Good morning, Chicago.
Mexico’s projected presidential winner Claudia Sheinbaum will become the first woman president in the country’s 200-year history.
“I will become the first woman president of Mexico,” Sheinbaum said with a smile, speaking at a downtown hotel shortly after electoral authorities announced a statistical sample showed she held an irreversible lead. “I don’t make it alone. We’ve all made it, with our heroines who gave us our homeland, with our mothers, our daughters and our granddaughters.”
The climate scientist and former Mexico City mayor said that her two competitors had called her and conceded her victory.
For the first time, Mexican nationals could cast a vote in person at consular offices around the world in the historic election. In Chicago, wait times of more than 10 hours were reported.
In all, 10,560 Mexicans in the Chicago area registered to vote in person, online and through the mail, making Chicago the city with the second-highest number of Mexican nationals registered to vote in the United States, said Eduardo Puga of the National Electoral Institute.
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Asian Americans working to translate growing numbers in Chicago into political power
That a Chinese American woman now represents the historic 11th Ward on the City Council throws into sharp relief the challenges and opportunities facing Asian American elected leaders in the city and region: For generations, racial and ethnic groups have grabbed political power in Chicago, and tried to harness their increasing electoral clout in order to hold onto and expand it. Doing so is by no means assured, however, and the wide diversity of the Asian American experience makes building a successful coalition particularly challenging.
So goes the high wire Ald. Nicole Lee has walked since being appointed by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot to the City Council in 2022, after a once-a-decade redistricting process afforded Asian residents a precarious 50.1% majority in the new 11th Ward.
Legislation now before Gov. J.B. Pritzker: Mobile driver’s licenses, medical debt relief and a new state mushroom
The Illinois General Assembly’s spring legislative session ended in last-minute drama as Democrats barely eked out enough votes to pass a package of tax hikes that mostly affect gambling operations and corporations.
But lawmakers in the final days also sent a number of other bills to Gov. J.B. Pritzker that will directly affect the state’s residents and communities. And, during the course of the four-month session they approved a number of less significant measures, among them bills designating the soybean as the state’s official bean and Calvatia Gigantea, colloquially known as the Giant Puffball, as the state mushroom.
Here’s are some of the bills heading to the governor’s desk.
A young mother’s murder horrified central Illinois. Decades later, the family convicted in her death says DNA proves they’re innocent.
Macon County prosecutors built a case entirely on circumstantial evidence, some of it considered at the time to be cutting-edge forensics — dog hair DNA analysis and comparisons of concrete and cinder samples. In the end, they convinced a jury that the elder Slovers murdered their former daughter-in-law, with their son’s tacit approval, to stop her from taking her 3-year-old son and moving out of state.
In the two decades since the Slovers were sent to prison, the salacious details of their case have become fodder for the burgeoning true-crime entertainment industry. All the while, the Slovers have insisted they’re innocent and fought in court to clear their names.
Columbia College Chicago lays off 70 faculty and staff, citing declining enrollment and budget troubles
When Lillian Gecker received a surprise invitation for a mandatory Microsoft Teams meeting, the Columbia College Chicago therapist got a bad feeling.
She learned Thursday that she was one of 70 faculty and staff members laid off. The school also eliminated 32 vacant positions, citing declining student enrollment and ongoing financial woes. The news left her “surprised and disheartened,” especially after a prior email said the college wasn’t “planning reductions in student counseling.”
Advocates meet in Chicago to call for new limits on freight train emissions: ‘Our lives literally depend on reform’
As the nation’s busiest rail hub, Chicago figures prominently in the advocates’ push to update the EPA’s 16-year-old freight locomotive emissions standards.
About 25% of U.S. freight trains pass through the Chicago region, which has 18 intermodal rail yards, where giant containers from across the country — and the world — are transferred between trains and trucks.
Neighborhoods see a larger disparity in wildlife in Chicago than other cities, study shows
A new study from Lincoln Park Zoo found low-income Chicago neighborhoods see around five fewer mammal species than wealthier areas, according to Mason Fidino, a senior quantitative ecologist at the Urban Wildlife Institute at Lincoln Park Zoo.
Cicada? More like ci-nada. Why some city dwellers are calling cicada invasion ‘Y2Cicada’
Sightings of periodical cicadas are few and far between in much of the city. But it’s a much different story for those in Far Southwest Side neighborhoods as well as the suburbs where the insects’ sound is inescapable.
Lawmakers’ lack of action on new Bears lakefront stadium raises hopes in Arlington Heights
After a legislative session with no action on a new Chicago Bears lakefront stadium — and a conservation group coming out against the proposal — Arlington Heights officials are hopeful that the team may eventually turn its attention back to the suburbs.
What’s the real reason behind the draft-pick trade? 4 things we learned from Blackhawks GM Kyle Davidson.
In an interview with the Tribune, Chicago Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson weighed in on several topics, including top wing prospect Ivan Demidov, Connor Bedard’s performance at the IIHF World Championship and the reasoning behind the recent draft-pick trade with the New York Islanders.
Local D-Day vet returning to Normandy for invasion’s 80th anniversary. ‘I’ve never forgotten what happened there.’
Ninety-nine-year-old Richard “Dick” Rung of Carol Stream recalled the Germans waited from atop the cliffs that encased the fiercely protected crescent-shaped Omaha Beach, one of five landing sites of the Normandy Invasion.
Rung plans to return to Normandy for an 80th anniversary commemoration of the D-Day landings, which President Joe Biden is scheduled to attend.
Ryan Keegan reads a book in a hammock along Lake Michigan at North Avenue Beach in Chicago, Ill. on July 11, 2019. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)
Biblioracle: It’s summer time. Here are 5 books for ‘hammock reading season’
A hammock read hits a quieter, more contemplative tone, the kind of book you look up from and think about as you sway gently in the breeze, maybe with a little dog — or in my case, two dogs — curled up at your side.
Here’s a mix of new and old books that will serve you well if you want to while away an entire day in the hammock.
A new Pilsen brewery highlights the growing economic power of Latinos, celebrates community, culture and craft beer
Monochrome Brewing is the latest business to open in Pilsen that is partially or fully owned by a Latino with roots in Chicago’s South Side. A report from UIC’s Great Cities Institute released last May suggests the movement could be driven by a growing number of Latinos living in the area who are college-educated and making more money.
