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Chicago Bears News: Justin Fields is even impressing the enemyRyan Heckmanon August 12, 2021 at 1:00 pm

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Chicago Bears News: Justin Fields is even impressing the enemyRyan Heckmanon August 12, 2021 at 1:00 pm Read More »

I’m retired. I don’t have to get up early. But I do!on August 12, 2021 at 1:00 pm

Cheating Death

I’m retired. I don’t have to get up early. But I do!

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I’m retired. I don’t have to get up early. But I do!on August 12, 2021 at 1:00 pm Read More »

High school football preview: No. 10 Maine SouthMichael O’Brienon August 12, 2021 at 12:00 pm

Coach Dave Inserra certainly didn’t want Maine South’s spring football season to end with a loss at Naperville Central. The defeat came courtesy of a blocked extra point in the final minutes.

But the defeat comes in handy now for the Hawks, the Sun-Times’ preseason No. 10 team.

”In terms of coaching, it’s usually a little easier to work with a bitter taste in your mouth than to be too high and too full of yourself,” Inserra said. ”So we will use that to our advantage.”

Wounded pride is an especially strong motivator for the Hawks, considering how connected the players feel to the program. Every season, the new faces say the same thing: They grew up watching Maine South football and dreamed of becoming Park Ridge heroes.

That’s the case with quarterback Rowan Keefe.

”I’ve watched Maine South football my whole life,” Keefe said. ”It’s crazy to be here now as one of the guys I watched as a little kid. My parents went to Maine South; my dad played here. Our youth programs are a huge part of the culture here.”

The Hawks’ coaching staff identified Keefe as a future quarterback in seventh grade and had his youth coaches move him from the defensive side of the ball.

”I had played defense all my life, and my dad was a linebacker that hated quarterbacks,” Keefe said. ”So it took some time to get adjusted. But he’s a full-on quarterback dad now.”

Keefe started the last two games of the spring for Maine South and posted impressive numbers against Naperville Central, passing for 353 yards and two touchdowns.

”I’m really happy he had 2oe games to learn and get better,” Inserra said. ”He brings a big arm. He brings leadership. He can run the ball, and he’s just a heady ballplayer. And in our system, it is mostly on the quarterback. He’s up for that moment.”

Northwestern recruit Chris Petrucci will be an anchor on both sides of the ball for the Hawks, playing linebacker and tight end.

”I’ve added a few pounds and focused on improving my blocking,” Petrucci said.

Maine South's Chris Petrucci catches the ball during practice on August 10, 2021.
Maine South’s Chris Petrucci catches the ball during practice on August 10, 2021.
Kirsten Stickney/For the Sun-Times

Only three starters return on offense and four on defense, but most of the new starters played significant minutes last season. The entire offensive line will be starting for the first time.

”The talent level is as good as any we’ve had defensively, kicking and skill-wise,” Inserra said. ”My offensive line will have to mature quickly, but the things we do will help them out, the way we get the ball out quickly and run the ball. It will take the pressure off their shoulders.”

Thaddeus Gianaris, Maine South’s top defensive lineman, said he has been impressed with the offensive line in practice.

”Every team’s success comes down to the offensive line,” Gianaris said. ”Eventually, they are going to become a force. They’ll be able to do the job well.”

The Hawks open at Stevenson, then face a huge test in Week 2 at Warren. The Blue Devils have been one of the best programs in the state for the last few years and will open the season ranked among the top five.

MAINE SOUTH SCHEDULE

Aug. 27 at Stevenson

Sept. 3 at Warren

Sept. 10 vs. Fremd

Sept. 17 at Palatine

Sept. 24 at Glenbrook North

Oct. 1 vs. Glenbrook South

Oct. 8 at Niles West

Oct. 15 vs. Evanston

Oct. 22 at New Trier

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High school football preview: No. 10 Maine SouthMichael O’Brienon August 12, 2021 at 12:00 pm Read More »

1 killed, 18 wounded Wednesday in citywide gun violenceSun-Times Wireon August 12, 2021 at 12:08 pm

A teenage boy was killed and 18 other people were wounded in citywide shootings Wednesday.

A 16-year-old boy was fatally shot and another wounded when someone fired into a home Wednesday afternoon in Englewood on the South Side.

The shots were fired from a car that pulled up to the home in the 6000 block of South Carpenter Street about 4 p.m., Chicago police said.

Cordell Bass was struck in the chest and brought to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, police said. The other teen was struck in the right leg and taken to the hospital, where he was stabilized.

In nonfatal attacks, a 17-year-old girl was shot in Back of the Yards on the South Side.

About 3:15 p.m., she was standing in the 1300 block of West 49th Street, when someone shot her in each of her legs, police said. She was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where her condition was stabilized.

Another teenage girl and two men were shot on a porch in Chicago Lawn on the South Side.

They were attacked about 10:55 p.m. in the 6900 block of South Campbell Avenue, police said. The 15-year-old girl was shot in the arm and was taken to Comers Children’s hospital in fair condition.

A 35-year-old man was struck in the torso and was taken in serious condition to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, police said. The other man, 39, was shot in the leg and taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center in fair condition.

At least 13 others were shot across Chicago Wednesday.

Seven people were shot, one fatally, Thursday in Chicago.

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1 killed, 18 wounded Wednesday in citywide gun violenceSun-Times Wireon August 12, 2021 at 12:08 pm Read More »

Chicago Bears: Matt Nagy, Ryan Pace may have messed this upRyan Heckmanon August 12, 2021 at 12:00 pm

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Chicago Bears: Matt Nagy, Ryan Pace may have messed this upRyan Heckmanon August 12, 2021 at 12:00 pm Read More »

The Old Joliet Haunted Prison Opening New Haunted House This Fall 2021on August 12, 2021 at 12:00 pm

Count Gregula’s Crypt

The Old Joliet Haunted Prison Opening New Haunted House This Fall 2021

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The Old Joliet Haunted Prison Opening New Haunted House This Fall 2021on August 12, 2021 at 12:00 pm Read More »

Those Darn Geese are Leaving and Other Good News!on August 12, 2021 at 12:35 pm

Getting More From Les

Those Darn Geese are Leaving and Other Good News!

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Those Darn Geese are Leaving and Other Good News!on August 12, 2021 at 12:35 pm Read More »

Guatemalan mudslide survivors’ dilemma: a place ‘not fit to live in’ but ‘no way out’Associated Presson August 12, 2021 at 11:00 am

NUEVO QUEJA, Guatemala — The day before Victor Cal left for the United States, he went from relative to relative, collecting money for food during the journey north.

His mother was disconsolate.

“I begged him not to go, that we could live here,” she says. “But the decision had already been made.”

Cal hitched a ride to a place miles away to find electricity so he could charge his phone “to receive calls so the coyote can tell me where and when we will finally meet.”

The makeshift town where he lived offers only hunger and death. To Cal, 26, the United States seemed the only way out.

American authorities have stopped more than 150,000 Guatemalans at the border this year, four times the number in 2020.

Many were like Victor Cal, famished and impoverished. An indigenous Mayan who speaks Pocomchi, he didn’t find work in Guatemala City after serving in the army. When the pandemic hit, he joined thousands fleeing to their agricultural hometowns in the mountains.

Pascuala Jonaj sits against a wood-burning stove as her son Victor Cal feeds the fire a day before he begins his journey to the United States. “I begged him not to go,” Jonaj says.
Rodrigo Abd / AP

He thought at least he’d have food by staying on his father’s land in Queja, with coffee, cardamon, corn and beans.

Then came Hurricane Eta’s rains that brought down a mountain and destroyed everything — house, land, town. He and his parents were left destitute, relying on relief from international organizations in a shabby settlement people dubbed Nuevo Queja.

Now, hours away from leaving it behind, he packed what fit in his yellow backpack: a shirt, a sweater, jeans and extra shoes. He’d lost pretty much everything else when a landslide buried his house.

It had been raining for 25 days. The people of Queja had been cooped up for 10 days, roads cut off by flooding.

Without electricity, phones were dead. The rain the previous 24 hours was five times the average monthly amount, but no one told the villagers that or that they were at risk and should leave.

At lunchtime Nov. 5, the first trees fell. The hillside began to melt.

“Those of us who had time to flee could only carry our children on our backs” says 28-year-old Esma Cal — many in Queja share the last name Cal, though it isn’t always clear how they might be related.

Within seconds, 58 people disappeared. Most of their bodies will never be recovered. Forty homes were buried under tons of mud. Dozens more were left inaccessible.

Crossing torrents of water on ropes, survivors walked to the nearest town, where people shared their remaining food and put them up in schools and at the market. When helicopters finally arrived, “Some of us had been without food for almost two days,” Esma Cal says.

Queja was founded 100 years ago, says Erwin Cal, 39, when families got access to a coffee plantation.

“My grandfather was a slave,” he says. “They had to harvest without pay before they were allowed to build their shacks and use some plots of land for their own fields.”

There were corn and beans to eat, then coffee and cardamom for market.

In time, they made enough to buy the land.

In the 1980s, some joined the Guatemalan army. At the turn of the century, with violence plaguing the country, they hired on as private guards and, with some money now, shacks turned into cement houses with tiles, big windows, refrigerators.

“I had a laptop, a sound system and cable TV,” Erwin Cal says, all now gone.

After a church service, women and children walk to a communal meeting to discuss problems regarding housing and donations received by the international community.
After a church service, women and children walk to a communal meeting to discuss problems regarding housing and donations received by the international community in the makeshift settlement of Nuevo Queja. Guatemala.
Rodrigo Abd / AP

By January, Esma Cal, Erwin Cal, their childhood friend Gregorio Ti and others organized a development council. By February, they’d founded a temporary settlement near their buried homes, though it had just one-third the amunt of agricultural land.

Thus was born Nuevo Queja. This would be home, for the moment anyway, to about 1,000 survivors.

“We know how to work,” says Ti, 36, who lost his pregnant wife, their 2- and 6-year-old sons and his mother in the mudslide.

His surviving daughters, 11 and 14, cling to him.

All day, everyone cuts and transports wood and clears land with machetes.

The shacks are zinc sheets donated by a priest and wooden planks from pine trees villagers cut down. Rain pours in through the roofs.

Esma Cal’s 37-year-old uncle German Cal — who returned to Queja after 20 years in Guatemala City to breed chickens, only to lose everything — is trying to bring electricity to Nuevo Queja.

But Guatemala’s government has declared the new settlement uninhabitable. Therefore, since Nuevo Queja doesn’t exist, at least not officially, it isn’t eligible for the electric poles it needs or road repairs or an improved water supply.

The townspeople have gotten help from non-governmental organizations, One provided wheelbarrows, picks and shovels and brought psychologists to play with the kids, reminding them how to clean their teeth. Another visited to ensure donations of water and sanitation kits were used correctly.

UNICEF donated a new school. But it has been closed for five months because no one could find the key to get inside. UNICEF had given it to a teacher who resigned and left with it.

So school was held in a shack next door. But it leaks. So the floor is often flooded and muddy. The furniture rots.

The school serves 250 children. Of 12 teachers from before the storms, just four remain. And their materials are in Spanish, but the students speak only Pomachi, a teacher says.

“None of them will go to high school,” the teacher says. “School failure is total.”

Students wait for their instructor as they look into their classroom flooded the night before by a heavy rain.
Students wait for their instructor as they look into their classroom flooded the night before by a heavy rain.
Rodrigo Abd / AP

At least once a month, nurse Cesar Chiquin, 39, visits Nuevo Queja. Mothers bring their children.

“Malnutrition has doubled,” Chiquin says. “One in three are stunted. Virtually all are at risk.”

The people of Nuevo Queja can’t raise the food they need. Having lost last year’s crops to the hurricanes, “We arrived in Nuevo Queja too late for planting properly,” Esma Cal says.

They have a third of the land they had before the storms. And rains washed away the topsoil.

“We harvested two times a year,” Esma Cal says. “Now, we have only one, much smaller harvest.”

The local council figures the villagers need 75 acres more. But they have no money.

The government has a land trust. Some day, it could provide the land they need — but it could be elsewhere, in another region. Since most of the villagers don’t speak Spanish, only their indigenous language, a move would obliterate their culture.

“This place is not fit to live in,” Esma Cal says. “And, for the moment, we have no way out.”

Eduardo Cal Chen, 23 (left), and his 20-year-old brother Edgar chop wood in the makeshift settlement of Nuevo Queja, Guatemala.
Eduardo Cal Chen, 23 (left), and his 20-year-old brother Edgar chop wood in the makeshift settlement of Nuevo Queja, Guatemala.
Rodrigo Abd / AP

There seem to be only two ways out of Nuevo Queja. One is death. The other is emigrating to the United States. Most people in the village say the only thing keeping them from emigrating is that they can’t afford it.

But Victor Cal, calculating that, by staying, a person might make just $4 for a full day’s work, found a way. He contacted a distant cousin, who’s been in Miami for years, who agreed to advance the $13,000 to buy a coyote package — a deal that offers him two tries to successfully enter the United States, coming in via the Arizona desert.

Hector Cal and his wife Paulina Jonay pray with an evangelical minister days after their 26-year-old son Victor Cal began his journey to the United States.
Hector Cal and his wife Paulina Jonay pray with an evangelical minister days after their 26-year-old son Victor Cal began his journey to the United States.
Rodrigo Abd / AP

Cal has a plan in mind once he succeeds.

“My objective is to be able to send money so my parents have a real house again and some land,” he says. “If I had a choice, I wouldn’t go. I will be back as soon as possible.”

He says goodbye.

And he leaves without looking back at Nuevo Queja.

After a brief goodbye to his family, Victor Cal begins his journey to the United States, leaving his home in the makeshift settlement of Nuevo Queja.
After a brief goodbye to his family, Victor Cal begins his journey to the United States, leaving his home in Nuevo Queja.
Rodrigo Abd / AP

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Guatemalan mudslide survivors’ dilemma: a place ‘not fit to live in’ but ‘no way out’Associated Presson August 12, 2021 at 11:00 am Read More »

16-year-old boy killed, another wounded after shots fired into home in EnglewoodJermaine Nolenon August 12, 2021 at 11:25 am

A 16-year-old boy was killed and another wounded when someone fired into a home Wednesday afternoon in Englewood on the South Side.

The shots were fired from a car that pulled up to the home in the 6000 block of South Carpenter Street about 4 p.m., Chicago police said.

Cordell Bass was struck in the chest and brought to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

The other teen was struck in the right leg and taken to the hospital, where he was stabilized, police said.

No one was in custody.

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16-year-old boy killed, another wounded after shots fired into home in EnglewoodJermaine Nolenon August 12, 2021 at 11:25 am Read More »

Chicago White Sox are well deserving of Field of Dreams spotlightVincent Pariseon August 12, 2021 at 11:00 am

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Chicago White Sox are well deserving of Field of Dreams spotlightVincent Pariseon August 12, 2021 at 11:00 am Read More »