Daywatch: Ed Burke’s longtime ward reacts to verdict
Good morning, Chicago.
Michele Ryba credits former Ald. Edward Burke with the fact she feels safe walking to the CTA Orange Line at dawn.
For her, the quality of life in the Southwest Side’s 14th Ward is more important than the corruption case federal prosecutors brought against the ward’s former longtime alderman that resulted in Burke’s conviction yesterday on all but one of the 14 counts that he used his public position to extort businesses.
On a recent night, Ryba, 61, considered whether a guilty verdict would make her think differently about Burke’s legacy. She took several moments, then shook her head.
“I can’t say it wouldn’t matter if he committed a crime, but he was a good alderman and he got things done for the ward,” she said.
And therein lies the pro and the con that makes Burke’s case intensely local yet also ubiquitous across Chicago as alderman across the city for generations have been pinched by the feds.
Read the full story from the Tribune’s Caroline Kubzansky and Gregory Royal Pratt.
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Ex-Ald. Ed Burke convicted on 13 of 14 counts at landmark federal corruption trial; jury convicts one co-defendant and acquits the other
In a verdict that will reverberate through city politics, Burke was convicted of racketeering conspiracy and a dozen other counts for using the clout of his elected office to try to win private law business from developers.
The nearly clean sweep of guilty verdicts capped a stunning fall for Burke, the former head of the city Finance Committee and a Democratic political machine master who served a record 54 years in the City Council before stepping down in May.
The Great 2023 Chicago Tribune holiday news quiz
Phew! 2023 has been a year. Have you been paying attention?
Get your loved ones together, open a bottle of something you all like and test your current events knowledge on what happened this year in Chicago and far beyond.
UN says more than 1 in 4 people in Gaza are starving because of war
More than half a million people in Gaza — a quarter of the population — are starving, according to a new report by the U.N. and other agencies that highlights the humanitarian crisis caused by Israel’s bombardment and siege on the territory in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
Columbia College part-time faculty union ratifies new contract with some cut classes restored
The Columbia College Faculty Union, which represents nearly 600 part-time faculty members at the South Loop school, announced Thursday that its members had approved a new four-year contract ending the union’s historic 49-day strike.
Stellantis hires back first 165 laid-off autoworkers in Belvidere to staff new parts distribution center
Laid off when Stellantis idled the Belvidere Assembly Plant in February, nearly 165 workers were back on the job this week as the automaker’s first hires for a new parts distribution center, part of a broader plan to restart a facility that once employed thousands.
Over 2.5 million Acura and Honda vehicles are under recall
Honda Motor’s American arm is recalling more than 2.5 million vehicles in the U.S. due to a fuel pump defect that can increase risks of engine failure or stalling while driving.
New campaign aims to turn the tide on maternal mortality in Chicago’s Black community
Shernita Hosey knows what it’s like to endure postpartum depression. The single mom of two daughters, ages 10 and 14, remembers the support she sought from family and friends after her children were born.
That’s why the Humboldt Park resident can often be seen canvassing door to door in South Side neighborhoods as an outreach worker with EverThrive Illinois, a health equity advocacy group.
Column: MLB tweaks its pace-of-game rules — but why stop there?
Major League Baseball announced some tweaks to its rules Thursday to move the game along and eliminate the dead moments that allegedly cause younger fans to tune out.
The boomers who run the game are doing whatever’s necessary to pacify Gen Z and save the game, knocking off seconds of wasted time for the good of all mankind, writes Paul Sullivan.
With 4 straight wins, Chicago State is showing its historic upset of Northwestern was no fluke
Something is brewing on the South Side.
At least that’s what Chicago State men’s basketball coach Gerald Gillion told Shakeia Taylor. Wearing both a gray sweatshirt with “Cougars” across the front and a big smile, he shared his excitement about the last two weeks and his plans for the team’s future.
‘The Color Purple’ review: First-class performers. So why does the musical version feel less authentic than the first film, even?
This new movie stars the powerhouse Fantasia Barrino, who replaced LaChanze as Celie in the original Broadway run. Barrino portrays the adult Celie, the abused, discarded but finally restored Georgia girl who survives a wrenching separation from her sister and lands on a heart-swelling reunion decades later. As a girl, the character’s played by Phylicia Pearl Mpasi.
For many, the performers will be more than enough, writes critic Michael Phillips. But the movie musical works from an impulse to beautify and “sell” even the harshest elements of Celie’s life, first imagined in Alice Walker’s spellbinding dream of a 1982 novel.
How Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer became a Christmas icon
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was conceived for a purely Scrooge-like reason — to make money.
Its creator, however, saw the Montgomery Ward marketing campaign as an opportunity to be as bold in his writing as the fantastical flying stag with a blindingly bright beak he invented was when called upon to pull Santa Claus’ sleigh through fog.
The Governor’s Mansion in Springfield is all dressed for the holidays. It has always taken a fair amount of fa-la-la.
The Governor’s Mansion in Springfield looks lovely right now, at the holidays. If you happen to be near, swing by. It is, after all, the people’s house, and if you are a resident of Illinois, it’s your house, too (albeit, only certain rooms during designated visiting hours; also, don’t touch anything, and forget spending the night, but it’s yours). With that in mind, Christopher Borrelli drove to Springfield the other day to see how the holiday decorations look. He was inspired by a new book, “A House That Made History: The Illinois Governor’s Mansion, Legacy of an Architectural Treasure,” by our state’s first lady M.K. Pritzker.
