Daywatch: Fatal I-55 dust storm crash puts focus on Illinois farmers
Good morning, Chicago.
One person was killed and at least 22 injured in a mass shooting near Willowbrook in southeast DuPage County early Sunday morning, authorities said.
Fire officials received calls reporting gunshot victims around 12:30 a.m. and responded to a strip mall at Route 83 and Honeysuckle Rose Lane where a “really large” gathering had occurred, said Steve Vogel, a Tri-State Fire Protection District battalion chief.
The gathering began as a Juneteenth celebration, according to the DuPage County sheriff’s office.
Read the full story from Vivian La and Jake Sheridan.
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Fatal I-55 dust storm crash puts focus on Illinois farmers: ‘We haven’t advanced … but we can’
Illinois’ farming practices have come into sharper focus since May 1, when a massive cloud of soil, blown from nearby fields by winds topping 40 mph, blanketed a busy stretch of Interstate 55 south of Springfield. The resulting 84-vehicle pileup killed eight people and injured at least three-dozen others.
Some called what happened that morning a “perfect storm,” unprecedented in its size, its staying power and the carnage it caused.
Others say the state and federal governments have fallen short in helping farmers take on the types of conservation practices that could prevent another deadly dust storm.
“We can’t expect farmers to do all of this alone,” said Liz Moran Stelk, executive director of the nonprofit Illinois Stewardship Alliance. “We have programs since the Dust Bowl that are supposed to invest in protecting soil and water, and they have not been prioritized.”
Chicago migrant arrivals: Mayor Brandon Johnson aims to resettle asylum-seekers from shelters, but it won’t be immediate
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration is turning its focus to resettling asylum-seekers amid an ongoing humanitarian crisis that’s seen thousands of new arrivals since last August.
As it looks to eventually find more permanent solutions than the police station lobbies and large congregate shelters that have housed migrants in recent months, the city is preparing to seek proposals for a community-based model that could also cut down on current high costs of contractual shelter staff, Johnson deputy chief of staff Cristina Pacione-Zayas told the Tribune.
One year post-Roe, a wave of abortion providers has come to Illinois. A doctor at one new clinic calls the work ‘life-changing.’
As the nation approaches the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, Equity Clinic in Champaign is among a wave of new abortion providers that have sought haven in Illinois, one of the few states with strong reproductive rights protections remaining in the largely restrictive Midwest.
The post-Roe migration of abortion providers to Illinois follows a national pattern of clinics and medical providers fleeing states with abortion bans or tight gestational limits and resettling in parts of the country where terminating a pregnancy is still legal.
In 1997, a 13-year-old was beaten by white Bridgeport teens. A podcast challenges the racial narrative that followed.
The new podcast “You Didn’t See Nothin” takes a critical look at the media narrative that followed the 1997 Bridgeport neighborhood beating of 13-year-old Lenard Clark Jr., a Black child who lived in the Stateway Gardens public housing development, going to get air for his bike tire, by a group of white Bridgeport teens ages 17 to 19.
Clark was beaten unconscious and suffered permanent brain damage, and the longest sentence handed out was eight years to Frank Caruso Jr., with two others receiving probation.
Which player grabbed attention in OTAs? What does Justin Fields need to show in training camp? 4 key topics as the Chicago Bears head into their summer break.
After nine organized team activity practices, a team bonding event at the United Center and a three-day mandatory minicamp, the Bears have five weeks to regroup before preparation for the 2023 season kicks into high gear.
As the Bears reset, the Tribune’s team of writers addressed four key topics surrounding the team.
Column: Drag brunch prevails at The Walnut Room, where history and radical acceptance collide
The Tribune’s Louisa Chu writes that every other weekend or so, if you head up seven floors to The Walnut Room, in the store once known as Marshall Field’s on State Street in Chicago, you’ll feel the music before you see the spotlights beaming from the show.
“I never could have imagined, being a Black nonbinary bearded drag queen, that I would ever have a show in this kind of space,” Lucy Stoole said.
