Good morning, Chicago.
O’Hare International Airport no longer has migrant encampments for the first time since families began sleeping there last summer, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration said Thursday as uncertainty remains over how he will handle the ongoing crisis when city funds for asylum seekers are expected to run out in a couple months.
The airport — for months home to hundreds of migrants who have camped out there while awaiting beds in the city-run shelter system — currently only has four migrants waiting there as of this morning, according to city data. The tentative relief comes after Chicago police stations, which at one point saw more than 3,300 asylum seekers sleeping on floors, were also cleared of encampments in December.
Johnson’s deputy chief-of-staff Cristina Pacione-Zayas noted to reporters the progress coincided with accelerated efforts to resettle migrants in permanent housing or in other cities. But she acknowledged hard choices lie ahead for the city as the $150 million Johnson budgeted for the migrant response this year is slated to be spent by April.
Read the full story from the Tribune’s Alice Yin and Nell Salzman.
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Biden’s memory is ‘hazy’ and ‘poor,’ says a special counsel’s report raising questions about his age
The longstanding concerns about President Joe Biden’s age and memory intensified on Thursday after the release of a special counsel’s report investigating his possession of classified documents.
The report described the 81-year-old Democrat’s memory as “hazy,” “fuzzy,” “faulty,” “poor” and having “significant limitations.” It noted that Biden could not recall defining milestones in his own life.
Chicago Auto Show opens Saturday with plenty of EVs, but minus one of the Big Three
The annual Chicago Auto Show opens Saturday at McCormick Place, and for the first time in nearly a century, one of the Big Three automakers will be missing.
Lurie Children’s Hospital says computer network was accessed by ‘known criminal threat actor’
Lurie Children’s Hospital officials announced Thursday that their network had been accessed by “a known criminal threat actor,” which spurred the health care provider to take its electronic systems offline for more than a week.
“We take this matter very seriously and have been working closely, around the clock, with outside and internal experts and in collaboration with law enforcement, including the FBI,” said Dr. Marcelo Malakooti, chief medical officer, at a news conference outside the hospital. “As an academic medical center, our systems are highly complex and these incidents can take time to resolve.”
Joliet massacre suspect’s girlfriend to plead not guilty to hampering investigation
The girlfriend of a man authorities say killed eight people in an afternoon rampage in Joliet last month will plead not guilty to three counts of obstruction of justice in Will County, her attorney said.
Column: It’s Groundhog Day again for the Chicago Bulls
Groundhog Day on the West Side, also known as the NBA trade deadline, began with sunshine and record early-February temperatures.
It was a perfect day to procrastinate and put things off until next summer.
Playing the Bill Murray role as the guy who experiences deja vu every time he awakes, Bulls executive vice president of basketball operations Artūras Karnišovas was feeling good Thursday about the state of the franchise. It’s AK’s default setting, writes Paul Sullivan.
- Bulls refuse to ‘take a step back,’ standing pat at the NBA trade deadline for the 3rd straight year
- Bulls escape Memphis with a 118-110 victory — and their two-big pairing could be here to stay
Northwestern’s Izzy Scane is approaching the NCAA record for women’s lacrosse goals — and that’s news to her
While Iowa guard Caitlin Clark is approaching the NCAA scoring record in women’s basketball, another humble star looks primed to take down the NCAA Division I record for women’s lacrosse goals — even if she doesn’t seem to care about the idea one bit.
Review: In ‘Mothers’ at Gift Theatre, tensions in a mommy’s group. Then bombs start to fall.
The first act of Anna Ouyang Moench’s play “Mothers,” directed by Halena Kays in its Chicago premiere at the Gift Theatre, is a sharply written and smartly acted satire of the absurd dynamics that can occur when people who are polar opposites are thrown together simply because their children are the same age. At a Mommy-Baby Meetup, three mothers (Caren Blackmore, Krystel McNeil and Stephanie Shum) clash over discipline styles, work-life balance, breastfeeding and vaccination. Meanwhile, a hesitant father (Alex Ireys) and an enigmatic nanny (Lynnette Li) hover on the margins.
Pritzker Military Museum will close in Chicago in July
Chicago’s nonprofit Pritzker Military Museum is currently housed on floors two through four in the Monroe Building, 104 S. Michigan Ave. It was founded in 2003 by Jennifer Pritzker, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Illinois Army National Guard and cousin of Gov. J.B. Pritzker. Both the museum and archives center are part of the Chicago-based Tawani Enterprises, which “works to highlight the role of the military in society,” according to a statement on its website. Pritzker is board chair of the museum and president of Tawani Enterprises.
February has started off especially warm. Winter activities are feeling the heat.
Last weekend’s sunshine made for a pleasant walk for visitors to downtown Lake Geneva as they surveyed creations from the U.S. National Snow Sculpting Championship, part of the town’s annual Winterfest.
But for the sculptures themselves, it was a different story. Constructed over a two-day period late last week, the whimsical structures were starting to become dripping mounds of ice and snow Sunday in the afternoon sun as temperatures approached 40 degrees.
