Five people were seriously injured in a traffic crash Friday morning in the Calumet Heights neighborhood.
A car occupied by three people in their 20s struck another car about 7:30 a.m. at Stony Island Avenue and 87th Street, according to preliminary information from Chicago police.
Two women in the other car, ages 70 and 63, were gravely injured in the crash, according to preliminary information from police.
Three others, all in their 20s, were taken to hospitals in serious condition, according to police and Chicago fire spokesman Larry Merritt.
Nazareth’s roster is a lot different than expected because of the pandemic. Players have moved out of state to play, graduated early or did both (quarterback JJ McCarthy, a national champ last fall at IMG Academy and early enrollee at Michigan). But the Roadrunners (2-0) still have plenty of talent, including by four-star receiver Tyler Morris. Coastal Carolina-bound quarterback Dontrell Jackson Jr. leads Marist (2-1), which is playing a third straight high-profile game after beating neighborhood rival Brother Rice and falling to Mount Carmel the past two weeks.
No. 21 Hillcrest at No. 1 Loyola, 3 p.m. Saturday
One of the unexpected consequences of COVID-era football is on-the-fly scheduling of intriguing replacement games that never would happen in a typical season. This north suburban/south suburban matchup is a good example. Hillcrest (3-0) has one of the state’s premier backs in Minnesota recruit Mar’Keise Irving. Loyola (3-0) faces its fourth straight ranked opponent after earning wins over St. Rita, Mount Carmel and Brother Rice. Vaughn Pemberton’s running and a throwback defense have been among the keys to the Ramblers’ success.
No. 16 Wheaton North at St. Charles North, 6:30 p.m. Friday
The second half of the DuKane Conference season kicks off with a good one. Wheaton North (3-0) is solid now and will be even better this fall, with sophomore linebacker Ross Dansdill sparking the defense and a bunch of junior playmakers — quarterback Mark Forcucci and running back Brayton Maske among them — on offense. St. Charles North (2-1), the only team to test Batavia this season, is experienced with 17 starters back. Receiver/defensive back Jordan Nubin will be a preferred walk-on at Minnesota.
No. 8 Naperville Central at No. 20 DeKalb, 2 p.m. Saturday
It’s been a scramble in the DuPage Valley Conference, with the three top teams (Naperville Central, DeKalb and Neuqua Valley) playing only four of nine scheduled league games so far. That raises the stakes for this one between the Redhawks (3-0, 1-0) and Barbs (2-0, 2-0). Naperville Central has some gamebreakers on offense, including a pair of juniors: four-star receiver Reggie Fleurima, a Northwestern recruit, and running back Antonio Torres. Tucker Ikens , Toriano Tate and Trenton Kyler have combined for seven rushing TDs in two games for DeKalb.
Wauconda at Antioch, 7 p.m. Friday
The winner of this matchup of 3-0 teams has an inside track to the Northern Lake County Conference title. Antioch coach Brian Glashagel might have his best team ever — and he’s had four clubs go unbeaten in the regular season. Minnesota-bound brothers Athan and Dino Kaliakmanis, a quarterback and receiver respectively, lead a potent offense. Wauconda has a productive quarterback in senior Nick Bulgarelli.
Thinking of making a change? Do you wish you could walk to the park in 5 minutes, or that there was somewhere just around the corner to grab good coffee? Logan Square has no shortage of things to do, convenient public transit, pleasant side streets, and parks. If you’re are debating about moving to the city, we have compiled a list of attractions and parks you need to be familiar with in Logan Square.
The intersection itself is pretty busy, but the neighborhood surrounding is a great place to be. There’s a Blue Line stop here for extremely convenient transportation, and you’ll only be a few minutes east of Palmer Square Park and south of Haas (Joseph) Park. Within just the Fullerton-California-Milwaukee triangle, you’ll find the excellent vegetarian Chicago Diner, cafe and music venue Cafe Mustache, and the Revolution Brewpub.
Though Logan Boulevard (which loops around the park) is widely considered to be a harrowing driving experience, the area both in and around Logan Square Park is beautiful and full of things to do. Coffee shops and eateries like New Wave Coffee and Longman & Eagle line nearby streets, and Logan Theatre is just steps away. Art gallery and music venue Comfort Station maintains a small but mighty presence in the park itself. Transportation is easy here, with the Logan Square Blue Line stop sitting just north of the park.
Another intersection that’s hopping on a Friday night, Kedzie and Armitage is adjacent to relatively quiet, tree-lined residential streets. If you’re searching for things to do in Logan Square, walk northeast of here and you’ll run into pleasant spots like the Whipple Community Garden amid the apartments and houses. Northwest, Maple Playlot Park sits just off of Spaulding. When you want to liven things up, Scofflaw will be sitting right on the southwest corner waiting for you, and the 606 Trail is just a few blocks south.
Living in the area that sits north of North Avenue, south of the 606 (and de Burgos Park), east of Kedzie and west of Humboldt Boulevard, you’ll be surrounded by green spaces while tucked into a quiet residential area. Not only is the 606 Trail extremely close, but Humboldt Park (encompassing Humboldt Park Lagoon, basketball courts, tennis courts, a bird and butterfly sanctuary, and more) is just across North Avenue.
This area of Logan Square overlaps with parts of Belmont Gardens and Irving Park, and guarantees a sizable green space within easy walking distance of tons of places to live. A little further from the highway and the Blue Line, Kosciuszko Park and its surrounding neighborhood provide plenty of things to do (including La Catrina and Brew Brew Coffee) without quite so much hustle and bustle.
The ChicagoBulls picked up their third straight win on Thursday night against the Toronto Raptors, winning 122-113.
A run of wins seems to be in place for the Bulls now that their offense and rotations are filling out. Bulls fans saw a lot of positive things from their win on Thursday night.
Garrett Temple was the only notable player left out of the game due to injury, still dealing with his hamstring issue.
The Raptors had just eight available players, who all played. Kyle Lowry, Fred VanVleet, and Rodney Hood headlined the eight missing players.
The cutting offense worked extremely well for the Bulls. The team was able to put up 35 assists on the night, 16 of them coming in the first half. Zach LaVine attributed a team-high 13 assists, which is a career-high with the Bulls.
Post-ups continue to be a high-volume asset to their offense. Vucevic, Theis, and Markkanen all worked extremely well in the post on offense. They received many feeds inside the paint and went to work on the Raptors’ frontcourt. Vucevic embraced many double teams.
My last article alluded to the fact that Markkanen and White should start putting up better figures off the bench. They did just that. Markkane had 18 points and four rebounds on 80 percent shooting. White had 15 points, three rebounds, and one assist on 50 percent shooting.
Daniel Theis recorded his first double-double with the Bulls — recording 14 points and 10 rebounds. The bench put up 47 points from three players, shooting 19/29 from the field.
The offense dominated from every aspect of the field. The Bulls shot made one more shot from distance than the Raptors, shooting 40 percent from downtown. They also dominated in the paint, winning that battle 64-56 in points in the paint.
LaVine and Nikola Vucevic worked plenty off each other on the pick-and-roll. LaVine ended the night with 22 points, shooting 50 percent from the field, and tacking 13 assists. Vucevic also put in 22, making 9/19 field goals and adding seven rebounds and four assists.
Brown showed excellent flashes of strong defense, guarding OG Anunoby in the second half of the game. He even posted one block on him.
Chris Boucher was unstoppable from all over the floor. He put up a whopping 38 points, shooting 58.3 percent from the field.
The Bulls’ struggles to close games still haunt them, even with an injured and rebuilding Raptors team. The Raptors were able to cut their once 22-point lead down to seven in the fourth quarter. The Bulls turned the ball over 11 times in the second half.
LaVine scored the Bulls’ last five of seven points, scoring a driving layup and a contested three-point shot to put the nail in the coffin. His will-to-win is unmatched and the need for his clutch factor is still dramatically high.
The Bulls forced the Raptors to miss three straight shots during the Raptors’ comeback in the fourth quarter. While the Bulls let their foot up off the gas for a moment, they regained and took over.
The Raptors are now three games behind the Bulls, leaving the Bulls a comfortable spot in 10th place in the Eastern Conference — enough for them to see a play-in tournament spot.
The Bulls will travel to Atlanta to take on the Hawks on Friday night. The Hawks are fifth in the Eastern Conference standings and have won four of their last five games. Clint Capela and Danilo Gallinari and are questionable for the game. John Collins appears to be out.
Kaylee Cong, 32, whose Vietnamese father was attacked, poses for a portrait outside a nail spa she manages in the Logan Square neighborhood, Saturday afternoon, March 27, 2021. Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
The coronavirus pandemic sparked a mental health crisis. For Asians and Asian Americans also facing a rise in hate incidents across the country, it’s been “trauma upon trauma,” says Anne Saw, a Chicago psychologist.
“A lot of our communities are experiencing so many pandemic stressors that are then compounded by a lot of anti-Asian discrimination that we’re also experiencing,” says Saw, who teaches at DePaul University and directs the Chicago Asian American Psychology Lab.
“It’s tough to, like, get your head above water and get some room to breathe when every day we’re confronted with new traumas,” she says.
We talked to seven Chicagoans about how anti-Asian violence coupled with the pandemic have affected their mental health and their everyday lives. Among them was Kaylee Cong, 32, of Uptown, who manages a nail spa.
On March 20, four days after the Atlanta shootings, Cong says, her 60-year-old Vietnamese father was punched in the head as he walked alone that night near Broadway and West Ainslee Street. He turned to run, saw a white man holding a baseball bat watching him and called 911.
“We’re really scared,” says Cong, who’d been talking with her father about the Georgia shootings the day before he was attacked. “What if the person come back and do revenge? My entire life living here, it was so peaceful. There was no violence like this.”
She says her father hasn’t wanted to leave the house since that happened.
Older Asian Americans “just want to keep quiet and don’t want to make waves,” Cong says. “I have really different mentality. We deserve to, you know, feel safe. And we shouldn’t be afraid to stand up for ourselves.”
8:08 a.m. Spike in COVID-19 cases causes University of Chicago to announce stay-at-home period for students
University of Chicago announced a stay-at-home period for students Wednesday evening following the largest COVID-19 outbreak at the university since the start of the academic year.
After more than 50 cases of the coronavirus were detected among undergraduates in recent days, the university announced that students living on-campus must observe a week-long stay-at-home period immediately.
“We expect this number to increase,” university officials said in an email sent to members of the university community Thursday.
All undergraduate classes will be fully remote for at least a week starting Thursday and students can only leave their residence halls for food, medical appointments and short walks for exercise.
Illinois’ infection rate is still less than a third of what it was during the worst days of the pandemic last fall — but it’s doubled in the last four weeks.
Trillions of dollars of federal COVID-19 relief checks have been sent out across the country to help people buy food and pay rent. In Chicago, they’re also helping to fuel gun sales — legally and illegally.
That’s according to authorities on the subject — including a 25-year-old convicted felon in West Garfield Park who says he spent some of his coronavirus stimulus money to buy a gun on the street.
“You gotta do what you gotta do to stay safe out here,” said the man, speaking on the condition his name not be used.
Law enforcement officials say they’re been building cases against people who have used their pandemic-relief checks to buy guns and illegally resell them on the street.
Law-abiding people are buying guns with their relief checks, too.
“It’s a concern,” said Teny Gross, executive director of the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago, a not-for-profit agency whose mission includes mediating conflicts on the West Side and Southwest Side in an effort to avoid violence.
Tio Hardiman, executive director of Violence Interrupters, a not-for-profit Chicago peace initiative, said the two first rounds of federal relief checks have helped fuel a hot market for guns in low-income neighborhoods in Chicago.
“Yes, people are using money they are receiving from COVID-19 resources to buy firearms,” Hardiman said, describing illegal gun possession as out of control. “We hear stories about people selling semi-automatics out of shopping bags these days.”
Though guns have been easy to pick up illegally in Chicago for decades, Hardiman and others say that fears over the huge rise in violence that Chicago has seen over the past year are leading to an even wider proliferation of firearms that’s being seen citywide.
Last year, the number of killings in Chicago was up 55% over the previous year. And the numbers are continuing to soar.
Illinois set a record for lawful gun purchases last year. The Illinois State Police reported more than 554,000 gun-transfer inquiries in 2020 compared with 385,000 in 2019.
In Chicago, law enforcement officers, speaking on the condition their names not be used, said they, too, attribute the influx of guns in the city in part to the COVID relief checks that went out over the past year.
A stimulus check issued by the IRS to help combat the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.AP
The first round provided checks of up to $1,200. The second checks were for up to $600. And the $1.9 trillion relief package approved by Congress last month provides up to $1,400 more per person, with families eligible to receive up to $1,400 for each dependent. The Internal Revenue Service has said most of that latest money was expected to be distributed electronically by this past week.
One law enforcement official said investigators have found that scams involving CARES Act pandemic grants for small businesses to make their payrolls are being used to pay for weapons used in gun-trafficking.
The officials also said law-abiding citizens buying guns at suburban stores have told clerks they’re using “COVID money” from their relief checks to pay for them.
Given the rise in violence, Hardiman said, “A lot of people living in the heart of the city have to protect themselves.”
Gross said “it’s not an irrational decision” for people to buy guns these days– “but we will regret this arms race.”
The huge demand for guns is driving up their price on the street: a Glock pistol that might have sold for $500 a few years ago is now going for more than $700, a law-enforcement source said.
He and Hardiman said law enforcement officials need to do more to crack down on illegal gun-traffickers.
“The ATF and FBI are not doing a good job intercepting the illegal gun trade in Chicago,” Hardiman said.
Gross said law enforcement officials should consider giving people caught with illegal weapons deals in exchange for providing information about where they got them. He even suggested putting the faces of convicted gun traffickers “on a billboard on the highway.”
Gross said the demand for guns is driven by more than just the need for protection. In places where there’s a lack of hope, a gun is a symbol of manhood. The COVID-19 relief checks just make it easier to buy one.
The best way to reduce gun-carrying — and violence — is to provide those same people with job opportunities, Gross said. He said he hopes President Joe Biden’s proposed $2 trillion plan to improve America’s infrastructure will provide some of those needed jobs.
The coronavirus pandemic sparked a mental health crisis. For Asians and Asian Americans also facing a rise in hate incidents across the country, it’s been “trauma upon trauma,” says Anne Saw, a Chicago psychologist.
“A lot of our communities are experiencing so many pandemic stressors that are then compounded by a lot of anti-Asian discrimination that we’re also experiencing,” says Saw, who teaches at DePaul University and directs the
Anne Saw.Chicago Asian American Psychology Lab
“It’s tough to, like, get your head above water and get some room to breathe when every day we’re confronted with new traumas,” she says.
In Illinois, 92 anti-Asian hate incidents were reported from March 19, 2020, through the end of February to the group Stop AAPI Hate, which monitors anti-Asian hate incidents, and 3,795 nationally.
Many Asians and Asian Americans are still reeling from the shooting last month at Atlanta-area spas where a white man killed eight people, six of them Asian women.
Saw is researching the pandemic’s impact on Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities in the United States and the effects of hate incidents on Asian Americans.
She says that, so far in her study, 69% of the people responding who said they experienced hate incidents also reported mental health concerns, “and 72% report anti-Asian discrimination as among their greatest sources of stress.”
Among their concerns were depression, anxiety, lowered self-worth, intrusive thoughts and hypervigilance.
It isn’t only those who are the targets of hate incidents who are affected, according to Saw. Witnessing racial discrimination, hearing about it or seeing news reports are “race-based trauma incidents or exposures” that she says can cause physical symptoms.
These seven Chicagoans talk about how anti-Asian violence coupled with the pandemic have affected their mental health and their everyday lives.
Kaylee Cong.Pat Nabong / Sun-Times
Kaylee Cong, 32, Uptown, nail spa manager
On March 20, four days after the Atlanta shootings, Kaylee Cong says, her 60-year-old Vietnamese father was punched in the head as he walked alone that night near Broadway and West Ainslee Street. He turned to run, saw a white man holding a baseball bat watching him and called 911.
“We’re really scared,” says Cong, who’d been talking with her father about the Georgia shootings the day before he was attacked. “What if the person come back and do revenge? My entire life living here, it was so peaceful. There was no violence like this.”
She says her father hasn’t wanted to leave the house since that happened.
Older Asian Americans “just want to keep quiet and don’t want to make waves,” Cong says. “I have really different mentality. We deserve to, you know, feel safe. And we shouldn’t be afraid to stand up for ourselves.”
Catherine Shieh.Pat Nabong / Sun-Times
Catherine Shieh, 28, South Loop, anti-hate training coordinator
“There’s a sense of tiredness that’s not only being tired to function in a world that continues to tell you that you don’t belong and that your life is worth less than somebody else’s,” says Catherine Shieh, a second-generation Taiwanese American who was hired by the organization Asian Americans Advancing Justice Chicago to facilitate bystander- intervention training sessions as hate incidents were being reported at the start of the pandemic. “There’s also a tiredness in having the same discussion. We know what the problem is. The problem is racism and white supremacy.”
Shieh says that the combination of the pandemic and anti-Asian violence have left her feeling isolated in three ways: from social distancing, because she fears being attacked and because she’s uncomfortable venturing to the North Side, where she has seen fewer people wearing face masks.
“I feel vulnerable as an Asian American woman, ” Shieh says. “And I have always felt that way.”
Jaye Hobart.Pat Nabong / Sun-Times
Jaye Hobart, 32, Lakeview, board member, HANA Center and Korean Adoptees of Chicago
Jaye Hobart, a Korean American transnational adoptee, says she’d experience subtle racist and misogynistic interactions often before but that the pandemic brought that to another level.
“Now, during the pandemic, it’s inflicted a different type of kind of fear and paranoia that I’ve never experienced before,” says Hobart, who says people have spat at and yelled at her. “I’m feeling, you know, much more dependent on my partner, who I live with, that I can’t really walk outside without him.”
She says it’s difficult having been born in Korea and raised by American parents.
“It’s, like, externally isolating because I just feel like culturally, I feel separated, right, from kind of your mainstream narrative around immigration, around Asian American women, and kind of feel like maybe I’m not qualified to be a part of this space because, you know, I don’t have kind of those shared narratives,” Hobart says.
Milana Dam.Mengshin Lin / Sun-Times
Milana Dam, 15, Bridgeport, Whitney Young Magnet High School freshman
Milana Dam says she is afraid for her mother, who works at a nail spa and is often there alone.
“I don’t live with her full time, so I can’t, like, watch over her all the time,” Dam says. “My mental health has gotten a lot worse, I would say, because I’m not going out as much. I’m not interacting with people as much. So, of course, I’m going to be, like, surrounded by my own thoughts.”
Ok Kyung Kim.Pat Nabong / Sun-Times
Ok Kyung Kim, 66, Old Town, senior service coordinator
Since moving to the United States at 15, Ok Kyung Kim says she has felt free, like she always had more than enough of what she needed. But the pandemic and the Georgia shootings changed that, she says.
“I was shocking and afraid for myself,” says Kim, who works for Koram Senior Housing at a senior building that’s home to 60 Korean Americans.
“I’m an Asian elderly who live in the U.S.A., but, yes, I’m afraid of to go out and have a shopping and go outside, so I still I have some worries, so not totally free, and I don’t feel safe anymore in this community.”
Daranee Amornkiatipisan (center) with her kids Win (left) and Leya.Pat Nabong / Sun-Times
“It pains me deeply that Asian people are being verbally and physically attacked, you know, during this pandemic when we’re supposed to be healing together as a nation,” saysDaranee Amornkiatipisan, a Thai-Filipino-Chinese nurse who brought her children to a Stop Asian Hate rally in Chinatown because she wants them to be proud to be Asian.
“But instead we’re divided in pain,” says Amornkiatipisan, who was caring for COVID-19 patients at the beginning of the pandemic. She contracted the disease in March 2020 and was “very ill” for three months, an experienced she called “very traumatic.” “I’m a healthcare worker, and I take care of others, you know, and, especially during this pandemic, I’m fighting for my life, too.”
Mari Yamagiwa.Pat Nabong / Sun-Times
Mari Yamagiwa, 30, Jefferson Park, North Park University student
Mari Yamagiwa, a fourth-generation Japanese American, says that, she has become hypervigilant and that she and her friends have had “visceral reactions” like fatigue, pain and nausea after hearing of the Georgia shootings.
“I think it can be really triggering for so many of us,” says Yamagiwa, who says she also was told, “Go back to China,” while President Donald Trump was in office. “I’m also trying to grapple with the feeling of being invisible — unheard and unseen for 30 years — and then, all of a sudden, now feeling super-visible.”
A person was killed and eight others wounded in shootings Thursday across Chicago.
A 30-year-old man was fatally shot early Thursday in a drive-by at a gas station in the West Garfield Park neighborhood.
He was identified as David Walker of West Englewood by the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Someone fired shots from a passing vehicle at the man about 2:15 a.m. as he sat in a parked car at a gas station in the first block of North Kilbourn Avenue, Chicago police said.
Walker was struck in the head and back, and pronounced dead at the scene, police and the medical examiner’s office said.
In nonfatal shootings, a 30-year-old woman was shot Thursday in Humboldt Park on the West Side.
About 1 a.m., she was sitting in a parked vehicle in a vacant lot in the 1000 block of North Avers Avenue, when shots were fired, police said. She was struck in the right leg, left thigh, and brought to Stroger Hospital in fair condition.
A man was in critical condition after a shooting late Thursday morning on Interstate 57 near Halsted Street.
The man, in his 20s, was taken in critical condition to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Merritt said.
Hours later, a man was grazed in a shooting Thursday in Englewood on the South Side.
Someone in a gray-colored vehicle fired shots about 2:35 p.m. toward a gathering in the 7000 block of South Bishop Street, Chicago police said. The man, 34, was grazed on the thigh and brought himself to the University of Chicago Medical Center in good condition.
Two men were wounded, one critically, in a shooting Thursday evening in Gresham on the South Side.
About 6:30 p.m., the two men, both 21, were near the back of a home in the 7600 block of South Peoria Street when two other people approached and fired shots, police said.
One man was struck in the arm and transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center in critical condition, police said. The other man was hit in the leg and taken to the same hospital in fair condition.
A 31-year-old woman was shot Thursday in West Rogers Park on the North Side.
About 7:30 p.m., she was shot at by the father of her child in the 1900 block of West Peterson Avenue, police said.
She was grazed in the head and was taken to Stroger Hospital, where here condition was fair, police said.
An hour later, man was shot during an attempted robbery Thursday night in Calumet Heights on the South Side.
The 22-year-old was standing outside about 8:40 p.m. in the 2600 block of East 94th Street when two people approached in a dark colored sedan, police said.
The person riding in the passenger seat then got out of the sedan and pointed a gun a the man, according to police, When the man refused to hand over his belongings, the person opened fire, police said.
The man was struck once in the back and once in the chest, according to police. He was transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center in good condition, police said.
The shooter fled the scene, according to police.
In the day’s first reported shooting, a 27-year-old man was shot after getting into an argument on a CTA platform Thursday in Englewood on the South Side.
About 12:35 a.m., he was standing on a platform in the first block of West 69th Street, when he got into an argument with a man who pulled out a gun and fired shots, police said. He was struck in the right arm and brought to St. Bernard Hospital in good condition.
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