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Like every other hitter in a struggling Cubs lineup, newcomer Joc Pederson tells himself it’s early, there’s no reason to panic — just keep grinding and eventually his stroke will come.

But in his eighth season in the big leagues, that’s still easier said than done.

“I think everyone feels a lot of pressure,” Pederson said after the Cubs were held to three hits in a 4-2, 10-inning loss to the Brewers on Wednesday at Wrigley Field. “Speaking for myself, it’s a lot. You come to a new place, a lot of fans. I just had a really good spring. I had a high expectation for myself and I’m assuming they do as well. And you’re not getting the job done in situations where you can audit just kind of adds up.”

Pederson’s predicament exemplifies the lineup-wide hitting slump that marked the opening homestand of the 2021 season. He was the Cubs’ hottest hitter in spring training — a .387 batting average (17-for-45) with eight home runs and 19 RBIs. But everything changed once the bell rang.

In previous years, Pederson got his first hit of the season early — the second at-bat as a rookie in 2014; then the third, third, second, seventh, first and second at-bats of the season the following six years with the Dodgers. With the pressure of impressing new teammates and new fans, he was 0-for-15 after a strikeout in the first inning and fly out to the edge of the warning track in center against dominant Brewers starter Brandon Woodruff.

Pederson felt he was getting close with the deep fly out, and sure enough he was right. In his next at-bat in the eighth inning, Pederson crushed a 96-mile-an-hour fastball from standout Brewers reliever Devin Williams for a no-doubt-about-it home run to right field for a 1-1 tie.

No matter how sure he was that he would eventually find his groove, he admitted the homer — just the safe hit — was “a big relief.”

“It was huge,” Pederson said. “There was … just grinding to start the season, just to get the first one, especially in front of the fans — it’s a little more pressure than normal. It was a big relief just to get on the board and tie the game up and give ourselves a chance to win. It felt good.”

The Cubs lineup as a whole could use the same sense of relief. While their early slump is certainly a small sample size, it’s also historically poor. After becoming the first team in modern baseball history to get three-hit, two-hit and one-hit in their first five games, they were no-hit for six innings by Woodruff on just 56 pitches.

At that point, the Cubs were 0-for-34 since Kris Bryant’s double in a 4-0 loss Tuesday night and 1-for-45 since the seventh inning of Monday’s 5-3 victory in the series opener. Nothing was working.

“We tried to jump on the fast ball — didn’t have a lot of success,” manager David Ross said. “But we continued to fight.”

Ian Happ’s single to right field past diving second baseman Daniel Robertson to lead off the seventh inning broke up the no-hitter. Pederson’s homer matched Lorenzo Cain’s homer off Alec Mills in the top of the eighth. After Cain’s three-run homer off Brandon Workman (0- 1) in the 10th, the Cubs rallied for a chance to steal it. Jason Hayward hit an RBI single and walks to Tony Walters and pinch-hitter Willson Contreras loaded the bases with two outs before Happ flied out to left to end it.

That left the Cubs 3-3 on the opening homestand but with a lineup in need of an infusion. The Cubs’ .124 team batting average is the second-lowest through six games in modern big-league history, according to research via baseball-reference.com. Their leading hitters are batting .200 — Kris Bryant (4-for-20) and Eric Sogard (2-for-10).

But Pederson’s big hit provided some hope.

“Everybody’s just trying to get comfortable,” Pederson said. “Hitting’s contagious. We all can be a little bit better. But it’s still super early. We have some really talented [hitters] and when we get clicking, it’s going to be fun to be a part of, and it’s coming soon. So just enjoy the show.”

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An Aurora man accused of beating his girlfriend and shooting the back of her vehicle last month in the west suburb was ordered held on $500,000 bail Monday.

Elyas Taha, 29, is charged with felony counts of armed violence, aggravated discharge of a firearm and aggravated domestic battery in the March 25 incident, the DuPage County state’s attorney’s office said in a statement.

Taha and his girlfriend were arguing that day about 9 a.m. in the 2600 block of Country Oaks Court when he allegedly hit her several times and choked her, prosecutors said.

After Taha released her, he allegedly fired two shots into the driver’s side taillight of her car and one into the back bumper, prosecutors said. She was standing next to the driver’s side of the car while he allegedly opened fire.

Taha fled on foot, and police found him still in the neighborhood 20 minutes later and took him into custody, police said.

He was scheduled to appear back in court May 13.

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A man who test-fired a gun he found on a Far South Side railroad line — leading two responding Chicago police officers to be struck and killed by a commuter train — was sentenced to a year in prison Wednesday.

Edward Brown had found the gun in a fanny pack on Dec. 17, 2018 and decided to test it out on the South Shore Line tracks near the 600 block of East 101st Street, Cook County prosecutors said.

The shots were picked up by Chicago police Shotspotter devices, leading Calumet District Officers Conrad Gary, 31, and Eduardo Marmolejo, 36, to respond.

Chicago police

The officers radioed that they saw someone running on the tracks and then started chasing Brown, prosecutors said. During the chase, the officers were struck from behind by a South Shore Line train, killing them both.

On Wednesday, Judge Diana Kenworthy sentenced Brown, 26, to prison after he pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, court records show.

Chicago police

In exchange for his plea, prosecutors agreed to drop four other gun-related charges against Brown.

Brown, a prep cook at a Boeing International Headquarters-based restaurant, found the gun in an alley near his home after the weapon’s owner dropped it while taking out the garbage.

Brown had taken the gun to the tracks — thinking it would be safer — to see if it worked, and was devastated to learn the officers had been killed, his defense attorney had said at his bond hearing.

Brown’s lawyer called the incident “the worst of luck,” pointing out that his client had never been arrested before and that no one could have predicted what had happened.

Both officers were fairly new to the police department: Gary for 18 months and Marmolejo for less than three years. Both men were fathers of young girls and their deaths were followed by an outpouring of public support.

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MINNEAPOLIS — Officer Derek Chauvin had his knee on George Floyd’s neck — and was bearing down with most of his weight — the entire 9 1/2 minutes the Black man lay facedown with his hands cuffed behind his back, a use-of-force expert testified Wednesday at Chauvin’s murder trial.

Jody Stiger, a Los Angeles Police Department sergeant serving as a prosecution witness, said that based on his review of video evidence, Chauvin applied pressure to Floyd’s neck or neck area from the time officers put Floyd on the ground until paramedics arrived.

“That particular force did not change during the entire restraint period?” prosecutor Steve Schleicher asked as he showed the jury a composite of five still images.

“Correct,” replied Stiger, who on Tuesday testified that the force used against Floyd was excessive.

Chauvin attorney Eric Nelson countered by pointing out what he said were moments in the video footage when Chauvin’s knee did not appear to be on Floyd’s neck but on his shoulder blade area or the base of his neck. Stiger did not give much ground, saying the officer’s knee in some of the contested images still seemed to be near Floyd’s neck.

In other testimony, the lead Minnesota state investigator on the case, James Reyerson, agreed with Nelson that Floyd seemed to say in a police body-camera video of his arrest, “I ate too many drugs.”

But when a prosecutor played a longer clip of the video, Reyerson said he believed what Floyd really said was “I ain’t do no drugs.”

Chauvin, 45, is charged with murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death May 25. Floyd, 46, was arrested outside a neighborhood market after being accused of trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. A panicky-sounding Floyd struggled and claimed to be claustrophobic as police tried to put him in a squad car, and they pinned him to the pavement.

Bystander video of Floyd crying that he couldn’t breathe as onlookers yelled at Chauvin to get off him sparked protests and scattered violence around the U.S.

Nelson has argued that the now-fired white officer “did exactly what he had been trained to do over his 19-year career,” and he has suggested that Floyd’s drug use and his underlying health conditions are what killed him, not Chauvin’s knee, as prosecutors contend. Fentanyl and methamphetamine were found in Floyd’s system.

Breahna Giles, a state forensic scientist, testified Wednesday that pills found in the SUV Floyd was driving contained methamphetamine and fentanyl. Remnants of pills discovered in the back of the squad car also were found to contain methamphetamine. Earlier testimony revealed that one of those pills contained DNA from Floyd’s saliva.

Earlier, Nelson asked Stiger about uses of force that are commonly referred to by police as “lawful but awful.” Stiger conceded that “you can have a situation where by law it looks horrible to the common eye, but based on the state law, it’s lawful.”

Nelson has argued, too, that the officers on the scene were distracted by what they perceived as an increasingly hostile crowd of onlookers.

But Stiger told the jury, “I did not perceive them as being a threat,” even though some bystanders were name-calling and using foul language. He added that most of the yelling was due to “their concern for Mr. Floyd.”

Nelson’s voice rose as he asked Stiger how a reasonable officer would be trained to view a crowd while dealing with a suspect, “and somebody else is now pacing around and watching you and watching you and calling you names and saying (expletives).” Nelson said such a situation “could be viewed by a reasonable officer as a threat.”

“As a potential threat, correct,” Stiger said.

Chauvin’s lawyer noted that dispatchers had described Floyd as between 6 feet and 6-foot-6 and possibly under the influence. Stiger agreed it was reasonable for Chauvin to come to the scene with a heightened sense of awareness.

Stiger further agreed with Nelson that an officer’s actions must be judged from the point of view of a reasonable officer on the scene, not in hindsight. Among other things, Nelson said that given typical emergence medical response times, it was reasonable for Chauvin to believe that paramedics would be there soon.

In other testimony, Stiger said that as Floyd lay pinned to the ground, Chauvin squeezed Floyd’s fingers and pulled one of his wrists toward his handcuffs, a technique that uses pain to get someone to comply, but Chauvin did not appear to let up.

“Then at that point it’s just pain,” Stiger said.

Prosecutors stopped and started videos during the testimony from Reyerson, the state investigator, in an attempt to show the jury how long Chauvin held his position. Reyerson testified that Chauvin’s knee was on Floyd’s neck for two minutes after Floyd stopped talking, and for two minutes after he ceased moving.

Stiger was asked by prosecutors whether Chauvin had an obligation to take Floyd’s distress into account as the officer considered how much force to use.

“Absolutely,” Stiger replied. “As the time went on, clearly in the video, you could see that Mr. Floyd’s … health was deteriorating. His breath was getting lower. His tone of voice was getting lower. His movements were starting to cease.”

“So at that point, as a officer on scene,” he continued, “you have a responsibility to realize that, ‘OK, something is not right. Something has changed drastically from what was occurring earlier.’ So therefore you have a responsibility to take some type of action.”

Webber reported from Fenton, Mich.

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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will unveil a series of executive actions aimed at addressing gun violence on Thursday, according to a person familiar with the plans, delivering his first major action on gun control since taking office.

He’s also expected to nominate David Chipman, a former federal agent and adviser at the gun control group Giffords, to be director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press that Chipman’s nomination is expected to be announced Thursday. The people could not discuss the matter publicly ahead of an official announcement and spoke to The AP on condition of anonymity. If confirmed, Chipman would be the agency’s first permanent director since 2015.

Biden has faced increasing pressure to act on gun control after a spate of mass shootings across the U.S. in recent weeks, but the White House has repeatedly emphasized the need for legislative action on guns. While the House passed a background-check bill last month, gun control measures face slim prospects in an evenly-divided Senate, where Republicans remain near-unified against most proposals.

Biden is expected to announce tighter regulations requiring buyers of so-called “ghost guns” to undergo background checks. The homemade firearms — often assembled from parts and milled with a metal-cutting machine — often lack serial numbers used to trace them. It’s legal to build a gun in a home or a workshop and there is no federal requirement for a background check.

The president’s plans were previewed by a person familiar with the expected actions who was not authorized to publicly discuss them. Biden will be joined by Attorney General Merrick Garland at the event.

The ATF is currently run by Acting Director Regina Lombardo. Gun-control advocates have emphasized the significance of the ATF director in enforcing the nation’s gun laws, and Chipman is certain to win praise from them. During his time as a senior policy adviser with Giffords, he spent considerable effort pushing for greater regulation and enforcement on “ghost guns,” reforms of the background check system and measures to reduce the trafficking of illegal firearms.

Prior to that, Chipman spent 25 years as an agent at the ATF, where he worked on stopping a trafficking ring that sent illegal firearms from Virginia to New York, and served on the ATF’s SWAT team. Chipman is a gun owner himself.

Chipman and a White House spokesman both declined to comment.

During his campaign, Biden promised to prioritize new gun control measures as president, including enacting universal background check legislation, banning online sales of firearms and the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. But gun-control advocates have said that while they were heartened by signs from the White House that they took the issue seriously, they’ve been disappointed by the lack of early action.

Biden himself expressed uncertainty late last month when asked if he had the political capital to pass new gun control proposals, telling reporters, “I haven’t done any counting yet.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said last month, however, that executive actions on guns were coming as well, calling them “one of the levers that we can use” to address gun violence.

For years, federal officials have been sounding the alarm about an increasing black market for homemade, military-style semi-automatic rifles and handguns. Ghost guns have increasingly turned up at crime scenes and in recent years have been turning up more and more when federal agents are purchasing guns in undercover operations from gang members and other criminals.

It is hard to say how many are circulating on the streets, in part because in many cases police departments don’t even contact the federal government about the guns because they can’t be traced.

Some states, like California, have enacted laws in recent years to require serial numbers be stamped on ghost guns.

The critical component in building an untraceable gun is what is known as the lower receiver, a part typically made of metal or polymer. An unfinished receiver — sometimes referred to as an “80-percent receiver” — can be legally bought online with no serial numbers or other markings on it, no license required.

A gunman who killed his wife and four others in Northern California in 2017 who had been prohibited from owning firearms built his own to skirt the court order before his rampage. And in 2019, a teenager used a homemade handgun to fatally shoot two classmates and wound three others at a school in suburban Los Angeles.

Plans for Biden’s announcement Thursday were first reported by Politico.

——

AP Writer Lisa Marie Pane in Boise, Idaho contributed reporting.

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Before she sentenced a man who had admitted running an illegal sports gambling operation in which people allegedly lost tens of thousands of dollars, a federal judge noted Wednesday it wasn’t the first time the man had gotten in trouble for gambling.

Rather, U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow told Gregory Paloian, 66, “you went into this a second time with your eyes wide open and you made a bargain with the devil that it would work out.” Still, because of Paloian’s medical issues, Lefkow stopped short of a stiff sentence prosecutors had sought, handing Paloian two-and-a-half years in prison instead.

“Your honor,” Paloian said, clearly disappointed. “Thirty months in the penitentiary?”

A heavy sigh came next. Then, during what seemed more like a casual back-and-forth than a formal federal court sentencing, Paloian and his attorney tried to bargain and quibble with the judge. And a prosecutor eventually joined in during the hearing held by video.

Defense attorney Joseph Urgo asked whether part of the sentence could be served in home confinement. Paloian said Lefkow’s ruling could turn out to be a death sentence. He admitted he made mistakes. But he asked, “What does this sentence accomplish other than the ultimate kick-somebody-when-they’re down?”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Terry Kinney then countered that Lefkow should revoke credit given to Paloian for accepting responsibility for his crime — a move that could increase Paloian’s sentence. Kinney insisted that Paloian “has no touch with reality.”

But Lefkow finally ended the argument, telling both sides, “I am not persuaded to change my sentence either way.” And she told Paloian a 30-month sentence is reasonable.

“I know that it’s a hard pill to swallow,” Lefkow said.

Kinney asked last week for closer to three years for Paloian, a man with purported mob ties who pleaded guilty in January to running an illegal sports gambling operation. The prosecutor pointed to Paloian’s criminal history, which included a racketeering conviction involving a large gambling enterprise that ran from 1985 until 1998.

But Kinney also said Paloian and his agents in the latest gambling ring hounded gamblers as they lost tens of thousands of dollars, even prompting one gambler who couldn’t pay his debts to “burst into tears.” Kinney has said the ring included 60 gamblers, and one of the “most prolific agents” was “a veteran police officer from a local police department.”

Kinney has also tied Paloian’s case to another gambling case involving Vincent “Uncle Mick” DelGiudice.

Paloian and his agents referred to their gamblers as “goof, goofball, idiot, ‘f*&#%g little pu$%y’, little c&%*sucker and other descriptive monikers,” Kinney wrote in a court memo. Paloian also allegedly referred to one gambler as “an annuity,” a “dumb f#%k” and “an idiot and he pays.”

Urgo insisted in his own court memo that prosecutors had not found one example where a “customer” or “agent” of Paloian’s gambling ring suffered financial hardship or exhibited signs of problematic gambling habits — a claim Kinney challenged. Urgo also wrote that FBI agents confronted Paloian about their investigation into his gambling ring on Dec. 9, 2019, at a Starbucks in Melrose Park.

Paloian “immediately made very excellent decisions and has continued to make excellent decisions ever since those first moments in Starbucks,” Urgo wrote.

Before Lefkow handed down her sentence Wednesday, Paloian admitted what he did was wrong, and he insisted he “would never, ever, ever book again.”

“I am a criminal,” he said. “I admit it. I broke the law.”

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A Galesburg man pleaded guilty to a federal arson charge Wednesday for setting fire to a Sprint store in Minneapolis during the unrest that followed the police killing of George Floyd.

Rupert agreed to plead guilty in exchange for prosecutors dropping charges of civil disorder and rioting.

“I plead guilty,” Rupert, 28, said during the brief hearing before U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel in Minneapolis.

After entering the Sprint store on May 29, Rupert and others knocked over a pile of boxes before Rupert doused them in lighter fluid, prosecutors said.

Rupert then encouraged a 17-year-old who had accompanied him to the protests to set the boxes on fire.

“I lit it on fire,” Rupert posted on Facebook, prosecutors said. The fire caused damage to the building, at 3009 Nicollet Ave.

Authorities were able to track Rupert through his social media posts during the unrest. In a more than two-hour long Facebook Live video Rupert filmed showed him handing out explosive devices and encouraging others to use them against police officers, prosecutors said.

“I’ve got bombs if you all want to throw them back,” Rupert could be heard saying in the video, according to the criminal complaint filed against him last year. When an explosion took place after a rioter lit and threw one such device, Rupert said, “good shot my boy.”

Family members had told the Chicago Sun-Times that the explosives were fireworks — albeit large ones — and said Rupert had an affinity for setting them off in Galesburg, which had led to run-ins with local police officials.

Rupert was arrested in Chicago two days after the Minneapolis fire for violating Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s citywide curfew order. Officers found “several destructive devices,” a hammer and a flashlight inside the car he had traveled in to participate in the George Floyd demonstrations downtown.

Rupert faces between 5 to 20 years in prison.

A sentencing date has not been set.

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MINNEAPOLIS — Officer Derek Chauvin had his knee on George Floyd’s neck — and was bearing down with most of his weight — the entire 9 1/2 minutes the Black man lay facedown with his hands cuffed behind his back, a use-of-force expert testified Wednesday at Chauvin’s murder trial.

Jody Stiger, a Los Angeles Police Department sergeant serving as a prosecution witness, said that based on his review of video evidence, Chauvin applied pressure to Floyd’s neck or neck area from the time officers put Floyd on the ground until paramedics arrived.

“That particular force did not change during the entire restraint period?” prosecutor Steve Schleicher asked as he showed the jury a composite of five still images.

“Correct,” replied Stiger, who on Tuesday testified that the force used against Floyd was excessive.

Chauvin attorney Eric Nelson sought to point out moments in the video footage when, he said, Chauvin’s knee did not appear to be on Floyd’s neck but on his shoulder blade area or the base of his neck. Stiger did not give much ground, saying the officer’s knee in some of the contested photos still seemed to be near Floyd’s neck.

In other testimony, the lead Minnesota state investigator on the case, James Reyerson, agreed with Nelson that Floyd seemed to say in a police body-camera video of his arrest, “I ate too many drugs.”

But when a prosecutor played a longer clip of the video, Reyerson said he believed what Floyd really said was “I ain’t do no drugs.”

Chauvin, 45, is charged with murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death May 25. Floyd, 46, was arrested outside a neighborhood market after being accused of trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. A panicky-sounding Floyd struggled and claimed to be claustrophobic as police tried to put him in a squad car, and they pinned him to the pavement.

Bystander video of Floyd crying that he couldn’t breathe as onlookers yelled at Chauvin to get off him sparked protests and scattered violence around the U.S. and triggered a reckoning over racism and police brutality.

Nelson has argued that the now-fired white officer “did exactly what he had been trained to do over his 19-year career,” and he has suggested that Floyd’s drug use and his underlying health conditions are what killed him, not Chauvin’s knee, as prosecutors contend. Fentanyl and methamphetamine were found in Floyd’s system.

On Wednesday, Chauvin’s lawyer asked Stiger about uses of force that are commonly referred to by police as “lawful but awful.” Stiger conceded that “you can have a situation where by law it looks horrible to the common eye, but based on the state law, it’s lawful.”

Nelson has argued, too, that the officers on the scene were distracted by what they perceived as an increasingly hostile crowd of onlookers.

But Stiger told the jury, “I did not perceive them as being a threat,” even though some bystanders were name-calling and using foul language. He added that most of the yelling was due to “their concern for Mr. Floyd.”

Nelson’s voice rose as he asked Stiger how a reasonable officer would be trained to view a crowd while dealing with a suspect, “and somebody else is now pacing around and watching you and watching you and calling you names and saying (expletives).” Nelson said such a situation “could be viewed by a reasonable officer as a threat.”

“As a potential threat, correct,” Stiger said.

Chauvin’s lawyer noted that dispatchers had described Floyd as between 6 feet and 6-foot-6 and possibly under the influence. Stiger agreed it was reasonable for Chauvin to come to the scene with a heightened sense of awareness.

Stiger further agreed with Nelson that an officer’s actions must be judged from the point of view of a reasonable officer on the scene, not in hindsight. Among other things, Nelson said that given typical EMS response times, it was reasonable for Chauvin to believe that paramedics would be there soon.

In other testimony, Stiger said that as Floyd lay pinned to the ground, Chauvin squeezed Floyd’s fingers and pulled one of his wrists toward his handcuffs, a technique that uses pain to get someone to comply, but Chauvin did not appear to let up while Floyd was restrained.

“Then at that point it’s just pain,” Stiger said.

Prosecutors stopped and started videos during the testimony from Reyerson, the lead state investigator, in an attempt to show the jury how long Chauvin held his position. Reyerson testified that Chauvin’s knee was on Floyd’s neck for two minutes after Floyd stopped talking, and for two minutes after Floyd ceased moving.

Stiger was asked by prosecutors whether Chauvin had an obligation to take Floyd’s distress into account as the officer considered how much force to use.

“Absolutely,” Stiger replied. “As the time went on, clearly in the video, you could see that Mr. Floyd’s … health was deteriorating. His breath was getting lower. His tone of voice was getting lower. His movements were starting to cease.”

“So at that point, as a officer on scene,” he continued, “you have a responsibility to realize that, ‘OK, something is not right. Something has changed drastically from what was occurring earlier.’ So therefore you have a responsibility to take some type of action.”

___

Webber reported from Fenton, Mich.

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A 21-month-old boy remains at Lurie Children’s Hospital fighting for his life Wednesday afternoon after he was shot in the head in an apparent road-rage incident Tuesday on Lake Shore Drive near Grant Park.

The boy remains in “very critical condition,” though his health hasn’t worsened in the 24 hours since the shooting, giving hospital staff “cautious hope,” according to Dr. Marcelo Malakooti, medical director of the pediatric intensive care unit at Lurie Children’s.

The toddler, who was shot in the temple, suffered “a severe brain injury,” which tends to have a “high mortality risk,” Malakooti said. It’s still too early to determine a prognosis, though the boy could have a debilitate future if he pulls through, the doctor said.

The boy has been placed in a medically-induced coma to protect his brain and is on a ventilator, Malakooti said.

“He certainly is in the camp of promising,” Malakooti said. “You might expect that patients could worsen a lot more with this type of injury and then there are other patients who can improve remarkably well even more quick. So he’s kind of there in the plateau phase, but I’m pleased every day that I know that he hasn’t worsened.”

The boy’s mother and grandmother remain by his side, according to the hospital.

A dispute over one car not letting another car into a lane of traffic about 11 a.m. on northbound Lake Shore Drive just south of Soldier Field apparently led to the shooting, Chicago Police Cmdr. Jake Alderden said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.

Both cars continued north and shooting began on Lake Shore Drive just west of the Shedd Aquarium. Bullet casings were recovered over a two-block stretch as the cars proceeded north, Alderden said.

The vehicle the child was in then crashed at Monroe Street and Lake Shore Drive, near the Chicago Yacht Club and Maggie Daley Park.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

One person was being questioned by Area Three detectives in connection with the shooting Tuesday evening, police said. He had not been released as of late Wednesday afternoon, and no charges had been filed.

Community activist Ja’Mal Green, father of a 2-year-old, is personally funding a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the gunman.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot has called the shooting a case of “simple, stupid road rage.”

But, she was reminded Wednesday that the incident — in broad daylight, in the heart of the city — was just the latest in an avalanche of shootings on Chicago area expressways.

There were two on Easter and another Tuesday night. That makes 57 already this year — nearly triple last year’s total and more expressway shootings than any other big city in the nation.

Lightfoot was asked what CPD is doing to stop expressway shootings and whether motorists should be concerned about their safety.

“I’ll push back a little bit. Unfortunately, we are continuing to see — not only in Chicago, but across the country — an increase in violence in cities that we saw really, I think, arising from the pandemic,” the mayor said.

“We are constantly calibrating our deployments across the city — both based upon historic trends, but also more recent data. But the issues on the highways are real.”

The city, she said, will “have to have continued partnership” with the Illinois State Police and Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart “to make sure that we’re doing everything we can.”

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Still, Lightfoot said Chicago is “ultimately fighting a losing battle” without “common sense gun control” that only Congress can enact.

“A lot of the guns that end up on the streets in Chicago come from places like Indiana and other states that have very lax gun laws. Whether it’s in background checks. Whether it’s the number of guns you can buy. How they can move from one person to another. We constantly see … guns that were purchased, but end up on the street in a crime within three years,” she said.

“We are gonna continue to fight the fight here in Chicago. But we have to have help from the federal government. If you can go over the border in Indiana and literally buy military-grade weapons at any quantity that you want if you’ve got the dollars to pay for it, what does that mean for the public safety of our city? … We need some help from the federal government because there are too many people who have ill intentions that are getting access to firearms. We’ve got to have federal authorities step up starting with passing universal background checks.”

The push for universal background checks is not new. It’s simply gone nowhere in Congress. But, Lightfoot said, the political tide has turned.

“I’m hopeful now — with a Democratic president who supports it and two chambers of Congress that are controlled by Democrats — we’ll actually finally get it done. And then, we’ll be better situated to bring more peace to our city because we’re gonna stop the flow of illegal guns onto our streets,” she said.

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With a team built to win after fielding too many teams built not to, the 2021 White Sox are ready to show their fans something good to see.

Granted, the 2020 Sox won as the rebuild came to fruition, but nobody was there to see at Guaranteed Rate Field because of the pandemic. But with close to one-fourth capacity permitted at the start of this season, baseball on the South Side will feel like more than a closed scrimmage.

“It’s going to be a great moment for everybody,” said rookie Andrew Vaughn, about to experience his first home opener when the Sox host the Royals at 3:10 p.m. Thursday. “We’re all ready to get back there and get in front of our fans and put on a good show for them and win some ballgames.”

Banged up with two of their most prolific hitters in Tim Anderson and Eloy Jimenez on the injured list as well as fourth outfielder Adam Engel, the Sox were hoping to have a winning record attached to themselves after taking a 3-3 record into their game at Seattle Wednesday. After losing three of four to the Angels, the Sox, picked by some to reach the World Series, were going for a three-game series sweep.

Luis Robert made his major league debut in an empty ballpark last July. This home opener will feel like another debut.

“It’s going to be even better,” he said through translator Billy Russo, “having fans in the stands.

“When you play with fans, you feel more adrenaline. If you make a good play or hit a homer, you can feel that energy. I’m excited to have that experience with the fans in Chicago.”

Manager Tony La Russa returns to manage the Sox at home for the first time since 1986, when he was fired by general manager Ken Harrelson, and he said he’s been thinking about it a lot.

“Weddings and Opening Days, they don’t get old they just get better and better,” La Russa said. “The fact that it’s back in Chicago, on the South Side, I’m very excited and mostly we want to compete as good as we can so we can give the fans what they came to watch — which is we don’t play the bottom of the ninth.”

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