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New York City’s Mayor Eric Adams was hit with federal corruption charges. Given our city’s long history with corruption, it might come as a surprise that no Chicago mayor has ever been indicted for public corruption. Read on for the stories you need to know.
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WTTW/WFMT staff collecting native plant seeds in a Cook County forest preserve. (Patty Wetli / WTTW News)
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It’s harvest season in the region’s forest preserves and natural areas. If you’re wondering what crops land managers are growing in our woods and prairies and wetlands, well it’s not corn or peppers or pumpkins. The answer is seeds.
All those native plants that flowered over the summer are essentially the seed bank for future generations of flora. It takes a lot of hands to gather acres of seed heads the old-fashioned way — snipping them off with a pair of pruning shears — more hands than any forest preserve district could possibly employ.
That’s where volunteers from WTTW and WFMT recently entered the picture. Dozens of us converged on Cook County’s Bunker Hill Forest Preserve last week for a stewardship day, collecting seed that will be used across North Branch preserves.
My group was led by Emily Russell, a volunteer program coordinator with the forest preserve district. “What we’re doing today is an important part of this whole cycle of restoration,” Russell said.
It’s a cycle, she explained, that starts with the removal of invasive species like buckthorn. Areas cleared of invasives are then enriched with the native seeds, which have been combined into mixes appropriate for different habitats. She led us to our work site, where we stepped off the paved path and into another world.
The tallgrass prairie is, as advertised, tall, with plants rising up over my head. It’s also, as early settlers learned, not as benign as all those pretty flowers would suggest. Burrs and brambles caught on my clothes — despite the heat, I was super grateful for long pants and long sleeves — and footing was unstable, the ground pockmarked with hidden dips.
But it was glorious, too. As we hunted for ripe rattlesnake master seed — “If the stem is brown, cut it down,” Russell advised — occasional swarms of dragonflies buzzed overhead and beautiful purple blooms of bottle gentian poked up from the prairie floor.
After a couple of hours of sweaty work, we’d gathered enough seed to fill a couple of those large “yard waste” bags — our small contribution to the larger work of keeping our green spaces healthy. |
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(WTTW News)
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On Thursday evening, the Chicago Board of Education voted unanimously to prohibit the closure of any public school until after the 2026-27 academic year. The 6-0 vote comes after reports that as many as 100 schools could be on the chopping block, news that created a firestorm of controversy among parents and educators.
More than that, this move by the board came two days after CEO Pedro Martinez announced he had refused Mayor Brandon Johnson’s request to resign, an unprecedented show of public defiance by the head of a city agency toward the mayor.
Here's some backstory:
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After Chicago Teachers Union officials sounded the alarm about possible school closures, Martinez acknowledged compiling a list as part of an effort to craft a five-year strategic plan for the district.
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Sources in the mayor’s office said Martinez’s decision to craft that list without informing the mayor indelibly broke the relationship between the two men. Martinez and Johnson have been at odds over the district’s finances and efforts to craft a new contract with CTU for months.
What else happened in the board meeting:
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Speaking in public for the first time since the rift between him and the mayor burst into public view, Martinez called reports he planned to recommend closing schools “misinformation” at the start of the board meeting.
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The school board gave no public indication that it is considering firing Martinez. Board members — all appointed by the mayor — have the power to terminate Martinez’s contract.
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A file photo of a CPD vehicle. (Michael Izquierdo / WTTW News)
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There’s a disconnect between the data, which shows that crime is down both in Chicago and around the country, and how so many Americans feel more unsafe than ever. Is it the charged and alarmist rhetoric about public safety in an election year? Is it because it’s easy to view videos of illegal activity on social media?
As the city's homicide rate dropped by 8%, robberies by 10%, sexual assaults by 2%, and a 4% decline in theft, public sentiment hasn’t caught up with the data. To talk about this, "Chicago Tonight" spoke with Teny Gross, CEO of Nonviolence Chicago and Takenya Nixon, the attorney supervisor at the Cook County Public Defender’s Office.
Here's what they had to say:
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“We’re doing good and positive things, but we’re still far from other countries in terms of levels of violence,” said Gross, who notes that even with great progress there are major setbacks that will take more than a decade to fix and correct.
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“The criminal legal system as it exists today is rooted in racism,” Nixon said. “If you look in the courtrooms, you see nothing but Black and Brown people who are being accused, as if Black and Brown people are the only people who exist in the city of Chicago. It forwards this idea that Black and Brown people are criminals and we need more policing.”
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Back in the Day: September 27, 1974 - Marc Chagall’s ‘The Four Seasons’ Dedicated
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Marc Chagall’s grand mosaic mural celebrates the passing of the seasons. Photo credit: Alan Brunett
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Marc Chagall was a Russian-French artist who operated in several mediums but was most well-known for his paintings. His work has led the art critic Robert Hughes to call him “the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century.” In the 1950s, Pablo Picasso said, “When Matisse dies, Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what color really is.” On this day 50 years ago, Chagall’s “The Four Seasons,” a series of vibrant mosaics commemorating the annual arrival of spring, summer, winter, and fall was dedicated in Chicago. Located in the Loop’s Chase Tower plaza, the scenic four-sided mosaic stands 21 meters long by 3 meters wide and 4.3 meters high and you can still visit it today. This isn’t Chagall’s only Chicago connection either. In 1977, he gifted his stained glass installation “America Windows” to the Art Institute of Chicago in honor of the U.S. Bicentennial and the death of Mayor Richard J. Daley.
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How do you feel about the new stadium proposals from the White Sox and the Bears? Tell us what you think.
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Email DailyChicagoan@wttw.com with your responses and your answers might be published. |
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Many of our readers are fans of these Chicago sports teams, but they are definitely not cheering for public money to go to new stadiums:
“The Bears already ruined the lakefront by destroying Soldier Field's historic status. Now they want us to pay for more? Fool me once....” — Mary V.
“They can pay for their stadiums by themselves and recoup their investment by having competitive teams people want to spend money on” — Demo
“I haven't seen any real ideas about the Bears’ [stadium] but I like the location of the proposed White Sox Stadium. What I don't understand is that price tag. At $5 billion, there has to be a lot of hands in that cookie jar.” — William
“There should be NO public funding for either team. All their begging and publicity stunts (like the demo baseball field) are ridiculous. If Reinsdorf wants it so bad, he should pay for it himself. Between the relatively new ballpark (still in good condition) and shameful performance of the team, the baseball proposal is exceptionally ridiculous.” — Anne A.
"A singular word… 'bupkis!'" — Mark S.
The Cubs lost last night. With their playoff hopes fading, the defeat hands the NL Central title to the Milwaukee Brewers.
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Newsletter Producer: Josh Terry |
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