullet pierced the window of his train at the 51st Street Green Line station and entered his neck. He died at a hospital Sunday morning.

Police say he wasn’t the intended target. Investigators have yet to provide a possible description of the shooter. It’s not even clear which direction the gunfire came from.

“It’s a senseless tragedy for so many reasons,” Cogan said.

Friends of Lewis remembered him as a gregarious jokester, a hyper-focused student, an avid runner and a car guy — one who went out of his way to make people feel welcome.

“He was so incredibly caring, loyal and genuine,” said Cogan, who met Lewis on their first day at the prestigious Hyde Park campus and roomed with him at Alpha Epsilon Pi, the Jewish fraternity of which Lewis was president. “He loved working hard for other people because he was so damn selfless. And he never wanted people to thank him for what he did.”

Provided by Kent Denver School.

The Denver-area native was studying economics and computer science. He graduated in 2019 from the Kent Denver School, a prestigious private school. His 12th grade physics teacher, Dr. Rand Harrington, said in an email “he grew into an exceptional scholar full of good humor, curiosity, drive and a deep passion for technology.”

At the U. of C., Lewis was a leader of Promontory Investment Research, a student group that helps interested undergrads produce and write research reports — a field Lewis was passionate about, his friend Victoria Gin said.

“He was a ball of light,” Gin said, especially in the early dark days of COVID-19, when the group’s meetings were all virtual. “Max would bring his energy like he was in person. He would give 120%, and you felt that through the screen.”

When he wasn’t busy somewhere on campus, he’d be touching base with friends during hour-long phone calls, or while tagging along for a trip to the grocery store.

“He was like this butterfly,” Cogan said.

Provided

Lewis also loved talking cars, especially the one he coveted most: the Porsche 911. “But anything that had a stick, he’d drive it, just because he could,” Cogan said.

Only a few weeks before the shooting, Lewis had started interning for Segall Bryant & Hamill, according to his LinkedIn profile. A spokesperson for the firm couldn’t be reached.

And he’d already been looking forward to a big internship he’d just landed for next summer, according to Gin. “My latest conversations with him were so optimistic,” she said.

In a message to students and faculty, U. of C. officials said, “the University is devastated by Max’s loss. During this sorrowful time, our deepest sympathies are with Max’s family, friends, and all who knew him. Max was a talented student and beloved campus leader and friend who will be greatly missed.”

Lewis is survived by his parents and younger brother.

His fraternity launched an online campaign to help cover members’ travel costs to funeral services in Denver. Remaining proceeds will go to the Rivkin Foundation, which funds ovarian cancer research, as well as a to-be-determined anti-gun violence group, Cogan said.

“This happens all the time in Chicago,” Cogan said. “It needs to end.”

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Whenever Fidaa Elaydi buys fresh falafel for $3.99 a dozen from a bakery in Palos Hills, she gives her three children a lesson on Palestinian cuisine.

Elaydi recalls how her father gets nostalgic every time he eats Jerusalem sesame bread because it reminds him of his own childhood, when he would sell loaves of that bread while living in the Gaza Strip.

“I try and make those parts that weren’t accessible to my parents in the refugee camp accessible to my kids here, while at the same time helping them understand the nuance,” said Elaydi, 33, a third-generation Palestinian refugee and an immigration attorney who lives in southwest suburban Justice.

When talking to them about their Palestinian identity, she focuses on the beauty of the area her parents would tell her stories about when she was growing up — Jaffa’s oranges, the vastness of the Mediterranean Sea and eating figs and pomegranates right off the trees.

“I just try to link everything back … to strengthen their connection to their homeland in that way,” she added.

Courtesy photo

That continued connection to their homeland was on full display recently, when hundreds took to the streets in the Loop to show support for Palestinians in their conflict with Israel.

The Arab America website estimates 85,000 Palestinians live in greater Chicago, making up 60% of Chicago’s Arab population.

The community is scattered across the metropolitan area, but Arabic street signs are so commonplace in some southwest suburbs — around Bridgeview, Oak Lawn and Worth — that the area has been called “Little Palestine.”

“Palestinians sort of settled in this area, and they chose to stay near each other and build this close-knit community. If you’re driving down South Harlem, you’ll see bakeries, dessert shops, jewelry stores and small grocery stores — everything citing the names of the cities of Palestine,” Elaydi said.

The Arab American Action Network, a nonprofit community center established in 1995 on the Southwest Side, is one of many hubs for the community. Social services, advocacy work, education, women and youth engagement, and cultural events are among the services and outreach programs the network offers.

That community is bound by a history of conflict and displacement. The region Palestinians call home includes much of present-day Israel. Palestinian Americans living in Chicago are just one piece of a larger network of Palestinians living in the U.S. and around the world who connect to their struggle through storytelling, activism, social justice and sometimes just by existing.

All four of Elaydi’s grandparents were forced to leave their homes in 1948, a date known to some as Israel’s war of independence but to others as the “Nakba,” Arabic for catastrophe.

They ended up in a refugee camp in Gaza, where Elaydi’s parents grew up until her father, accompanied by her mother, moved to the United States as a student.

“Because the Palestinian story is inherently a story of dispossession and displacement and exile, I have never believed that my connection, or my Palestinian identity, was any less than a Palestinian living between the [Jordan] River and the [Mediterranean] Sea,” she said.

Ahlam Jbara immigrated to Chicago in 1974 when she was two months old. She moved back to the West Bank with her family in 1986. But the next year, six months after the first Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, her family moved back to Chicago.

“I always say the two years that I lived there shaped who I am today,” said Jbara, 47.

Provided

That 73-year-long conflict continues today and flared anew earlier this year in Jerusalem, where Palestinians were faced with heavy-handed Israeli police tactics at Al-Aqsa Mosque during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in April.

This, combined with the threatened evictions of dozens of Palestinian families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem by Jewish settlers, was followed by the group Hamas sending long-range rockets toward Jerusalem and Israel launching heavy airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.

At least 230 Palestinians were killed, including 65 children and 39 women, with 1,710 people wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Twelve people in Israel, including a 5-year-old boy and 16-year-old girl, were killed.

The 11-day outburst of violence ended May 20, with a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas.

During the conflict, Palestinian Americans and their supporters took to the streets in Chicago and around the world.

The community’s sense of connection here reflects decades of organizing and institution-building, said Hatem Abudayyeh, the Arab American Action Network’s executive director.

Abudayyeh, the son of Palestinian immigrants, is also national chairperson of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network — a grassroots group that also is part of the Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine, an umbrella organization for pro-Palestine groups in the area, including American Muslims for Palestine, Jewish Voices for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine.

“We were positioned to be able to respond the way we did with masses of people because we have institutions. Because we’ve established a tradition and a history of community organizing in the city and in the United States as a whole for a long, long time,” Abudayyeh said.

The coalition-organized rallies shut down parts of the Loop while marchers demonstrated outside the Israeli consulate, waving Palestinian flags.

Aviv Ezra, consul general of Israel to the Midwest, said the latest situation was not about the situation in Sheikh Jarrah, but rather about the actions of Hamas, which he said has “used every pretext … to wage violence against and eliminate the state of Israel.”

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

In mid-June the ceasefire was tested when hundreds of Israeli ultranationalists, some chanting “Death to Arabs,” marched through east Jerusalem to celebrate Israel’s capture of the area in 1967. Palestinians then sent fire-carrying balloons into southern Israel, causing several blazes in parched farmland. Israel carried out airstrikes, and more balloons followed.

About a week after that, there were confrontations between Palestinians and Jewish settlers in a Jerusalem neighborhood where settler groups are trying to evict several Palestinian families, officials said last week.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Growing awareness of systemic racism in the United States casts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a different light for some Americans, says Wendy Pearlman, a political science professor at Northwestern University.

“That language of rights and equality also draws the connections to Black Lives Matter and social justice protests in ways that, at least in the American context, people are beginning to see in a new light that puts human rights in the forefront and that is difficult for Israel and its allies to delegitimize,” she added.

Tarek Khalil, a member of American Muslims for Palestine’s Chicago chapter, said the rallies are “outcries for justice, liberation and equality.”

“Me being an activist here is absolutely worthwhile, because the government that represents me is the same government that is providing the same entity that is the source of my people’s oppression — $3.8 billion a year in financial, weapons and diplomatic aid,” said Khalil, 36, who grew up in Chicago and lives in Bridgeview but spent four years of his childhood living in East Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood.

“It’s personal but also political,” Khalil said. “It’s essential that we pressure our government to formulate policies that are not antithetical to the values that we preach about every single day.”

Contributing: Associated Press

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