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Happy Friday. Jump into the weekend with these stories from WTTW News. Also, before Tuesday’s Primary, visit our 2026 Voter Guide.
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Video gambling machines are pictured in a file photo. (WTTW News)
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A key Chicago City Council panel voted Thursday to reject efforts to ban video gambling from bars and restaurants in six wards, defying the decades-old tradition that gives alderpeople the final authority over licensing in their own wards.
The ordinances rejected by the committee would ban video slots and poker machines in Ald. Jessie Fuentes’ 26th Ward, Ald. Walter Burnett’s 27th Ward, Ald. Jason Ervin’s 28th Ward, Ald. Rossana Rodriquez’s 33rd Ward, Ald. Anthony Quezada’s 35th Ward and Ald. Maria Hadden’s 49th Ward.
Both Burnett and Ervin asked Ald. Debra Silverstein (50th Ward), the chair of the City Council’s License and Consumer Protection Committee, not to hold a vote on the two measures during Thursday’s meeting. Similar requests are routinely honored by committee chairs, particularly when the impact of the proposal is limited to specific wards, rather than citywide.
Silverstein declined to honor those requests, instead recognizing motions from Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41st Ward) to approve the bans. The committee, including Napolitano, quickly voted to reject both measures without debate.
That brought a furious and incredulous response from Ervin, the chair of the Budget Committee and a key ally of Mayor Brandon Johnson.
“This is a whole new era we are in,” Ervin said, explicitly warning his colleagues that they were about to violate aldermanic prerogative. “I guess we are throwing all that out of the window.”
More context:
That unwritten code calls on alderpeople to mind their own business and vote along with the alderperson whose ward is impacted with the implicit understanding that what they want to happen in their ward will be rubber-stamped in return.
“Just remember,” Ervin told his colleagues. “The same two teams that play today play tomorrow.”
Only once in recent years has the City Council approved a high-profile project over the objection of the local alderperson.
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Sponsor Message
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Make your plans to celebrate this April with the Poetry Foundation, offering a full roster of FREE public programs, including:
- a poetry reading with Chicago’s own National Book Award winner Patricia Smith;
- a live performance by chamber music collective D+Composed;
- a library packed with more than 40,000 books of poetry for readers of all ages.
Visiting Hours: Wednesday, Friday, Saturday 11 AM–5 PM; Thursday 11 AM–6 PM
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A Border Patrol agent’s badge is seen near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Ill., Oct. 3, 2025. (AP Photo / Erin Hooley, File)
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A coalition of Chicago-area officials, organizations and individuals has taken the first step in a push for a special prosecutor to investigate criminal misconduct by federal agents last fall during the Trump administration’s expanded immigration enforcement operations.
That coalition, which includes more than 200 elected officials, community organizations, attorneys and religious leaders on Thursday filed a petition in Cook County court after they said State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke has failed to hold federal agents accountable.
“Absent such (an) appointment, the message to federal agents operating in Cook County would remain clear: you may shoot unarmed civilians, assault journalists and clergy, brutalize protesters, and lie under oath with impunity,” the group wrote in its 55-page petition..
The coalition claims there is “overwhelming evidence” of criminal misconduct carried out by federal agents during Midway Blitz, but despite that, O’Neill Burke’s office has taken no action to investigate or prosecute those alleged crimes.
Attorneys with the law firm of Loevy and Loevy, which filed the petition, argued this represents a conflict of interest and an “abandonment” by the state’s attorney’s office of its duties.
“The State’s Attorney cannot represent the people of Cook County while turning a blind eye to egregious acts of violence that federal agents have inflicted on them in her jurisdiction,” they stated in the petition.
Some backstory:
O’Neill Burke has rejected calls for a special prosecutor and called the coalition’s plan “frivolous, contrary to centuries of legal precedent and court rulings, (and) riddled with factual errors.”
In a statement earlier this week, she said the petition would only make it “more difficult” for her office to prosecute ICE agents who break the law.
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(WTTW News)
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Chicago Teachers Union leaders are pushing for a day of no work and no school this spring in solidarity with the national May Day movement.
The union’s House of Delegates — its largest governing body — approved a resolution Wednesday seeking “full support” from Chicago’s Board of Education and Mayor Brandon Johnson to declare May 1 as a “Day of Civic Action.”
“If we still want to have democracy in the midterms this November, public schools that provide our students with quality education, and unions to defend workers’ rights, then it is up to every Chicagoan to stand up for what we believe in and show the authoritarian billionaire in Washington that when he breaks every rule, we will not go along with business as usual,” CTU Vice President Jackson Potter said in a statement.
The resolution comes as the CTU said it intends to join its partners in Minnesota and across the nation in calling for a national day of “No Work, No School, and No Shopping” in what the union said is an effort to “defend our Democracy, demand ICE out of our cities, and tax the rich to support our schools and vital services.”
The union said Johnson can draw upon a state law enacted last year that allows middle and high school students one excused absence per year to attend a “civic event.”
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More From WTTW News:
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Anjanette Young, a social worker who was handcuffed while naked during a botched 2019 Chicago Police Department raid, is among six nominees to fill three vacant seats on the city’s police oversight board, officials announced Thursday.
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Back in the Day: March 13, 1960 - Founding NFL Team, the Chicago Cardinals, Moves to St. Louis
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When the National Football League was founded in 1920, Chicago had two teams, and neither was the Chicago Bears. The NFL franchise we’ve come to know and begrudgingly love was originally the Decatur Staleys (they would move to Wrigley and become the Bears in the 1921 season), but the city also held the Chicago Cardinals and the Chicago Tigers. On this day in 1960, 66 years ago, the Chicago Cardinals announced a move to St. Louis after a 40-year run in the city. Following owner Charles Bidwell’s death in 1947, his widow and owner Violet Bridwell wanted to move the team to her hometown. She succeeded in 1960, but she died the following year and wouldn’t see the team live for
27 years before moving to Phoenix. Fun fact: The Bears and the Cardinals are the only two original still active NFL teams.
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Other News From Around Town
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Every Friday, WTTW News highlights interesting stories about Chicago from the local and national press.
Shot by Border Patrol, Then Called a ‘Domestic Terrorist’ (The New Yorker)
“Like other young women she knew who lived on the South Side of Chicago, Marimar Martinez carried a handgun at the bottom of her purse. The gun, a Smith & Wesson pistol for which she had a concealed-carry license, was usually strapped into a neon-pink harness. “It’s a girl gun,” she told me recently. Martinez is thirty-one and works as a teaching assistant at a Montessori school. She thought of herself as a trusting person who’d help “literally anybody,” even strangers. But in 2020, after her sister was the victim of an attempted carjacking, she decided that a gun would be a good idea. The man at the gun shop looked at Martinez, a small woman with round eyes and rosy cheeks, and recommended the pistol, which fit nicely in her hands. She liked to take the gun with her on runs in the forest preserve, where the trails could be lonely. She had never fired the gun outside of a shooting range. But she liked knowing that it was there at the bottom of her
bag, for her protection.”
Chicago’s Hottest Club Is … Seafood City? Viral Pop-Up Dance Party Comes to the Filipino Grocery Store (Chicago Tribune)
“Seafood City usually closes at 9 p.m. But over the weekend, the market stayed open all night long as DJs and party hosts transformed it into a late-night dance party. Late Night Madness is a viral pop-up experience sweeping the nation, with late-night takeovers in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Seattle. But this weekend marked the first time the Filipino supermarket phenomenon came to Chicago.
The sold-out event drew nearly 1,700 people on Friday and another 1,700 Saturday, said Chicago store manager Sol Uson.
Some attendees sported shirts reading “Fabulous Filipina” and “I Heart Pinays.” Others dressed as mascots for Jollibee, the beloved Filipino fast-food chain that has a location inside the store.”
Half Acre, Maplewood Breweries Merging Amid ‘Rapidly Changing’ Beverage Market (Block Club Chicago)
“Two popular Chicago craft brewers are merging to form a new company, their owners announced Tuesday.
Half Acre Beer Co. in Bowmanville and Maplewood Brewery & Distillery in Logan Square are combining to form a “unified beverage company” that will keep their respective brands active amid turbulent economic times for local craft breweries.”
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What's your favorite local movie theater? Tell us why.
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Email DailyChicagoan@wttw.com with your responses and your answers might be published. Here's what you had to
say:
"Lake Street Theater in Oak Park" — @photololo
"The New 400! It's the best cozy neighborhood staple." — @steph_mcneely74
"I love the Davis! Great screenings, service, theaters and theater 2 is a sight to behold." — @ididweed3x
"The Music Box! It provides all the reasons to go watch a film outside of your home: its nostalgic and warm atmosphere, an engaged audience, and good films selections that celebrate the art of filmmaking." — @adampflickinger.bsky.social
"The Patio Theater 6008 W. Irving Park Road. The Patio Theater creates that nostalgic movie going experience while coming up with innovative ideas and NOT splitting up the theater. Great events like the May the 4th Star Wars screenings, The Phantom of the Opera double feature and Munsters Go Home with special guest Butch Patrick. 4 star local movie theater!" — Jason R.
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Newsletter Producer: Josh Terry
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