From Gwendolyn Brooks in Chicago to David Foster Wallace in Normal, Robert Coover in Herrin to Edgar Lee Masters on the Spoon River, the state is a microcosm of America and so is its native literature. Here are 10 of its best works.Read More
10 Essential Illinois BooksWhet Moseron March 10, 2021 at 4:21 pm Read More »
Looking back at Russell Wilson‘s preferred trade destinations, it seems that the Chicago Bears could be the only team left. “I think it’s the Bears or no one,” said Mike Florio of NBC Sports on his podcast, referring to the Wilson trade destinations. He also stated Wilson demanding a trade “seems inevitable” for the 32-year […]
Chicago Bears: Are the Bears the final trade destination for Russell Wilson? – Da Windy City – Da Windy City – A Chicago Sports Site – Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, Fighting Illini & More
A 63-year-old was charged in their murders.
A 63-year-old man has been charged with murder and arson in a Gresham house fire that killed a mother and her young daughter last week.
Reginald Brown was arrested Tuesday in connection to the Feb. 28 blaze in the 8600 block of South Hermitage Avenue, Chicago police announced Wednesday.
Brown, of Gresham, was expected to appear in court Wednesday.
The victims were 10-year-old Porche Stinson Ford and her mother Ieashia Ford, 34, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Their deaths were classified as homicides “due to house fire due to arson,” the medical examiner’s office said.
They were found in a burning house by firefighters about 4 a.m., Chicago fire officials said.
The pair were taken to Little Company of Mary Hospital, where they were pronounced dead, officials said. The fire also injured four other adults, police said.
Neighbors told CBS2-Chicago that the fire broke out in the rear of the home where Ford and her daughter lived.
Scheduled to receive his second shot on Monday, Williams is torn: Should he go to Mesa? Is it safe? Is it the right thing to do?
So, you miss the sensory delights of live baseball, do you?
Just imagine how Billy Williams feels.
Seventeen and a half months. That’s how long the Cubs Hall of Famer, 82, has gone without the sights and sounds that have made his heart sing since he was a boy in Alabama.
“Baseball has been my life,” he said this week. “And if you don’t have it, it’s tough. It hurts. You miss it. I just miss it so much.”
Last March, Williams was a day or two away from a plane ride to Arizona, where he’d gone for spring training every year but one since 1957. This trip would be with his grandson, Christian Harris, an athlete himself who plays wide receiver at Indiana. It was going to be special.
Hearing talk about a strange, potentially lethal virus, though, Williams canceled his plans; he’d just have to catch the Cubs at Wrigley Field instead. But by the time the Cubs were back in business and asked him to come to the ballpark and throw out a first pitch, Williams wasn’t going anywhere — especially not with Shirley, his wife of 60 years, at home with him in Glen Ellyn and deeply in the throes of dementia.
“No way,” he said. “That, I couldn’t do.”
Billy and Shirley are scheduled to receive their second vaccination shots — Pfizer, for those of you scoring at home — on Monday. And Williams is torn: Should he go to Mesa? Is it safe? Is it the right thing to do?
If he doesn’t, he’ll continue to feel like a man without a team. Days feel like weeks, and weeks like months. It just doesn’t sit well.
“She’s still intaking food and she’s sleeping pretty good, and we have a couple people coming in and really taking good care of her,” he said. “That gives me the chance to do some things I want to do.”
What he does these days — for his own well-being — is get outside and walk around the block a couple of times. It’s what an old right fielder can muster.
“Got to try to keep the legs in shape,” he said.
Williams has been hit hard by the losses of so many ballplayers, many of them Hall of Famers, in recent months. Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Joe Morgan, Cubs teammate Glenn Beckert and others including — and especially — Hank Aaron, who came up a few miles from Williams in Mobile, Alabama. Williams knew about Aaron’s passing in January before the sad news got out because, well, that’s what happens when you’re dear friends.
Being around the game would help ease the hurt.
“But I just don’t know if I should,” he said. “It’s a hard decision, you know? People are still not wearing the mask. I wish they would. You’ve got to take it from the doctors and the people who know about this disease.”
And what about the Cubs? Are they going to be any good? Are they going to be great again while Williams is still watching?
“I want to see, and everybody wants to see, this team get back to the World Series,” he said. “If the ingredients are not there, I think [president of baseball operations] Jed Hoyer would do the job and get the people in to help out. But we’ve got the core.”
For what it’s worth, Williams still believes in Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, Anthony Rizzo — the stars in their walk years.
“All these people who were in the World Series in 2016, they know how to win,” he said. “Last year was a different year, a different year for everybody. But I think this year, knowing they’re going to play 162 games, the guys are ready for that. A lot of guys have fun when it’s their [walk] year. I think all the thoughts are good.”
And what else?
“I don’t want to just watch it on television anymore,” he said.
So many can relate, but maybe not as much.
Here’s the current lineup for the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments.
Here are the teams that have earned berths in the NCAA basketball tournaments:
Loyola, Missouri Valley Conference
Morehead St., Ohio Valley Conference
Winthrop, Big South Conference
Liberty, Atlantic Sun Conference
Appalachian St., Sun Belt Conference
UNC-Greensboro, Southern Conference
Drexel, Colonial Athletic Conference
Cleveland St., Horizon League
Mt. St. Mary’s, Northeast Conference
Gonzaga, West Coast Conference
Oral Roberts, Summit League
Belmont, Ohio Valley Conference
NC State, Atlantic Coast Conference
South Carolina, Southeastern Conference
Stanford, Pac-12 Conference
Troy, Sun Belt Conference
Mercer, Southern Conference
UConn, Big East Conference
Wright St., Horizon League
South Dakota, Summit League
Gonzaga, West Coast Conference
Who’s in: NCAA tournament bidsAssociated Presson March 10, 2021 at 3:00 pm Read More »
Johnny Shanklin was shot in the back and killed in the 2018 attack.
Prosecutors have filed a murder charge against a third man in connection to the 2018 shooting death of a 50-year-old blind man in Lawndale.
Deangelo Joyce was arrested Tuesday in Des Plaines after police identified him as a participant in the murder of Johnny Shanklin, Chicago police said in a news release Wednesday.
The 29-year-old Little Village resident was expected to appear in court later Wednesday.
Days after the shooting, prosecutors charged two members of the Traveling Vice Lords street gang with opening fire on a group of unarmed people April 24, 2018.
Demarcus Washington, Dureya Lark and a third man allegedly exited a car and fired 14 rounds, prosecutors said then. Shanklin was struck in the back by one of the bullets and died at a hospital.
Officers chased a car suspected in the shooting and recovered a 9mm pistol thrown from its window, prosecutors said then.
The driver of the car crashed at Cermak Road and St. Louis Avenue, where Washington and Lark were arrested, prosecutors said. At the time, a third suspect remained at large.
Court records show Joyce pleaded guilty in 2014 to aggravated battery of a police officer and was sentenced to boot camp.
Washington’s charges were reduced to possession of a firearm with a defaced serial number, court records state. He was found not guilty of the charge in 2019.
Lark’s murder case remains pending.
Decked out in the hottest spring fashions, the Chicago Red Stars’ Sarah Gorden mixes casual with glam.Read More
Laid Back, Dressed UpLynette Smithon March 10, 2021 at 3:00 pm Read More »
Chicago Bears wide receiver Allen Robinson has had enough of general manager Ryan Pace and his penny pinching. Last September, the Bears and Robinson attempted to get a contract extension done, however the two sides could not agree on terms. Robinson then played out the final year of his original 3-year contract he signed. He […]
Chicago Bears: Allen Robinson thinks he’d get long-term deal elsewhere – Da Windy City – Da Windy City – A Chicago Sports Site – Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, Fighting Illini & More
