A cat put one of its nine lives to the test Thursday after it jumped out of a fifth-floor window to escape a fire in Englewood.
The blaze broke out at an apartment building about 3 p.m. in the 6500 block of South Lowe Avenue, Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said.
Smoke can be seen billowing from several windows on the fifth floor of the building in video of the fire posted to Twitter by fire officials.
While crews were working to extinguish the fire, onlookers on the sidewalk began pointing at one of the open widows as the cat approached a ledge, Langford said.
“It was looking out for quite a while,” Langford said. “After a couple of minutes the cat got closer to the edge and it looked like she was getting ready to go and she just did.”
The cat can be seen stretching out its paws as it leaps from the window and narrowly misses hitting a wall on its way down, according to the video. The cat appears to bounce a single time off of a patch of grass before strolling away.
“It went under my car and hid until she felt better after a couple of minutes and came out and tried to scale the wall to get back in,” Langford said.
The cat was not injured, Langford said, adding that he was still trying to track down its owner.
The blaze was extinguished by 3:25 p.m. and was contained to a single unit, officials said.
A 33-year-old woman was shot to death Wednesday in south suburban Robbins.
About 4 p.m., officers responded to a call of shots fired in the 14000 block of South Finley Avenue and found three people with gunshot wounds, according to a statement from Robbins Police.
Tiffany Jones suffered multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene, the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.
Two other people were also shot and were transported to a local hospital for treatment, police said.
With a 4-2 victory, the White Sox completed a three-game sweep of the sagging Minnesota Twins Thursday at Guaranteed Rate Field, running their winning streak to six games and improving their record to a major league best 22-13.
Lance Lynn (4-1) struck out nine over five innings of one-run ball, allowing no earned runs, and Tim Anderson and Jake Lamb homered against Michael Pineda.
Andrew Vaughn, a day after hitting his first career homer, drove in a run with a single after Adam Eaton bunted Yoan Moncada to third, and Yermin Mercedes added a pinch RBI single in the eighth.
Closer Liam Hendriks recorded six outs for his seventh save.
The Sox won despite committing three errors. Center fielder Billy Hamilton made two run-saving catches.
The Twins are 12-23.
“If this was the first of September, I’d have more to say,” manager Tony La Russa said when asked to assess how good his team is. “In spring training, when I saw the talent on the roster, it’s real. I’m talking about pitchers, starters, relievers, offense, defense.
“Now it’s a question of just great preparation, great practice, you have the coaches keep tweaking and take it into the games. The baseball gods are listening so I’ll say we’ve got to keep doing it. I think the heart and the spirit we have is going to bring that talent out, continue to bring it out.”
The Sox open a four-game series with the slumping Royals on Friday.
Bob Weir (pictured in 2018 in Los Angeles) and the rest of Dead & Company will perform at Wrigley Field on Sept. 17-18 as part of their 2021 tour. | Getty Images
The band’s 2021 trek includes a two-night stand at Wrigley Field, Sept. 17-18.
Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, John Mayer and Bob Weir, with Oteil Burbridge and Jeff Chimenti — a k a Dead & Company — are on the road this summer/fall with a 31-date tour kicking off Aug. 16 in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The 2021 trek includes a two-night stand at Wrigley Field, Sept. 17-18.
Verified Fan Registration for the Wrigley shows is available here until midnight May 16 with a limited presale beginning at 10 a.m. May 19.
Tickets will go on sale to the general public at noon May 21 via Ticketmaster.
Other concerts slated for Wrigley Field this year include:Chris Stapleton (July 17, rescheduled from Aug. 29, 2020); Guns N’ Roses (July 21, rescheduled from July 26, 2020); The Hella Mega Tour, featuring Green Day, Fall Out Boy and Weezer (Aug. 15, rescheduled from Aug. 13, 2020); Lady Gaga (Aug. 27, rescheduled from Aug. 14, 2020); Def Leppard & Mötley Crüe (Aug. 29, rescheduled from Aug. 28 2020); and Maroon 5 (Aug. 30, rescheduled from June 13, 2020). Ticket information/sales for these concerts are available here.
Shell casings litter the scene at a McDonald’s parking lot Sunday afternoon where a 7-year-old girl was shot and killed and her father was seriously wounded as they waited in a drive-thru. | Anthony Vázquez/Sun-Times file photo
Devontay Anderson, 21, may have fled Illinois to Florida last month after he opened fire on a car in a drive-thru at a West Side McDonald’s.
The FBI is offering a $10,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of the second gunman wanted in the murder of 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams.
Devontay Anderson, 21, may have fled Illinois to Florida after he opened fire April 18 on a car in a drive-thru at a West Side McDonald’s, federal prosecutors said Wednesday in a criminal complaint.
Jaslyn and her father, Jontae Adams, were in an Infiniti in the 3200 block of West Roosevelt Road when two gunmen got out of an Audi and fired into their car about 4:20 p.m., authorities have said. Jaslyn was killed and her father was wounded.
The FBI released these photos of Devontay Anderson, who is wanted in the murder of 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams.
The federal complaint describes surveillance video viewed by the Chicago Police Department that captured the shooting. It said the Audi contained three people when it pulled behind the Infiniti.
Demond Goudy and Marion Lewis have also been charged in connection with the shooting. Prosecutors have said Lewis was the getaway driver but did not fire any of the shots.
Prosecutors said GPS notifications from a Facebook account associated with Anderson have pointed to Miami, Florida. The FBI said Anderson also has links in Indiana.
Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson pleaded not guilty to federal criminal charges related to a failed Bridgeport bank during an unusually contentious arraignment today.
Lawyers argued during the hearing — held by telephone before U.S. District Judge Franklin Valderrama — about whether Thompson should have to turn his passport over to the government while awaiting trial.
The condition is routine for defendants charged in federal court. But defense attorney Chris Gair called it “just punitive.”
Gair also asked the judge about a trial date after repeatedly saying he wants to clear Thompson’s name.
Meanwhile, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Netols told the judge Thompson had declined to be interviewed by court personnel ahead of the hearing, telling the judge the alderman “doesn’t want to participate in the process” and “made your job more difficult.”
Gair retorted: “We’re the ones who want a trial, and want it now.”
One of Mayor Lightfoot’s closest allies wants to know why there have been no health guidelines released, no applications processed and no block party permits issued with just over two weeks to go before Memorial Day. It’s “frickin’ almost summer,” Ald. Tom Tunney said.
Say hello to Chicago’s newest fuzzy friends. Two Magellanic penguin chicks just came to town, and the Shedd Aquarium is giving everyone a first look at how the little guys are doing so far.
Earlier this spring, Magellanic and rockhopper penguins started their annual breeding season in the Polar Play Zone exhibit. The first hatchling arrived on April 29, and the second hatched on May 5.
Shedd Aquarium/ Brenna HernandezMagellanic penguin chicks are full-grown after two to three months, but until then, the animal care team said they will be looking to monitor activity, hydration levels and more. | Shedd Aquarium/ Brenna Hernandez
Though the Shedd Aquarium has been back open since January, these penguins are staying behind the scenes for now. The two are being reared by adult pairs who will keep the chicks warm and fed as they continue to grow, the aquarium said.
The animal care team is keeping an eye on the chicks, collecting weights and monitoring for any developmental milestones, but otherwise, they are keeping their distance to let the hatchlings bond with the adults.
The Cubs and White Sox will increase fan capacity at their stadiums to 60% this month after getting the green light from city and state officials. The Sox are also offering a $25 gift card for in-stadium use to fans who get vaccinated at Guaranteed Rate Field before games.
Where is your favorite place to see springtime flowers in the city?
Email us (please include your first name and where you live) and we might include your answer in the next Afternoon Edition.
With the weather slowly warming up and swimmers already taking to Lake Michigan, yesterday we asked you: When is the lake warm enough for you to swim? Here’s some of what you said…
“When I was little, my grandparents used to take the grandkids to Lake Michigan in Two Rivers, Wisconsin on the first day of summer every year. And we swam. Now, I never think it’s warm enough but I’m old.” — Kristl Laux
“After a week solid of 90s.” — Maria Vazquez Ramos
“As long as the shelf ice isn’t in the way, it’s always a good time for a dip.” — Erik Angyus
“65-plus degree water.” — Jeff Hornstein
“Late June. My dog loves the dog beach. Since it was closed last year, we can’t wait to go this summer.” — Angela Goffrier Valentin
“When it runs from my hot water heater to my faucet into my bathtub.” — Phyllis Hahn
Thanks for reading the Chicago Afternoon Edition. Got a story you think we missed? Email us here.
Kristine Thatcher and the late Larry Shue’s Waiting for Tina Meyer celebrates barfly connections.
Playwright Kristine Thatcher picked up where she and actor-playwright Larry Shue (The Nerd, The Foreigner) left off 30 years ago with the world premiere of Waiting for Tina Meyer, a romantic comedy that the pair began cowriting decades ago and that reads in its completed form like William Inge crossed with Samuel Beckett, mixed with a hefty dollop of When Harry Met Sally.
The two-author, 65-minute romcom runs through May 23 in a streaming Zoom production from Oak Brook’s First Folio Theatre. The plot is minimal: A group of strangers gather in a dive bar in New Haven on New Year’s Eve.…Read More
The Raging Bull rollercoaster when it first opened at Six Flags Great America, Gurnee, in 1999. | Tom Cruze/Sun-Times archives
The state’s latest effort in incentivize COVID-19 shots comes as kids as young as 12 become eligible to receive them — and as overall vaccine demand continues to dip.
A shot in the arm will soon give thousands of Illinoisans a fluttery feeling in the pits of their stomachs, a disorienting sensation of flight and a rush of adrenaline.
Those aren’t side effects of the life-saving COVID-19 vaccines that are readily available to anyone as young as 12 — they’re now being offered as a reward for rolling up your sleeve.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Thursday announced Six Flags Great America is offering up 50,000 free tickets to its amusement parks in Gurnee and Rockford to newly vaccinated residents, the state’s latest effort to incentivize inoculation, especially for the youngsters who became eligible to receive the Pfizer vaccine this week.
“Thanks to the life saving power of vaccinations, it feels once again like summer is in the air,” Pritzker said in front of the north suburban park’s famous double-decker carousel. “For many people, the protection from COVID-19 is more than enough reason to get vaccinated … but I also know that other people might need a little bit more of an incentive.”
The $4 million worth of tickets that were donated by Six Flags are geared toward communities of color that “have historically seen less investment” and might be on the fence about getting a shot, the governor said.
Some of the tickets will be given away outside the park itself, where an Illinois National Guard mobile vaccination team will set up shop the first weekend of June. Other tickets will be given out by local health departments in the north suburbs, along with other community groups in Cook County and elsewhere across the Chicago region.
State of Illinois livestreamGov. J.B. Pritzker speaks at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee on Thursday.
“Especially for 12- to 15-year-olds, it is absolutely an incentive to get to visit the park,” Six Flags president Hank Salemi said. “I am 100% confident this will motivate vaccinations. That’s why we’re doing it at the end of the day.”
Pritzker’s health team has already toyed with a couple of motivating tactics, including free shooting targets to downstate vaccine recipients and free tickets to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield.
Pritzker didn’t rule out a multi-million dollar lottery game like the one announced earlier this week in Ohio.
Jean Lachat/Sun-Times fileSpecial guests and media take a preview ride on the Superman roller coaster at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee in 2003.
“We’re going to use our resources as wisely as we can and incentivize people as best we can,” he said.
That’s becoming increasingly necessary as vaccine demand dwindles across Illinois. About 62% of residents have gotten at least one shot, and about 37% are fully immunized, but the state is averaging barely 76,000 shots administered per day. That rate has fallen by 43% in the last month.
COVID-19 vaccine doses administered by day
Graphic by Jesse Howe and Caroline Hurley | Sun-Times
Just 68,035 shots were given Wednesday, though that figure doesn’t include vaccinations at CVS pharmacies due to a reporting issue, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.
And while the state reported 35 more coronavirus deaths, most metrics are at their lowest levels in almost two months. The latest 1,918 cases were diagnosed among almost 89,000 tests, keeping the average statewide positivity rate at 2.7%.
The bridge phase allows most venues — including Six Flags — to expand capacity to 60%. That will soon apply at Cubs and White Sox games, which will have designated sections for vaccinated fans. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot also announced vaccinated patrons won’t count against capacity limits at city restaurants.
Barring a surge in cases, all pandemic restrictions will be lifted June 11 across most of the state — though Lightfoot has said the city is aiming more conservatively for July 4.
Almost 1.4 million people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Illinois since last year, and 22,320 of them have died.
To sign up for a vaccine appointment in Chicago, visit zocdoc.com or call (312) 746-4835.
Former baseball star Alex Rodriguez and business partner Marc Lore will buy the Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Lynx for $1.5 billion. | Lynne Sladky/AP
Owner Glen Taylor has reached agreement on his $1.5 billion sale of the club to e-commerce mogul Marc Lore and Rodriguez.
MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor has reached agreement on his $1.5 billion sale of the club to e-commerce mogul Marc Lore and former baseball star Alex Rodriguez, a person with knowledge of the negotiation told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because league approval was still pending and neither side had publicly announced an agreement.
The deal, which Taylor previously said was contingent on Lore and Rodriguez keeping the team in Minnesota, was first reported by The Athletic. The two sides entered an exclusive negotiating window on April 10. Lore and Rodriguez are 50-50 partners. They tried to buy the New York Mets last year but were beaten out for the Major League Baseball club by hedge fund manager Steve Cohen.
Any sale of an NBA club must ultimately approved by the league’s Board of Governors, which could come later Thursday. The Timberwolves would then become the second NBA franchise sold this season. Gail Miller and her family struck an agreement in October to sell the Utah Jazz to Ryan Smith, a deal that was finalized after Board of Governors’ approval in December.
The 80-year-old Taylor, a lifelong Minnesotan who bought the Wolves in 1994 for $88 million to save them from moving to New Orleans, has said he will continue to run the club for two more seasons until a handover in 2023. The Minnesota Lynx WNBA team is included in the sale.
“They’ve asked that I would be there for any decisions that would need to be made. I would enjoy that. I love teaching people. These are a couple of very bright guys, and I think it could be helpful to the club and I think I could be helpful to them so that they feel confident once they take over 100%,” Taylor said an interview last month.
Lore became Walmart’s e-commerce chief in 2016, when the retail giant bought his Jet.com startup in an attempt to boost online business. Lore notified Walmart on Jan. 31 of his intent to leave the company. The 49-year-old Lore will continue to serve in a consulting role as a strategic adviser through September.
The 45-year-old Rodriguez hit 696 home runs over 22 major league seasons, with the New York Yankees, Seattle Mariners and Texas Rangers. His last season on the field was 2016, marking the end of marvelous career that was tainted by performance-enhancing drug use he later admitted to. Rodriguez was suspended for the entire 2014 season for violating MLB policy.
Dick Kay worked 38 years at WMAQ-Channel 5. He was its longtime political editor. | Sun-Times file
He worked the NBC station for 38 years. Hired as a writer in 1968, he soon was covering the Democratic National Convention, one of the biggest political stories of the century.
Dick Kay, a no-nonsense, incisive inquisitor who had one of the longest political reporting careers in Chicago, died early Thursday at 84.
He had been found unresponsive in his favorite recliner at his St. Charles home on Mother’s Day, according to his son Steve Snodgrass, and taken to Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital in Geneva, where he died. The cause of death was an aneurysm, the son said.
Mr. Kay had a stentorian voice that sliced through the noise at crime scenes and news conferences like a bass baritone in an opera. It seemed to command answers from politicians and public relations people who might have preferred to slink away from a mic.
Mr. Kay worked 38 years for WMAQ-Channel 5, covering countless political conventions, indictments, court trials, aldermen, mayors, governors, senators and presidents. He was hired there as a writer in 1968. Within months, he was covering one of the most tumultuous political stories of the century.
“They sent me out on the street, a green kid. The Democratic Convention, in the middle of it! I was stunned,” he once said in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times.
He began appearing on air two years later, rising to be political editor.
He grew up in New Dellrose, Tennessee, a self-described “country boy” who was born in a log cabin. He was just 3 when his sharecropper-father died. His mother worked as a seamstress or cook all her life, he said in the Sun-Times interview. At 14, he dropped out of school so he could make money digging ditches, picking cotton and washing dishes.
At 17, he joined the Navy, serving on the USS Magoffin as a radio man, helping the amphibious “ducks” landing craft and also got his high school equivalency diploma. He went on to Bradley University, where he got a bachelor’s degree in speech education and performed in summer stock with the Peoria Players. He worked his way through college delivering mail.
“He was a man that came from nothing, I mean nothing,” Steve Snodgrass said.
His break in broadcasting came with a job downstate at a radio station in Pekin. He moved from there to take a job in Peoria, where he met his future wife Kay on a blind date.
Her name inspired his new surname, thought to be better for a broadcasting career. He’d been Richard Snodgrass at birth but changed it to Dick Kay. His nickname was “Doogie.”
After Peoria, he was the news director at WFRV-TV in Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1965, where one of his favorite stories was a 30-minute interview with Richard Nixon, then running for president.
After Green Bay, he landed at Channel 5, where, in addition to being “a student of politics,” he “was a bulldog,”said Jim Stricklin, his longtime photographer there. Stricklin recalled a time Fire Cmsr. Robert J. Quinn angrily confronted Mr. Kay in a City Hall elevator over a story he didn’t like. “Dick never backed down, never,” Strickin said.
Mr. Kay also was a union steward and later Chicago president and a national vice president of what is now SAG-AFTRA — the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. He was proud of his work to curb “no-compete” limits that prevent broadcast talents from moving to different stations.
“He was absolutely fearless about going toe-to-toe with management,” said former WMAQ colleague Joan Esposito, who now has a radio show on WCPT-AM. “People who worked with him adored and respected him. . . . He was big and burly and had this gruff sort of manner, but, if something wasn’t going on right in your life, you could just flop down in his office and just vent.”
He loved going out on his sailboat. He played the harmonica and enjoyed country music, especially songs by Hank Williams, Esposito said.
She said that, about once a week, “He and his buddies would go to this cigar store, sit around and talk” while enjoying a good cigar.
Mr. Kay received the Peabody Award — one of broadcast journalism’s highest honors — for a 1984 investigation of the Illinois Legislature called “Political Parasites.” The Peabody judges credited the reports on “ ‘dead-wood’ committees and meaningless commissions that were costing the taxpayers of Illinois millions of dollars” with prompting reforms and saving money.
His work also garnered a National Headliner Award and honors from the Chicago Headline Club. He’d won 11 local Emmy Awards when he was inducted in 2001 into the Silver Circle of the Chicago/Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
After retiring, he worked for then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration, promoting the governor’s healthcare plan. As part of that effort, in an opinion piece for the Sun-Times, he wrote: “In my 38 years of reporting for NBC 5 Chicago, I was known as a curmudgeon, but I was also considered objective. . . . Access to health care or the lack of it might be a matter of life and death.”
He loved what he did, but he warned newcomers about the “grind.”
“It’s glamorous until you’re out there on the expressway doing a traffic report in 20 degree below zero with a blizzard,” he said in a 2012 interview with Tom Szydlo, “or until you’re covering a tragedy like an airplane crash.”
In addition to his son Steve, Mr. Kay is survived by sons Eric and Brett and one grandchild.
“What he stood for his whole life, whether it was a union issue or a political issue or a fact-finding mission, he was always fighting for the truth,” Steve Snodgrass said. “And he did it with integrity.”
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22512644/Screen_Shot_2021_05_13_at_2.14.57_PM.png)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22512647/penguin.jpeg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22512524/Screen_Shot_2021_05_13_at_1.41.05_PM.png)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22512681/4_29_Lachat_superman_6.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22510530/merlin_11395.jpg)