On Juneteenth, Stephanie Hart will serve up a decadent representation of the African American flag: A green, black and red velvet cake frosted with a green cream cheese and drizzled with dark chocolate dyed black with food coloring. “The red is the peo…
Michael Phillips: Why do the Jan. 6 hearings make me miss Nixon and Watergate?
I miss Watergate. I miss the hearings, so soothingly devoted to protocol, so revealing in their honest and fully bipartisan effort to ferret out the chief weasels. The patience. The results. Richard M. Nixon’s bizarrely serene and smiling resignation s…
Temperatures climb to 100 degrees in Chicago as thousands still without power
City and suburban authorities had mere hours overnight to transition from cleanup after a line of powerful thunderstorms left thousands without power and wind-related damage in its wake to a heat wave that pushed heat indexes over 100 degrees. Just a h…
Starbucks baristas vote to unionize another Chicago cafe
Baristas at a Starbucks in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood voted nearly unanimously to unionize Tuesday, making their store the fourth unionized Starbucks in the city. Workers at the Starbucks at 2101 W. Armitage Ave. voted 15-1 to unionize with Starbu…
Paul Sullivan: Another day, another White Sox controversy they avoid addressing
CHICAGO — The Lance Lynn-Joe McEwing dugout incident during Monday’s Chicago White Sox game in Detroit brought back some vivid memories of a similar incident in 1996. Frank Thomas and Robin Ventura, two of the biggest stars on the ‘96 Sox, engaged in a…
My worst moment: ‘Fire Island’ star Margaret Cho on wearing all white and experiencing a truly crappy situation
The Hulu romantic comedy “Fire Island” takes Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” and puts a modern gay spin on it, both fizzy and incisive about classism and racism. Margaret Cho co-stars in a role that is part den mother, part provider of vacation hou…
US Rep. Sean Casten’s 17-year-old daughter has died
Suburban Chicago U.S. Rep Sean Casten’s 17-year-old daughter, Gwen Casten, died Monday morning at the family’s Downers Grove home, the congressman’s office and Downers Grove police said. “This morning, congressman Casten’s beloved daughter, Gwen, passe…
Nude woman steals CPD squad car, runs over officer’s leg, then crashes car, top cop says
CHICAGO — A nude woman lying in the street stole a Chicago police squad car, ran over an officer with it and then crashed it Monday morning, Superintendent David Brown said at a news conference. Police received a call of a woman in the street unclothed…
Chicago Public Schools end school year with 22,000 student COVID-19 cases; CTU says safety measures should remain in the fall
CHICAGO — About one in every dozen Chicago Public Schools students contracted COVID-19 this school year, the district’s first year of full-time, in-person learning since the pandemic began. With CPS closing out the school year Tuesday, the district is …
‘Finding Your Laughter’ documents the struggle of a Chicago family with Alzheimer’s, and how improv made that burden just a bit lighter
CHICAGO — One day, Arlieta Hall’s father forgot that you don’t go to Best Buy to get chairs. On another day, he thought her brother was his younger self. That was when Arlieta realized that Alzheimer’s had hit the smartest man she knew. When Milton Hal…