A 16-year-old boy is charged with two recent carjackings in Douglas on the South Side as carjackings continue to rise over the previous year.
The first attack was on July 7, when the teen carjacked a man in the 500 block of East 33rd Place, Chicago police said. He allegedly forced the man to drive to several locations and give his credit card information to make purchases.
On Aug. 31 last year, the teen carjacked a man at gunpoint in the 3200 block of South King Drive and drove him around too, forcing him to give his debit card information to withdraw money, police said.
The teen was arrested Thursday and charged with two counts of carjacking, two counts of kidnapping and one count each of aggravated battery with a firearm and robbery.
Carjackings are up 53% this year over the same time in 2020, according to public police data. There have been 870 carjackings this year through July 22, compared with 566 during the same period in 2020.
Carjackings have tripled this year when compared with 2019, when 286 carjackings were reported during the same time.
WASHINGTON — Washington Nationals infielder Starlin Castro has been suspended for 30 games without pay and fined an undisclosed amount for violating Major League Baseball’s policy on domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse.
Shortly after MLB announced the penalty Friday, the Nationals said they would release Castro when the ban concludes.
Castro will be ineligible for the postseason under the terms of the suspension and will be required to undergo evaluation and treatment, MLB said.
“Having reviewed all the available evidence, I have concluded that Mr. Castro violated our policy and that discipline is appropriate,” baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement.
Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo said earlier this month, while MLB was investigating allegations against Castro, that he didn’t plan on having him back with the team this season.
“We take all allegations of abuse and harassment very seriously. We fully support the commissioner’s decision,” the team said in a statement after the MLB announcement.
Castro was was accused of sexual assault in connection with a 2011 incident in Chicago but was not charged. Rizzo said Castro was vetted before the Nationals signed him to a two-year contract in January 2020, adding that he was “angered” by the new allegations.
The 31-year-old Castro is a 12-year major league veteran and a four-time All-Star who has played for the Cubs, New York Yankees and Miami Marlins. He played 87 games for Washington this season, mostly starting at third base.
TOKYO — Transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard is in Japan for the Tokyo Games and thanked the International Olympic Committee on Friday for helping to make it possible for her to compete.
Hubbard has been a focus for support and criticism since qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics. She is a medal contender in the women’s over-87-kilogram weightlifting category on Monday.
“The Olympic Games are a global celebration of our hopes, our ideals and our values. I commend the IOC for its commitment to making sport inclusive and accessible,” Hubbard said in comments provided by the New Zealand Olympic Committee.
“Laurel has just arrived a couple of days ago. I just bumped into her at lunch and we understand that she’s comfortable,” NZOC secretary-general Kereyn Smith said. “She’s getting ready. She well understands the size of the stage and is very grateful to be able to compete in this environment.”
The IOC in 2015 drew up a set of recommendations for including transgender athletes. Many sports bodies including the International Weightlifting Federation have implemented similar policies based on the IOC recommendations. Different sports are allowed to set their own specific policies.
The IOC signaled it will release a new “framework” for transgender athletes’ eligibility, taking into account newer scientific studies. That will form a basis for sports to draw up their own updated policies.
IOC medical director Richard Budgett said the organization was funding research into the effects of transitioning. Current IOC guidelines require athletes to demonstrate low testosterone levels for 12 months before a first competition.
“We funded some of those (studies) based particularly importantly on individuals who are transgender and seeing what the effect of transitioning actually has on their performance, because that’s what we really need to know,” Budgett said.
I try not to get too emotionally hooked into individual players on my favorite professional sports teams. That seems like a strange statement from someone who gave his youngest daughter the middle name of a former Chicago Cubs second baseman, but I’m more about the team itself than its players.
But, then 2016 happened.
How can you not get the feels for the players that brought the Cubs franchise its first World Series championship in more than a century? After being a fan of a team that gave you heartbreak after heartbreak for sixty years of fandom, how can you not get emotionally hooked on the men who gave you your greatest sports thrill?
I usually look at professional athletes like a business, almost like the front office of the team they play for does. My hope is we get the best years of the player’s career. Then they trade them when they start to regress for players that will also give us their best years. It usually works in theory, but then came yesterday.
The Cubs traded Anthony Rizzo to the Yankees.
I remember when the Cubs made the trade for Rizzo with the San Diego Padres, on January 6, 2012. They gave up pitcher Andrew Cashner. My brother who lives in San Diego was excited to get the pitcher for someone he called the next Dave Kingman. He predicted lots of home runs and lots of strikeouts. I told him I’d love for Rizzo to hit more than four hundred home runs. Anthony didn’t make it to that number, but he gave us so much more.
Rizzo was the one that went through the losing part of the rebuilding of the franchise. He was the one that scored the winning run in game seven. He was the one that caught the final throw from Kris Bryant that clinched the title. He was the one that the team should have carried off the field in victory. Anthony Rizzo was the face of the franchise.
But, he was far more than a champion baseball player. Anthony Rizzo is a championship human. His foundation has raised millions of dollars for childhood cancer research. And Rizzo not only raises money, but he also puts in the time. Many times we’ve seen him visiting a child fighting cancer at a hospital. He’s won many awards for his community service, but you get the feeling he’d be doing the same thing if there were no awards given or cameras around.
The photo at the top was taken in the spring of 2017. It was only a few months after the Cubs won the World Series. We were still basking in the glory of their victory. I walked into my local Jewel grocery store and Rizzo was doing a promotion. It was the release day for Rizzo cereal. Anthony was there to shill for the product with his face on the box. The cereal itself wasn’t bad, maybe a little too sweet, but the profits from its sale were going for childhood cancer research. That was sweeter than the cereal itself.
Seriously, with all of that, how can you not love this guy?
When I heard about yesterday’s trade, my first thought was the Cubs did pretty good. The prospects they received in return seem to be okay. Maybe one of the two will turn out to be pretty good somewhere down the road….we’ll see. But, when you add up what he’s done for the team and its fans with his contributions to the cancer charity, his leaving hurt more than other beloved players who have been traded.
So to Anthony Rizzo, thanks for everything and we’ll see you on the other side….and by that I mean the south side of Chicago when the Yankees play the White Sox in a couple of weeks. Go Yankees….nah, can’t quite go that far.
My so called friends think it’s time to edit this section. After four years, they may be right, but don’t tell them that. I’ll deny it until they die!
I can’t believe I’ve been writing this blog for four years.
It started as a health/wellness thing and over the years has morphed to include so many things that I don’t know how to describe it anymore.
I really thought this was going to be the final year of the blog but then Donald Trump came along. It looks like we’re good for four more years..God help us all!
Oh yeah…the biographical stuff. I’m not 60 anymore. The rest you can read about in the blog.
It’s not a real party until Chance the Rapper arrives.
Of the 60 players drafted into the NBA on Thursday night, not many could make that bold statement and mean it.
Ayo Dosunmu could.
“After one of my games my junior year [at Illinois] he reached out to me,” Dosunmu said of his relationship with the Chicago-born rapper. “He just said he was proud of me and that I [should] continue to put on for the city, and when I sent out the invitations for my draft party I told him to slide by. He came and he showed support. He was there, polite … yeah, that’s my guy.”
For that reason alone, Dosunmu — a former standout at Morgan Park High School — should be considered one of the bigger winners to come out of the 2021 draft. Killer draft party, hometown kid drafted in the second round by the hometown-team Bulls with the only pick they had on the night. The perfect Hollywood script.
One problem: The combination guard felt like he was a first-round talent and should have gone higher than 38th overall.
“I know I’m a first-round talent,” Dosunmu said. “But you can’t [know] what God has planned for you. And God wanted me to play for my city. So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m embracing it.”
Did the Bulls add a game-changer in the 6-foot-4 Dosunmu? Likely not. He’s a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none player, who could immediately give the Bulls a versatile backcourt option off the bench. There is a ceiling to change that trajectory, but will only come with a lot of hard work and opportunity.
The Bulls fan base — which has a history of getting over-excited about hometown players making good by reaching the Association — walked out of the draft thumping its chest and feeling like winners, but the Bulls ticket office should have been the ones really smiling.
A ridiculously loyal fan base now has another reason to blindly throw money at a product that hasn’t seen the postseason since 2017.
The real winners from Thursday’s draft:
1. “Houston … you no longer have a problem” — James Harden’s departure seemed to leave the franchise spiraling last season, but nothing like a loaded draft class for a quick fix. The Rockets grabbed electric scorer Jalen Green with the No. 2 overall pick, then added three high-upside players to go with him in Alperen Sengun, Usman Garuba and Josh Christopher.
2. Golden options — The Warriors had two lottery picks to play with, and the expectation was they could trade one or both to try and add proven veteran talent. That could still happen, as they hit pay dirt in landing small forward Jonathan Kuminga at No. 7 and then Moses Moody at No. 14, but this is a front office that is simply reloading rather than rebuilding.
3. A bit defensive — Are the Orlando Magic suddenly a playoff threat? Not even close. But it was Christmas in July for the franchise, as Jalen Suggs slid a spot to No. 5. With the No. 8 pick they received from the Bulls in the Nikola Vucevic deal, they then grabbed versatile forward Franz Wagner. Two great defenders to go along with a roster that currently has defensive-minded players like Gary Harris and Wendell Carter Jr.
4. “De-Troit Basketball …” — Joakim Noah made his feelings about Cleveland very clear years ago, insisting he’s never heard anyone say “I’m going to Cleveland on vacation.” The same could be said about Detroit. That’s what made the Cade Cunningham selection so refreshing. The No. 1 overall pick wanted to be a Piston, and was embracing the Detroit underdog role in every interview. He has the talent and mindset to put a dismal franchise back on an NBA radar they haven’t appeared on since 2004.
5. Hot-lanta –The Hawks have already arrived on the playoff scene, and then added two big-swing prospects in Jalen Johnson and Sharife Cooper. If Cooper — picked at No. 48 — does what he’s capable of at point guard, the Bulls could be kicking themselves for passing on him years from now.
NEW YORK — COVID-19 vaccinations and masks will be required for all Broadway audience members when theaters reopen in the coming weeks, theater operators announced Friday.
Audience members will have to wear face coverings and show proof they are fully vaccinated when they enter the theaters, the Broadway League said in a news release.
There will be exceptions to the vaccine rule for children under 12, who are not yet eligible for any of the approved shots, and for people with a medical condition or religious belief that prevents vaccination, the theater operators said. Those individuals will need to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test.
“As vaccination has proven the most effective way to stay healthy and reduce transmission, I’m pleased that the theatre owners have decided to implement these collective safeguards at all our Broadway houses,” Broadway League President Charlotte St. Martin said.
Vaccinations will also be required for all performers, crew members and theater employees, the league said.
Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s “Pass Over” is set to open Wednesday at the August Wilson Theatre. Most other theaters will open in September or October after being shuttered since the coronavirus pandemic hit in March 2020.
Ticket holders for performances scheduled through Oct. 31 will be notified of the vaccination policy, Broadway League officials said. For performances in November 2021 and beyond, the theater operators will review the policy and made changes if science dictates, they said.
It’s been hot and muggy, people are stressed, downtown is crammed with Lollapalooza attendees, and we’ve been dealing with powerful storms and wildfire haze. We’re going into the dog days of summer, the slog until the period when it’s nice before it starts to get cold again.
So if you’re going to daydream about real estate, you might as well look for something calming: shade to keep outside as tolerable as possible, calming places to be inside when it’s not (like the rare indoor pool). And there are some surprisingly affordable options for some unique houses—an indoor pool under $600,000, and a cabin with a horse barn and corral for under $500,000 (though there’s about as much room for the horses as for the owners). Step inside.
It’s Brutalist, and it’s curvy, and it’s got a two-story indoor pool with a water slide, and it’s got a bar in the living room under the two-story atrium, a living room which is connected to the family room (which has a built-in curved sofa) by a curved open fireplace. The three-story spiral staircase (of course) leads up to the bedrooms; the master bed is surrounded by about 120 degrees of windows, and is nestled into a curvy set dresser which also serves as a headboard (and, uh, has a circular mirrored ceiling above it). All this—four beds, four baths—for less than $600,000. It’s sold as-is, and it does have concrete and an indoor pool so maintenance could run more than something a bit more conservative in its price range, but… look.
It’s a lot of look. I don’t even know what to call the style it is in—Corporate Retreat Ranch? The interior detailing is a bit dry for a house of this price, but part of that interior includes that thing on the right, described as a “four season lookout tower-gazebo.” It’s sort of like a sunroom crossed with a silo? It’s really cool. If that’s too round, there’s another sunroom just off the living room. There’s a library with a cozy sit-in bay window nook, tons of porch, a master bath with a fireplace, and even two secret doors, making up for the sort of plain main rooms with a lot of delightful surprises.
If you can’t decide between midcentury modernism and a woodland estate, this is a chance to have both. This four-acre property has two houses, plus a lower-level apartment in the main house, all stretching across nearly 9,000 square feet of living space. As you can probably guess from the landscaping—which, under the chaos, is pretty lovely—it needs work. But it retains a lot of its 1960s style, like its extensive parquet floors, stone wall with fireplace, and the clock built into the oven hood. The extensive property backs up to a forest preserve, or you can just admire the tree inside the house.
This postmodern ranch has major hotel lobby vibes, and I say that with the highest of praise. The foyer has a pond with trees, next to the glass-enclosed spiral staircase, with interior windows looking out onto the indoor pool. The floor, naturally, is black stone. A lofted office area looks down upon your sleek Xanadu. As an alternative to the pool, there’s a sunroom with a hot tub and fireplace, the second-sleekest in the house after the corner fireplace in the immense, light-filled main bedroom. For a break from all that, some of the rooms are downright conventional ranch living space, with exposed beams and floor-to-ceiling windows.
The good news: you can have horses (up to three), in a big, attractive barn, for under $500,000. There’s also a huge garage for the huge truck you’ll need to pull the horse trailer. The bad news: there’s 1,000 square feet for people: three beds, one bath, small living room, combo kitchen-dining room. It’s a squeeze, nothing fancy, but it’s cute. You do get a lot of yard, a pond, and a corral off the barn. And it’s right across the street from a huge string of Cook County Forest Preserves: Tampier Slough, Cap Sauers, Cherry Hill Woods, out to the Cal Sag Channel, where the preserves continue all the way out to Willow Springs. It’s not much house, but it’s a lot for the price.
A couple of weeks ago ATTOM issued their Midyear 2021 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report which shows just how little foreclosure activity there is relative to past years. Although it has been trending down for years now it just hit a record low, driven largely by the foreclosure moratorium.
Foreclosure activity in the first half of this year hit a reccord low.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that people aren’t in trouble on their mortgages. Black Knight’s May Mortgage Monitor Report shows us the percentage of mortgages that are delinquent and it’s relatively high at 4.73%, though it has come down considerably over the last few months. The May delinquency rate actually ticked up slightly from April. But these levels of delinquencies probably means there will be a flood of foreclosures once the moratorium ends tomorrow.
Rick Sharga, executive Vice President of RealtyTrac, an ATTOM company, remarked:
The government’s foreclosure moratorium and mortgage forbearance program have created an unprecedented situation – historically high numbers of seriously delinquent loans and historically low levels of foreclosure activity. With the moratorium scheduled to end on July 31, and half of the remaining borrowers in forbearance scheduled to exit that program over the next six months, we should start to get a more accurate read on the level of financial distress the pandemic has caused for homeowners across the country.
Keep in mind that the time to complete a foreclosure is ridiculously long still so these foreclosures won’t impact the housing market for several years. Also, as Sharga pointed out elsewhere in the release, with rising home prices home owners may not need to get foreclosed upon. Instead they can sell their homes at a profit. That would impact the housing market more immediately.
It still takes more than 2 years to complete a foreclosure.
I show monthly Chicago foreclosure activity in the graph below and it is following a very similar pattern to the nation. Not much is happening right now – June was actually down a little from April and May.
Chicago foreclosure activity has declined dramatically since the housing crisis but once the pandemic hit it really died down to negligible levels.
Chicago Shadow Inventory
The number of Chicago homes that are in some stage of foreclosure continues to decline. The June numbers only ticked down slightly from May though.
The number of homes in foreclosure in Chicago continues to decline during the pandemic.
#Foreclosures #ChicagoForeclosures
Gary Lucido is the President of Lucid Realty, the Chicago area’s full service real estate brokerage that offers home buyer rebates and discount commissions. If you want to keep up to date on the Chicago real estate market or get an insider’s view of the seamy underbelly of the real estate industry you can Subscribe to Getting Real by Email using the form below. Please be sure to verify your email address when you receive the verification notice.
After 20 years in the corporate world and running an Internet company, Gary started Lucid Realty with his partner, Sari. The company provides full service, while discounting commissions for sellers and giving buyers rebates.
After growing up in and around Pilsen, musician Maya Zazhil Fernandez will now be a semi-permanent fixture in the neighborhood — albeit a two-dimensional one.
Fernandez and her traditional Mexican music group, called Jarochicanos, are among 46 locals featured on a 4,000-square-foot mural completed earlier this year at 1113 W. 18th St. entitled “Somos Pilsen,” or “We Are Pilsen.”
Beyond conveying images of real people connected to the largely Mexican American community, the painting is intended to be a statement about the gentrification that’s been displacing some long-time residents and businesses because of rising rents.
Part of a series on public art. More murals added every week.
“Pilsen’s gone through some pretty monumental changes,” says Pablo Serrano, a Pilsen artist who with Mateo Zapata completed the mural on the exterior of the Carnitas Don Pedro restaurant on Jan. 6. “But the art’s always been there — and the struggle and the need to express the cultural identity of a Mexican immigrant community like Pilsen.”
Jan. 6 is the same day that mobs of Donald Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol — which Zapata noted was an ironic coincidence.
“We’re talking about trying to face the challenges of gentrification and displacement of Brown people,” Zapata says. “And then you have this massive show of force that represents white supremacy on Capitol Hill.”
The artists ended up including the shared date on the mural.
Maya Zazhil Fernandez was included in the Pilsen mural with her music group, Jarochicanos.Provided
Fernandez, who’s of Mexican and Peruvian descent and still lives in Pilsen, was included in the center of the painting. Her music group, formed in 2008, has been giving free music workshops for more than a decade as well as performing at neighborhood events. She says her inclusion in the mural helps recognize the role of traditional music in Pilsen.
“For us it’s not so much about the individual or us individually being recognized, it’s about our work and the work that we do being seen as something that’s a part of the community,” says Fernandez, 26. “It’s a really humbling thing.”
There’s also a map of Latin America on the mural along with one of the American South. Serrano, 41, says he chose to include these to represent the migration of Black Americans and Latin Americans.
Pablo Serrano, one of the artists who created “Somos Pilsen,” says he hopes residents can see themselves in the mural.Mateo Zapata
Gentrification — when more affluent people and businesses move into an area and displace lower-income residents — has been a hot topic in the neighborhood as more than 14,000 Latino residents have relocated since 2000, according to published reports.
With images of regular people — of varying races, the artists note — Zapata sees the mural as a form of resistance to the forces changing the neighborhood.
Displacement has been a theme through Zapata’s life as he was born in Colombia after his mother was previously exiled from Chile when it was under a dictatorship.
Zapata, 37, has also felt the effects of Pilsen’s gentrification, as he’s been forced to move further and further west over the last decade or so because of increasing rents to the east. Many friends and neighbors have had similar experiences, he says.
Mateo Zapata, one of the mural’s artists, has experienced the effects of gentrification through his rising rent.Provided
A phoenix takes up a large area of the mural and stands for resilience and “something that cannot be destroyed,” according to Zapata.
He’s talking here about history — that no matter what ultimately happens in Pilsen, its rich history can’t be erased.
The individuals included in the mural were people known by Zapata, Serrano or the Duarte family who own the building the mural is on and the attached restaurant. Those on the mural who are still alive then had their photos taken by one of the artists to use as a reference.
The mural, measuring 88 feet wide and 46 feet tall at its highest point, took at least 25 gallons of paint and over half a year to complete, done completely by paintbrush. Discussions between the artists and restaurant owners began in summer 2020, with the painting beginning in the early fall.
Magdalena Castaneda, 46, is one of the owners of the restaurant that was originally opened by her father in 1981 and says she loves how the mural highlights the roots of the neighborhood and those who worked to make it what it is today. Her mother, Magdalena Duarte, along with her father and the restaurant’s namesake, Pedro Duarte, are both pictured on the mural.
The faces of the Pilsen mural belong to neighborhood figures who are almost all still alive.Provided
Serrano says what he enjoyed about working on the mural was seeing people who didn’t know each other meet at its unveiling, which was one of the first in-person events he did since the pandemic began.
“The mural was an opportunity to consciously connect people that were not connected but were one degree apart or two, but that love Pilsen, love Chicago,” he says.
It’s not a real party until Chance the Rapper arrives.
Of the 60 players drafted into the NBA on Thursday night, not many could make that bold statement and mean it.
Ayo Dosunmu could.
“After one of my games my junior year [at Illinois] he reached out to me,” Dosunmu said of his relationship with the Chicago-born rapper. “He just said he was proud of me and that I [should] continue to put on for the city, and when I sent out the invitations for my draft party I told him to slide by. He came and he showed support. He was there, polite … yeah, that’s my guy.”
For that reason alone, Dosunmu — a former standout at Morgan Park High School — should be considered one of the bigger winners to come out of the 2021 draft. Killer draft party, hometown kid drafted in the second round by the hometown-team Bulls with the only pick they had on the night. The perfect Hollywood script.
One problem: The combination guard felt like he was a first-round talent and should have gone higher than 38th overall.
“I know I’m a first-round talent,” Dosunmu said. “But you can’t [know] what God has planned for you. And God wanted me to play for my city. So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m embracing it.”
Did the Bulls add a game-changer in the 6-foot-4 Dosunmu? Likely not. He’s a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none player, who could immediately give the Bulls a versatile backcourt option off the bench. There is a ceiling to change that trajectory, but will only come with a lot of hard work and opportunity.
The Bulls fan base — which has a history of getting over-excited about hometown players making good by reaching the Association — walked out of the draft thumping its chest and feeling like winners, but the Bulls ticket office should have been the ones really smiling.
A ridiculously loyal fan base now has another reason to blindly throw money at a product that hasn’t seen the postseason since 2017.
The real winners from Thursday’s draft:
1. “Houston … you no longer have a problem” — James Harden’s departure seemed to leave the franchise spiraling last season, but nothing like a loaded draft class for a quick fix. The Rockets grabbed electric scorer Jalen Green with the No. 2 overall pick, then added three high-upside players to go with him in Alperen Sengun, Usman Garuba and Josh Christopher.
2. Golden options — The Warriors had two lottery picks to play with, and the expectation was they could trade one or both to try and add proven veteran talent. That could still happen, as they hit pay dirt in landing small forward Jonathan Kuminga at No. 7 and then Moses Moody at No. 14, but this is a front office that is simply reloading rather than rebuilding.
3. A bit defensive — Are the Orlando Magic suddenly a playoff threat? Not even close. But it was Christmas in July for the franchise, as Jalen Suggs slid a spot to No. 5. With the No. 8 pick they received from the Bulls in the Nikola Vucevic deal, they then grabbed versatile forward Franz Wagner. Two great defenders to go along with a roster that currently has defensive-minded players like Gary Harris and Wendell Carter Jr.
4. “De-Troit Basketball …” — Joakim Noah made his feelings about Cleveland very clear years ago, insisting he’s never heard anyone say “I’m going to Cleveland on vacation.” The same could be said about Detroit. That’s what made the Cade Cunningham selection so refreshing. The No. 1 overall pick wanted to be a Piston, and was embracing the Detroit underdog role in every interview. He has the talent and mindset to put a dismal franchise back on an NBA radar they haven’t appeared on since 2004.
5. Hot-lanta –The Hawks have already arrived on the playoff scene, and then added two big-swing prospects in Jalen Johnson and Sharife Cooper. If Cooper — picked at No. 48 — does what he’s capable of at point guard, the Bulls could be kicking themselves for passing on him years from now.
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