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Two people were killed and a teen was among nine others wounded in shootings in Chicago Thursday. | Sun-Times file

The fatal attacks happened in Austin and Fernwood.

Two people were killed and at least 9 others were wounded in citywide shootings Thursday.

A man was found shot to death inside a portable toilet in Austin early Thursday. The man, 39, was discovered about 2 a.m. in the 5000 block of West Quincy Street, Chicago police said. He had suffered a gunshot wound to the chest and was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. His name has not been released.
Another man was shot to death in Fernwood on the Far South Side. About 6:50 p.m., the 35-year-old was in the 10000 block of South Emerald Avenue, when he was shot, police said. He was rushed to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead, police said. His name has not yet been released.
In nonfatal attacks, a 16-year-old boy was shot in Grand Crossing on the South Side. About 8:40 p.m., he was sitting on the porch of a residence in the 1400 block of East 71st Street, when someone inside a passing black sedan fired shots, police said. He was struck twice in the arm and taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, in fair condition, police said.

Eight others were wounded in shootings in Chicago Thursday.

Two people were killed and eight others were wounded in shootings across Chicago Wednesday.

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Chicago police investigate the shooting of a CTA bus driver on East Washington Street in the Loop in September. | Ashlee Rezin / Sun-Times

The economic and cultural hub has seen the most shootings in years in 2021. The rise mirrors a citywide violent crime wave and threatens downtown’s recovery.

Deserted during the pandemic and battered by looting, downtown Chicago is grappling with a rise in violent crime that threatens the reputation of the city and its economic viability.

Murders, shootings, rapes and car thefts are all up sharply in the downtown area, prompting fears among residents and business owners similar to those that have long been a reality in struggling neighborhoods beyond the skyscrapers.

And some of the same frustrations.

“How do you suggest that we engage this problem going forward?” Mel Jones, from the Clark and Division Collaborative, asked police officials during a community meeting in mid-October.

“Do we just wear Kevlar vests at night?” he said. “Do we just watch businesses leave our community?”

Stepped-up efforts announced by the Chicago Police Department and City Hall haven’t kept violent crime from rising in the downtown area, according to a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of data from 16 beats in the Central, Near North and Near West police districts.

In the first 10 months of this year, more people were shot there than in any year since 2016: at least 77. Seven of them died. Three others have been killed by other means.

The number of shooting victims is more than triple what it was for all of 2019.

In just the Central police district — which includes much of the downtown business district — the total number of shootings and total shootings per 1,000 residents has shot up nearly 220% since 2019 — by far the largest increase in any police district in the city.

The Near North district, which includes parts of downtown and also Lincoln Park, saw the second-highest rise in shootings in that time — 120%.

The downtown area has also seen a 35% increase in sexual assaults — to nearly 200 cases — and a 51% increase in car thefts — to more than 800, while the numbers of robberies and aggravated batteries have dropped in the past two years.

The numbers mirror a troubling trend across the city.

Through Oct. 17, at least 600 people have been fatally shot and at least 3,090 have been wounded in Chicago, putting the city on target for what’s likely to be one of its deadliest years since the mid-1990s. Most of the violence has been in predominantly Black and brown communities on the South Side and West Side, which are still far more dangerous than downtown.

“Not only are we trying to deal with things that are happening downtown,” John O’Malley, the deputy mayor of public safety, told the Sun-Times, but also “dealing with and having these same conversations and same meetings with community members all across the city, where some areas violence is a daily, if not hourly, concern.”

Those things include unchecked nightlife, slow police response times, a growing number of unanswered 911 calls and more and more gang crime, according to interviews with people who live and work downtown.

‘People are fed up’

In the last 10 years, downtown Chicago has been the fastest-growing part of the city.

More than 168,000 people live in the 16 police beats reviewed by the Sun-Times, an increase of 31%, or nearly 40,000 more people since the 2010 census.

More people meant bustling streets and good business. Mayor Lori Lightfoot has said the Loop “serves as the neighborhood for our entire city where Chicagoans and visitors alike from all walks of life come together.”

Then, in March of last year, the pandemic prompted Gov. J.B. Pritzker to issue a statewide stay-at-home order that brought normal life to halt — and turned Chicago’s economic hub into a ghost town.

Two months later, downtown streets were crowded again, this time by protesters following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. On May 30, people protesting police brutality clashed with officers in the Loop. Looters gutted stores downtown and throughout the city.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times
Looters hit a 7-Eleven near Lake and Dearborn in the Loop in May 2020 after protesters demonstrated against the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Eight people were killed and 15 wounded across the city. Downtown was hit particularly hard, with two killed and seven wounded, marking the worst day for gun violence in the Loop and surrounding neighborhoods in at least five years.

Downtown was hit with more looting in August 2020 after police shot 20-year-old Latrell Allen during an armed encounter in Englewood. Hundreds of people descended on the Magnificent Mile, where they tangled with cops, damaged property and tore through stores. Three people were shot.

Last year saw the most shootings downtown in years. This year already has surpassed those bleak numbers.

Among the attacks that have captured the city’s attention:

On April 6, Deandre Binion shot 22-month-old Kayden Swann in the head during a road-rage attack on DuSable Lake Shore Drive near Grant Park, according to police.
The morning of May 15, the drill rapper Lil Reese was among three people wounded in an exchange of gunfire at a parking garage on a busy Near North Side block.
The night of Sept. 4, Dennis Green shot a CTA bus driver in the jaw after the driver asked him to step off the bus when it reached the end of the line in the Loop, police said.
The afternoon of Sept. 16, a 26-year-old man was shot in a leg while skateboarding in Grant Park.
The evening of Sept. 29, at least four bystanders were wounded, one critically, during a rolling gunfight between two cars through West Town.

Other cities, including Detroit and New York, are facing some of the same issues. An unprecedented rise in the number of homicides nationally led to a 5% increase in violent crime last year.

Ald. Brian Hopkins, whose 2nd Ward winds through downtown, said rising crime is “driving the sense of unease” and “prevailing fear” among his constituents, some of whom deluge him with emails saying they’re moving away.

“I think we’re at the tipping point right now,” Hopkins said. “People are fed up. I’m fed up.”

‘It was absolutely random’

A lawyer from Detroit was almost killed while vacationing in Chicago earlier this year, but he told the Sun-Times he has come to expect such attacks in big cities.

The lawyer, who didn’t want to be named, was walking down the Magnificent Mile with his teenage son when a man with a knife rushed up.

“Give me your phone, or I’ll kill you,” the man screamed.

“As I was saying no, he was stabbing me at the same time,” the lawyer said. “I don’t think if I would’ve given him anything, I’m not sure that it would have changed the outcome.”

The nicked artery in his neck began to bleed, and an employee at a nearby Walgreens ran out with bandages before two police officers administered a dressing to clot the blood, he told the Sun-Times.

He was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he underwent surgery and stayed for two days.

The man credited those who helped him with saving his life after the “absolutely horrific” attack. Still, he said the stabbing wouldn’t stop him from visiting again.

“I don’t think I have any fear to return,” he said. “It was absolutely random. It could happen anywhere.”

Provided
Anat Kimchi

Another visitor to Chicago, Anat Kimchi, was attacked downtown later in the year and killed.

Kimchi, a graduate student at the University of Maryland, was taking a stroll along South Wacker Drive on a sunny afternoon on June 9 when police say Tony Robinson approached from behind and stabbed her in the neck and back.

“The randomness of this is hard to explain,” the judge said in denying Robinson bail. “Frankly, it is an act of terrorism on the community.”

In their first public statement about the attack, Kimchi parents decried “the tragedy of Anat’s senseless murder, by a random attack on the sidewalk on a sunny Saturday afternoon. [It] is a terrible loss to our tight-knit family.”

Kimchi was months away from her doctorate in criminology and criminal justice, which was awarded posthumously.

Both attacks were seemingly random. Yet, coupled with the steady headlines of shootings and other crimes downtown, they added to the growing sense of danger downtown.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Chicago police investigate after a man stabbed another man outside Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria at 1120 N. State St. while dozens sat on the restaurant’s patio nearby on the Near North Side, Friday night, Oct. 1, 2021.

Some of the crimes are taking place even in the most bustling downtown areas, where popular restaurants serve Chicago staples like deep-dish pizza.

As Kristen MacDonald and Monika Diskaite sat at a patio table outside Lou Malnati’s on Rush Street around 9:30 p.m. on a warm Friday night earlier this month, two men argued a few feet away. The argument got louder, and MacDonald and Diskaite saw one of the men double over after apparently being struck in the stomach. A police dispatcher later announced that the man had been stabbed.

The man was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in critical condition.

“That is definitely the first time I’ve experienced something like that in this neighborhood,” said Diskaite, who moved to River North from Lincoln Park a few months ago.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Pedestrians walk past police investigating after a man stabbed another man outside Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria earlier this month.

Shut down Division Street?

At the monthly meeting with police in the Near North District, residents raised a flurry of concerns about gangs, carjackings, public drug dealing, prostitution and robberies.

Michael Boccio, who sits on the board of the Gold Coast Neighbors Association, was among several people who placed the blame on the neighborhood ‘s nightlife scene.

“Just all hell breaks loose in this neighborhood,” he said.

Police data show that most shootings happen at night and on weekends. The downtown police beat with the most shootings this year — 12 — is on the west side of River North, away from the Gold Coast.

Boccio said he pitched an idea to City Council members that he called “Division Goes Dark.” Every business between State and Orleans streets would be closed between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m.

The city already started prohibiting parking on some downtown streets from midnight to 5 a.m. — and aggressively tows car from the area.

Also raised at the meeting were falling police staffing levels and lagging response times — issues that City Council members have repeatedly complained about under police Supt. David Brown.

“We are short on manpower,” Officer Marcus Burnett acknowledged. “And that’s on every watch.”

Like districts throughout the city, downtown has lost officers to specialized units, retirement and other police departments, Burnett said.

Sharp rise in unanswered 911 calls

A Sun-Times analysis found a sharp rise in the number of 911 calls that the police have been unable to answer. “Radio assignment pending” events — when there are no police cars to respond to a call in a district — have jumped 64% through the end of September, from 4,795 last year at this time to 7,854 this year.

Compared to this time in 2019, the volume of such calls has more than doubled.

Officers still answer urgent calls, such as shootings. But they don’t respond to other reported crimes, like shoplifting or burglaries.

In the Central and Near North police districts, there were 433 assignments pending, up 52% over the same period last year.

Still, the data show such backups are mostly concentrated in police districts on the city’s South Side and West Side, where crime is the heaviest. A single police beat in West Garfield Park, for example, has had 62 shootings this year.

Provided
Lance Williams is a professor of urban community studies at Northeastern Illinois University.

‘Where the scenery is better’

The racial makeup of the victims of shootings would suggest that many are from outside the area. While less than 10% of downtown residents are African American, they make up about three-quarters of the shooting victims from this year and last. Just three shooting victims have been white, the largest demographic group who comprise nearly two-thirds of the population downtown.

One theory behind the rising violence in the area is that people in the city’s more dangerous neighborhoods have sought refuge there.

“The violence has gotten so bad in our communities that those in the streets are moving to what they perceive to be safe areas to hang out,” said Lance Williams, a professor of urban community studies at Northeastern Illinois University.

Once downtown, those people might be the target of a crime or commit a crime themselves against people they think are less likely to fight back or have a gun, Williams said.

“The mentality in the streets is that it’s too dangerous to do crime in these communities because the reaction is immediate,” Williams said. “People don’t depend on the police. People protect themselves. Every man has to have a gun. It’s a Wild West mentality.

“People in Hyde Park and downtown are easier targets,” he said.

Experts have warned for years that violence can’t be contained within Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods, according to Williams.

“We said it was going to spill over in the downtown tourist districts,” he said. “We knew the dam was going to break.”

One police official said that some gang members saw friends on social media bragging about being downtown during the pandemic and joined them.

“They would rather be parked at State and Ohio than Pulaski and Jackson where the scenery is better and the odds of getting shot are lower,” the official said, speaking on the condition of not being named.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times
Farzin Parang, executive director of the Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago

Crime ‘top of mind’ for retailers

Farzin Parang, executive director of the Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago, worries that crime and the “fear of crime” are now “detractors from people coming back” as pandemic restrictions ease.

“We’ve often asked for a strategy of promoting visibility in particular, having officers moving around [and] visible,” he said. “A lot of that goes towards what I refer to as the distinct problem of perception of crime and safety.”

Even as thefts have dropped dramatically this year, Rob Karr, president and CEO of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, said Chicago has become an “epicenter” for “organized retail crime,” pointing to an armed robbery spree earlier this month that hit 7-Eleven stores in the Loop.

“It’s not the same as a 14-year-old walking out with a candy bar,” Karr said. “These are coordinated. They have shopping lists. They prepare with U-Haul vans and getaway cars. And it is being used to fund other criminal activity.”

Crime is now “top of mind” for retailers weighing whether to move to the city and for those considering whether to leave, he said.

Karr said he’s not aware of any business owners leaving due to crime. But he said crime has affected decisions to close store locations and cut back hours in some cases.

“Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, there’s a perception that it is increasingly unsafe downtown,” he said. “And I think it’s going to take a concerted effort by everyone in leadership to address it over a long term.”

O’Malley, the deputy mayor of public safety, was pressed about downtown crime during a meeting with BOMA in July. O’Malley said he had blunt words for the organization.

“They’re yelling at me about the crime in downtown Chicago,” he said during a July 15 meeting of the Chicago Police Board, which he previously served on. “I told them, ‘Y’all need to get in your car and go to Gresham, Austin, Lawndale, Englewood, Roseland.’

“Don’t come to me, yelling at me about the crime downtown,” he said. “I’m sorry that Suzie who lives in Lisle thinks she’s afraid to come downtown because the last 18 months she’s been working in her pajamas from home. We’re working downtown. The police are downtown.”

O’Malley said he pressed members of the association about what their own private security contractors were doing.

In an interview, he said he’s told BOMA and other groups they “can’t put safety and security 100% on the shoulders of the Chicago Police Department.”

But O’Malley said the area could use more police and that City Hall is considering offering more resources to the Central and Near North districts, particularly for large events.

He said police have been more visible in River North, especially after a video went viral in late August showing two men being attacked and robbed in the 400 block of North State Street as onlookers watched and danced.

“If we had more coordination before that, we could maybe have avoided that,” he said.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Chicago police keep watch outside bars in River North early Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021.

Lightfoot budget includes money for cops, mental health

Hopkins complained that City Council members can’t find out how many cops are working at any given time.

But he also said controlling crime requires a holistic approach and addressing deeply rooted issues like homelessness and mental health.

“It’s past time to stop pitting social services and mental health funding against funding for police and traditional law enforcement programs,” the alderperson said. “They should not be competing against each other. They’re both part of the solution, and they’re both justified in the call for increased funding.”

Lightfoot’s 2022 budget, approved this past week, increases the police department’s budget by $189 million, to just under $1.9 billion. It also includes $86 million for the Chicago Department of Public Health’s mental health budget. Of that, $52 million would be new funding.

The budget includes $12 million for a stabilization housing program and a proposed facility with up to 60 beds for homeless people while they receive on-site psychiatric and substance abuse treatment.

Another $15 million would fund 911 response teams with mental health professionals.

“This crime wave must end, and it can end,” Hopkins said. “And there’s things we can do to help bring about that end. And that’s what the conversation should focus on.”

Tom Schuba, Andy Grimm and Frank Main are Sun-Times staff reporters. David Struett is a Sun-Times wire reporter. Data analysis by Andy Boyle and Jesse Howe.

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Conservator Jane Foley. | Robert Taylor photo/www.taylor-photo.co.uk

During a career she didn’t start till her 40s, she preserved relics and objets d’art all over the word, including some of the most beloved museum artifacts in Chicago.

When Jane Foley was beginning her career as a conservator of antiquities, she got assigned to spruce up the walls at Buckingham Palace.

She’d later tell the story of how she was up on a ladder one day, “looked down, and there was a nice old woman with a handbag looking up at me.”

It was Queen Elizabeth.

Her Majesty asked: “Are you cleaning the gilding?”

“Halfway up a ladder,” Ms. Foley told her family, “I attempted a curtsy and said, ‘Yes, ma’am, I am.’ “

Ms. Foley, 71, who lived in Evanston and Wales, died of pancreatic cancer Oct. 10 at her home near the Welsh town of Builth Wells.

She was a renowned conservator who was called upon to preserve relics and objets d’art around the world, including some of the most beloved artifacts at Chicago’s museums.

Among them: the German U-505 World War II submarine at the Museum of Science and Industry. Captured by American forces in 1944, it’s the only German submarine on U.S. soil.

Her memories of chimney sweeps in her native England inspired her work on that, according to head curator Kathleen McCarthy. Ms. Foley modified chimney-sweep tools to clean the conning tower — the mini-tower in the middle of the sub, a space so cramped it can fit just than a ladder, a periscope tube, the top hatch and a seat the size of a bike saddle.

“She always came up with ingenious ways” to solve problems, McCarthy said.

Ms. Foley used to work on the sub after hours at the museum with fellow conservator Inez Litas, who was her wife and business partner.

“At night, it was very eerie to work there,” Litas said. “We’re thinking, ‘German soldiers walked here.’ ”

Ms. Foley also spent months cleaning and restoring Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle, the Museum of Science and Industry’s miniature palace. She painstakingly brushed away decades of dust that had settled on its 1,500 tiny objects and 19 rooms.

“Jane treated each individual room — mother-of-pearl, terra cotta, gold, platinum, silver, diamond-encrusted pieces of furniture and lighting,” said Margaret Schlesinger, a former museum curator.

“She approached every project with the skills of a scientist, an investigator, a problem solver, a detective — with MacGyver thrown in,” Schlesinger said.

At Wheaton College, she helped restore the Perry Mastodon, carefully removing layers of old shellac on the bones of the fossil found in a Glen Ellyn garden in the 1960s, according to Anna Weiss-Pfau of Third Coast Conservation, who worked on the project.

Ms. Foley was called in to help the Field Museum when it had to tear out wool carpeting due to a moth infestation that could have threatened historic textiles and taxidermied animals, said JP Brown, interim head of conservation.

All was going well until people realized that a section of carpet remained under the 2,600-year-old Egyptian sarcophagus of Pefthaukhonsu, a five-feet-by-nine-feet, black-granite crypt that weighed more than three tons.

Ms. Foley studied a structural crack in the sarcophagus and worked with Methods & Materials, a rigging and installation company, to devise a way to lift it.

“It was nerve-wracking,” Brown said.

But it worked.

“She wasn’t afraid of anything,” her wife said.

Chicago History Museum curator Holly Lundberg described Ms. Foley’s attitude this way: “We can do it!”

“She was not afraid to get dirty, to get down underneath things,” said Roger Machin, director of Methods & Materials.

A month before she died, Ms. Foley completed a plan advising the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University on how to preserve its statues and sculpture garden.

“In Chicago, everyone knew Jane,” said Kristina Bottomley, assistant director of collections and exhibition management at the Evanston museum.

Ms. Foley’s remarkable career was all the more so because it began only in midlife. A single mother, she’d held jobs in England running a nanny agency and an art gallery. But she wasn’t happy, according to her daughter Clare Foley Gilliland. The gallery struggled. Their home was repossessed.

“She could have hit the floor then and never picked herself up,” her daughter said, “but she turned her life around.”

At 43, Ms. Foley enrolled at City & Guilds of London Art School to study conservation.

“We were massively proud of her,” her daughter said.

“It took an enormous amount of bravery,” said her sister Fiona Croft.

“As soon as she had a career she enjoyed, she was happy,” her daughter said.

Before finishing college, “She’d never been beyond Europe,” Foley Gilliland said.

Then, as her reputation grew, she was called on to travel the world for her work. In Kuwait, she catalogued antiquities for the United Nations. In England, she worked on the restoration of the stage and decorations for Shakespeare’s Globe theater. She also preserved weaponry and armor at the Tower of London and gilding and paint at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Inez Litas
Jane Foley working on “The Spirit of the Fighting Yank” sculpture in Chicago.

In Chicago, she worked on sculptures at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 19th century Japanese panels at the Art Institute and the Lorado Taft “Recording Angel” statue at the University of Chicago.

At the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie, she helped maintain a German railroad boxcar like those used to transport millions of Jews to death camps during World War II.

She also worked on a rare urn and other objects at the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio in Oak Park.

Her wife said the Field Museum hired Ms. Foley to teach conservation techniques to Iraqi museum officials.

“Jane was very conscious and upset when sculptures, famous archaeological sites, etc. in the Middle East were destroyed by Isis,” she said.

Ms. Foley felt so strongly about this that, in 2019, despite an aversion to being onstage, she appeared in a performance piece about the destruction of antiquities — called “Atlas Unlimited (Acts V-VI)” — at the Logan Center gallery at the University of Chicago.

Her interest in preservation started early. Growing up near Warblington Castle in Hampshire, England, young Jane once found a couple of battered bronze lanterns on her family’s property.

“She renovated them beautifully, using all the right materials,” her sister said.

Twenty years ago, Ms. Foley was a conservator of stone, wall paintings and mosaics at the British Museum when it lent items to the Field Museum for a 2001 Cleopatra exhibition. She accompanied the treasures to the Field.

That’s where she met Litas, her future wife.

They went on to also work together at their companies Litas Liparini Restoration Studio of Evanston and Foley Conservation in Wales.

In addition to her wife, daughter and sister, Ms. Foley is survived by her brothers Patrick and Martin, step-siblings Sarah, Clare, Mandy and Joanna, stepchildren Christine and Alex and granddaughters Evie and Leia.

A funeral service is planned for 12:30 p.m. Tuesday at St Thomas a Becket Church in Hampshire.

From her gravesite, “You can see the house where she grew up, and you can see the window of her first bedroom,” her sister said.

She asked that her service feature the music of DeBussy’s Claire de Lune, the Mideast-inspired “Facing East” by Thievery Corporation and Moby’s “God Moving Over the Face of the Waters.”

Ms. Foley always cared about the planet, her daughter said, so she will be buried in an eco-friendly bamboo coffin. Tucked inside will be an antique, ivory-covered prayer book that her grandparents gave her, which she had beautifully conserved.

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Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau gestures during the first half of Thursday’s game against the Bulls at the United Center. | Nam Y. Huh/AP

On a night in which Joakim Noah was honored, the Bulls and Knicks turned back the clock to the 1990s in a gritty, physical game between teams that feel like they’ve arrived.

There were players heading to the locker room with injuries, a few flagrant fouls, tempers flaring and some good old-fashioned, in-your-face playground defense.

The NBA has needed a Bulls-Knicks rivalry to be rekindled after decades of being dormant, and it might just have it.

As the Knicks’ 104-103 victory at the United Center showed, both teams are more than up-and-coming. They have arrived.

The good news is there are still three more regular-season meetings with Round 1 in the books.

No one knew that more than Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau, who coached the Bulls for five successful seasons, but was also an assistant with the Knicks when Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing were doing their tango in the 1990s.

“They’re two great basketball cities,” Thibodeau said. “So there’s great appreciation for the subtleties of the game — hustle plays, the extra pass, the effort plays, the togetherness, the teamwork, the discipline.

“I just remember how fierce the games were. Back then, there were a number of great rivalries, the Chicago-New York one, the Miami-New York one, New York-Indiana. It was a great time in the NBA. Every night was a big night. Hopefully we can get back to that.”

No doubt that steps were taken in this first meeting.

The loss was the first for the Bulls this season, and also came on the same evening that the franchise was honoring Joakim Noah for his nine years in the uniform.

It was also a grit check.

Down 13 with 2:13 left, the Bulls came storming back thanks to defensive stops, as well as a clutch three-pointer by Nikola Vucevic with 40.7 seconds left that cut the lead to three. After a Kemba Walker miss, Zach LaVine took the easy dunk rather than trying to launch a three, cutting the deficit to one with 9.5 seconds left.

Julius Randle was fouled but gave the Bulls life when he shockingly missed both free throws. After the timeout to set up the final shot, LaVine inbounded it. DeMar DeRozan had the option to hand it back to LaVine but chose to drive just outside the elbow. He pump-faked and took the shot.

He missed. Everything.

“Just tried to have a little misdirection,” DeRozan said. “Kind of rushed it at the end. I’ll live with it. It sucks.”

And the Knicks pulled out the win, while Thibodeau improved to 8-2 against the Bulls since they fired him.

“I think DeMar got to a good area of the floor,” coach Billy Donovan said of that final shot. “The play was to drive the ball. It was supposed to be either DeMar or Zach. I had no problem with what they did on the play.”

The news didn’t get better for the Bulls, either.

Starting power forward Patrick Williams went down hard in the third quarter and left with an injured left wrist.

LaVine was playing with a torn ligament in his left thumb. It didn’t seem to hinder the All-Star guard in the first half, as he led all scorers with 17 points, but he was definitely off in the second half, adding only eight points.

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State Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, stands on the floor of the Illinois Senate in May. | Justin L. Fowler/The State Journal-Register via AP file

While a measure to license certified midwives passed the House easily, another that would block state residents from using their moral beliefs as a reason to refuse to comply with COVID-19 requirements in their workplace was sent to the governor’s desk only after two days of heated debate.

State legislators late Thursday passed a measure blocking the use of moral objections as a reason to refuse to comply with COVID-19 requirements in the workplace — over Republican objections that the state was embarking on a dangerous path, and “we don’t know where it ends.”

The state Senate voted 31 to 24, with four senators not voting, to send legislation amending the state’s Health Care Right of Conscience Act to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk.

State Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, said the nearly quarter century old law as written is “broadly drafted” and is being “construed” in a way that’s not in line with its original intent.

Democrats contend the 1998 act was originally designed to protect doctors, nurses and other health care providers who refused to perform medical procedures — such as abortions — that they’re opposed to on a moral or religious basis.

But Democratic state legislators and members of the Pritzker administration argue the act has been misused by some to refuse to comply with COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other efforts to curb the pandemic.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times file
Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 members and their supporters protest against COVID-19 mandates outside City Hall Monday morning.

The amendment that has now passed both chambers is intended to make clear that public officials and private companies can impose COVID-19 requirements as part of conditions of employment, potentially shielding those employers from legal challenges they might face after imposing those obligations.

While the language of the amendment no longer clearly says employees can be terminated for complying with vaccine mandates or other requirements, it does allow for the conditions to be enforced. The language of the bill does not elaborate on how the measure might be implemented.

Republicans in the chamber worried that the measure would infringe on state residents’ rights to refuse to comply on religious grounds. People can still request exemptions from vaccinations for medical or religious reasons under the legislation.

State Sen. John Curran, R-Downers Grove, warned against passing the measure, saying “we go down this path — we don’t know where it ends.”

“Today we’re diminishing the protections in the workplace for a minor medical procedure — this is my objection, it’s not about vaccinations,” Curran said. “I’m vaccinated, that’s not the issue here. [The issue] is diminishment of protections in the workplace for workers.

“Today, this is the issue in the future, it could be a diminishment of protections that allows one to take a prayer break in the workplace, allows one to wear religious garment, religious headdress in the workplace.”

Shortly after the state Senate gave its sign off, Pritzker lauded the amendment’s passage, saying the state has “effective tools to fight this pandemic — namely, vaccines, masks and testing — and all of our communities are safer when we use the public health and workplace safety protocols we know to work.”

“The Health Care Right of Conscience Act was never meant to put vulnerable people in harm’s way,” the governor said. “This legislation clarifies existing law’s intent without infringing on federal protections.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times file
Gov. J.B. Pritzker speaks about COVID-19 during a news conference at the Thompson Center in August.

“Ultimately, this means we can keep kids in school, businesses open, neighbors safe, and continue on the path to bring this pandemic to an end.”

Earlier Thursday, members of the House voted overwhelmingly to send legislation creating a licensing process for midwives and an Illinois midwifery board to Pritzker’s desk on their final scheduled day of fall veto session.

That measure passed much more easily.

In the House, legislators voted 114 to 1, with three not voting, to allow for certified midwives to go through the licensing process. The bill creates standards for that qualification and sets education and training criteria for those seeking to be licensed as a certified professionals in the field.

The state doesn’t currently recognize certified professional midwives. Under state law, midwifery now requires a nursing degree. Registered nurses who’ve undergone advanced studies or completed certain clinical practice requirements can be recognized by the state as nurse-midwives.

Certified nurse-midwives provide women with primary health care, including gynecological exams, delivering babies and prenatal and postnatal care, according to the Illinois Affiliate of the American College of Nurse-Midwives.

A sponsor of the licensing measure, state Rep. Robyn Gabel, D-Evanston, said she and others had worked for over 20 years on the measure, and passing the bill would allow women more choice in their health care decisions.

Blue Room Stream file
State Rep. Robyn Gabel, D-Evanston, speaks on the House floor Wednesday night.

Legislators in the Senate also advanced a measure supported by Pritzker to encourage electric vehicle manufacturers, businesses and supply chain companies to “invest, locate and stay in the state of Illinois,” state Sen. Steve Stadelman, D-Rockford, said while introducing the legislation.

Senators voted 55 to 0 to send the measure to the House, where the measure was up for debate late Thursday.

A measure to allow people in prisons the right to vote while they’re serving their sentences fell just three votes short of the 60 votes needed to pass Thursday.

That legislation, sponsored by state Rep. LaShawn Ford, D-Chicago, would allow a person convicted of a felony or otherwise serving a sentence in a state correctional facility to have their right to vote restored and “shall be eligible to vote not later than 14 days following his or her conviction or not later than five days before the first election following the person’s confinement.”

The West Side Democrat postponed consideration on the measure, a parliamentary move that will allow the legislation to be voted on again at a later date.

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Former Bulls star Joakim Noah (center) acknowledges the crowd during a night in his honor at the United Center. | Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

The former Bulls standout was named team ambassador leading up to the game against the Knicks, then was celebrated on Joakim Noah Night. He talked about both honors like only Noah can.

Joakim Noah always did things his way.

That’s how one goes from NBA antagonist to Bulls ambassador.

Nicknamed “Stick,” then “Stick Stickity” while growing up in New York, Noah began his athletic career in the shadow of his famous tennis-star father, Yannick, but emerged as a star in his own right for a Bulls franchise that gambled on him coming out of Florida.

They weren’t gambling on Noah on Thursday night. They were honoring him.

Not only was his nine-year career with the Bulls celebrated at the United Center on Joakim Noah Night, but the team announced in the afternoon that he had been named a Bulls ambassador.

“When Joakim played for the Bulls, you could see how much he cared about the kids and everything that’s going on in the city,” Bulls president Michael Reinsdorf said in a statement. “He still comes into town, and he still cares so much. People in Chicago realize that he was more than just a basketball player.

“He was someone who cared about the community, someone who was going to do his best to make a difference in this world, and he has. Joakim embodies every quality you’d want in a team ambassador. This is a natural next step for a former player with such a strong history of giving back to Chicago.”

And more giving is on the way.

Noah met with the media before the Knicks-Bulls game, bucket hat on head, heart in hand, discussing his days with the Bulls and how much that time in Chicago meant to him.

“The energy of this place brought out a crazy side of me,” Noah said, reflecting on playing in front of the home crowd at the UC. “There were times playing in this building that I didn’t even feel my legs when I was running up and down the court. That’s how hyped I was. You can’t replicate those feelings in anything else in life.

“Even just driving on Ogden [Avenue] right now and making that left, I’m like, ‘Oh, my God!’ The feelings are hard to describe. I feel like it was really a blessing. To be able to have that for eight, nine years was really special.”

During his time with the Bulls, Noah was a two-time All-Star and a three-time All-Defensive selection (first team in 2013 and 2014 and second team in 2011). He also was named Defensive Player of the Year in 2014.

In 572 regular-season games, he averaged 9.3 points, 9.4 rebounds, three assists, 1.41 blocks and 0.84 steals in 29.5 minutes. He made the playoffs seven times with the Bulls.

And while he never won a championship with the Bulls, he’s at peace with how his career ended.

“I really wanted to win a championship; that’s why I played the game,” Noah said. “I realized later on that I was chasing something that didn’t make sense anymore. The sacrifice that goes into being a champion, I didn’t feel it the same. When it went that way, I knew it was time to [retire].”

Now his calling will be to mentor young people and players and spend more time in Chicago with his Noah’s Arc Foundation.

“I never really cared about [my legacy as a player],” Noah said. “That’s really not why I played the game. To me, it was being true to who I was. . . . I felt a lot of emotions in this game. I have a lot of experience, and hopefully I can share that with the younger generation and just be at peace.”

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Moon Alert

There are no restrictions to shopping or important decisions. The moon is in Leo.

Aries (March 21-April 19)

Parents should be vigilant because this is a mildly accident-prone day for your kids. Be vigilant. Perhaps social plans will change. A surprise invitation might arrive or an event might be canceled. However, on the whole, this is a positive, upbeat day. Enjoy!

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

Your home routine might be interrupted. Be patient with family members to avoid arguments. (Who needs this? Not you.) Family discussions, ideas and possible suggestions about home repairs might materialize. Later in the day, authority figures will endorse your ideas.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

Pay attention to everything you say and do, because this is a mildly accident-prone day. A stitch in time saves nine! Discussions with younger people, children and romantic partners will be dynamic and stimulating. Late in the day, lofty ideas inspire you. “Count me in!”

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

Guard your possessions against danger, loss or damage because something unexpected might affect your assets. You might find money, you might lose money. Family discussions might have a financial impact. Keep your pockets open because someone might be generous to you. Yes!

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22)

You feel rebellious, which is why you might change plans early in the day. A discussion with someone younger, perhaps a neighbor or relative might be helpful. As the day progresses, others will support you as well — partners, close friends and even members of the general public. You’re on a roll!

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

Although this is a fast-paced, busy time for you, today you will welcome some downtime and savor some private moments just for you. Nevertheless, early this morning, something might be disruptive. This could trigger discussions about money and possessions. Later in the day, work flows smoothly.

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

A friend might surprise you in the early morning. This could trigger discussions and meetings with others, especially about group activities or your goals. In fact, as the day wears on, you might be involved with activities with children or an involvement in sports or a special social occasion.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

Someone or something might catch you off guard in the early morning. No doubt this will lead to busy discussions with others, and, possibly, some behind-the-scenes research. Later in the day, family events and entertaining at home will please you. Stock the fridge!

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)

Travel plans might change in the early morning. Something unusual might occur in the media. Involvement with younger friends will fill your day with new ideas and possible travel plans. Something will happen that expands your horizons and puts you in touch with new faces.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

Double check banking details and anything to do with shared property because something unexpected could affect these areas. If so, you will discuss this with bosses, parents and VIPs. Nevertheless, this is a positive day for you financially speaking. Good day to deal with banks or to ask for a loan.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)

Someone might throw you a curveball in the early morning. (No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!) This might trigger discussions about travel plans or something related to the media, publishing or getting further education. Let others help you today, because they will.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)

Your workday might be interrupted this morning, or perhaps something to do with a pet or your health will surprise you. Discussions with others will offer you practical support, which is probably a good thing. Later in the day, discussions with foreign countries or people from other cultures will benefit you.

If Your Birthday Is Today

Actress Winona Ryder (1971) shares your birthday. You are an observant person with a strong imagination. You are also caring and generous. This is a year your achievements will shine. You might get a promotion, an award, kudos or strong praise or a recommendation. The rewards for your efforts are coming to fruition! You always do your share of the work and more.

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