Christine Blasey Ford, married and in her 50s, reluctantly came forward recently to say she’d been sexually attacked by a now-famous man many years ago. She didn’t remember the date of the attack, she hadn’t reported it to police at the time and certain incongruous details gave rise to doubts that...
John Kass is angry, as he should be. He is justified in his indignation over the obsessions and excesses of the extreme left. The similarities between this "movement" and the religious, anti-government fringes of the right are remarkable at times. I can assure him that most Democrats, myself included,...
In response to “Burning books is the honest next step for left”: I’m so tired of reading John Kass’ indefatigable defense of Brett Kavanaugh. The hearings were a type of job interview, not a trial, so that the presumption of innocence is not assumed by law. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s responsibility...
The Chicago Police Department needs reform. That’s not some miraculous new discovery, but the way to achieve that reform may as well be. We can’t expect the police to be able to see everything going on, and frankly, we can’t trust them to take action when they do. It’s the will of the people that...
I adamantly believe the new swing vote on the U.S. Supreme Court will be Chief Justice John Roberts. Roberts won’t permit the court to descend into partisan political diatribes regarding critical issues on important cases brought before it for adjudication. He is also acutely cognizant of its historical...
Do not think for a moment that Donald Trump cares about killings in Chicago. Don’t let him trick you into believing that he and Kanye West can put their heads together over lunch and come up with a solution to our city’s violence problem. Don’t buy Trump’s line that he was so concerned about a...
The Washington Post's Dan Balz nailed it in his recent analysis of the Democratic Party, which included the summary “They have no unifying leader and no clear message.” Balz wrote: “The best that congressional Democrats have recently come up with in terms of messaging was their ‘A Better Deal’...
As a woman who is not yet dead, I have studied the latest youth-enhancing products and have even been to a dermatologist — as well as a witch, a voodoo priestess and an exterminator — to get this dreadful thing called “aging” out of my body. And I have an important, medical-ish finding to share:...
Count me among those least surprised that U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is departing. I've repeatedly urged she do just that to preserve her reputation and political viability and to get out before the special counsel's report lands. Aside from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis,...
Chicago’s subway debuted 75 years ago with a ribbon-cutting and speechmaking, a parade and a bit of hyperbole contributed by the Tribune. “It is perhaps the most glorified hole in the ground that man ever designed and brought into public use,” the paper reported of the new transit line 40 feet...
Mahalia Jackson was seated nearby when Martin Luther King Jr. stepped up to the podium on Aug. 28, 1963, to address the 250,000 marchers who had come to Washington, D.C., to mark the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. King detailed the barriers that still denied African-Americans...
Can you name all 45 of Chicago’s mayors? Here’s a cheat sheet, with excerpts of Tribune coverage of some of them. Note that the mayoral term was one year through 1863, when it was changed to two years. In 1906, Chicago’s city charter was amended to make the mayoral and aldermanic terms four years....
Fifty summers ago, a mule train got caught in a human traffic jam on Michigan Avenue. The mule train bore a delegation of poor people headed for Chicago’s International Amphitheatre, where the Democratic Party was meeting Aug. 26-30 to pick its 1968 presidential candidate. On Wednesday, Aug. 28,...
Stymied by all those unfamiliar names at the bottom of your ballot? We’re here to help. Vote “no” on three judges by punching 228, 232 and 314. In Illinois, circuit court judges are elected to the bench. After that, they face a yes-or-no vote for retention every six years. It takes a 60 percent...
This is the second installment of the Tribune Editorial Board’s endorsements for U.S. House races. You’ll find the candidates’ answers to our surveys, and our endorsements for this election, at chicagotribune.com/candidates. We begin with one of the Chicago-area races generating national interest....
This is the first installment of the Tribune Editorial Board’s endorsements for U.S. House races in the Nov. 6 general election. You'll find the candidates' answers to our surveys, and our endorsements for this election, at chicagotribune.com/candidates. You'll find the Editorial Board's statement...
Illinois voters have been hearing accusations for months now that billionaire Democratic candidate for governor J.B. Pritzker improperly pocketed tax breaks by yanking the toilets out of one of his Gold Coast mansions and declaring it uninhabitable. And they’ve been hearing Pritzker’s explanations....
Education might not be featured across cable news 24/7, but a wave of teacher strikes this year has put a spotlight on education funding in many states, raising the stakes of next month’s midterm elections. Cut funding more or raise it? Disagreement over that question has motivated a growing number...
Nearly a half-century ago, President Richard Nixon's secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, established a successful U.S. strategy for dealing with America's two most dangerous rivals. He sought closer ties to both the Soviet Union, with its more than 7,000 nuclear weapons, and communist China, with...
FLEECE ME! It’s fall, darn it, and now that temperatures in and around Chicago are finally dropping to autumnally appropriate levels, I’m ready to celebrate by wrapping my torso in something that resembles a blanket with arm holes and pockets. I love fleece. Of all the things you can make by combining...
Now that Brett Kavanaugh has finally been sworn as an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court — after several ugly weeks of ritual defamation by the hard left that has seized the Democratic Party — there is just one more unfinished ritual to complete. A great fire, a bonfire of burning books...
Christine Blasey Ford, married and in her 50s, reluctantly came forward recently to say she’d been sexually attacked by a now-famous man many years ago. She didn’t remember the date of the attack, she hadn’t reported it to police at the time and certain incongruous details gave rise to doubts that...
Since the day President Donald Trump took office, readers have repeatedly asked me why I've been more amused than outraged, more fascinated than offended. My response, at first individually to each reader, and now in this space, remains the same: The United States deserves Donald Trump as its president,...
If Sears, once the nation’s largest retailer, declares bankruptcy, it could cause one of the biggest pension defaults in U.S. history, but the government would step in to keep checks coming to more than 90,000 retirees. The company’s long-term pension obligations, which have been underfunded by...
The Turkish government has told U.S. officials that it has audio and video recordings that prove Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul this month, according to U.S. and Turkish officials. The recordings show that a Saudi security team detained...
Three Chicago police officers were attacked and locked inside an Englewood home as they chased a woman who had spit in the face of one of the cops, authorities said. The officers were able to get out of the house in the 7000 block of South Throop Street and arrested a woman and two men around 2:30...
Bucking the recommendation of police oversight officials who called the shooting “unprovoked and unwarranted,” a divided Chicago Police Board voted 5-3 Thursday night to clear an officer of all wrongdoing in fatally shooting a teen in the back of the head during a foot chase nearly six years ago....
After revelations of cheating led the country’s most prestigious wine industry certification body to invalidate the 2018 master sommeliers tasting exams, the somms are pushing back. In case you missed it, on Tuesday, the Court of Master Sommeliers, Americas, invalidated the master sommelier titles...
Mortgage rates are at their highest levels since April 2011. According to the latest data released Thursday by Freddie Mac, the 30-year fixed-rate average jumped to 4.90 percent with an average 0.5 point. (Points are fees paid to a lender equal to 1 percent of the loan amount.) The 19-basis-point...
Kanye West made his first visit to the Oval Office. And he had a lot to say about Chicago. President Donald Trump and West — but mostly West — spoke with reporters before a private lunch on Thursday. West launched into a one-man show of sorts on social policy, mental health, why he wants to abolish...
At least two children who have been diagnosed with a rare but serious condition that weakens muscles and limits mobility are being treated in Chicago, according to Lurie Children’s Hospital. The parents of a Batavia 2-year-old, Julia Payne, went public in hopes of raising awareness for acute flaccid...
The persistent inconsistency of the Cubs’ offense in the second half of the season cost hitting coach Chili Davis his job after only one season. Davis, 58, was informed of his dismissal Thursday — nine days after the Rockies eliminated the Cubs in the National League wild-card game. The Cubs scored...
Libertyville police allowed a Waukegan officer to call for a ride home even though he registered a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit during an early morning traffic stop, video and audio recordings obtained by the Lake County News-Sun show. The case is the third example of law...
George Soros, the billionaire investor and liberal donor, sat in his hotel suite by Lake Zurich last week, lamenting the turn much of the world has taken in recent years: "Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong." His favored presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, lost to President Donald...
Growing up on Chicago’s South Side, Donna Alexander dreamed of creating a safe space for people to release anger and stress, in the hopes of quelling violence and unnecessary pain. She opened Anger Room in Dallas in 2008, allowing clients to smash household objects to blow off steam, and the business...
The wine world was shaken, not swirled, when scandal broke out Tuesday afternoon. In a letter sent out Tuesday, titled “Court of Master Sommeliers, Americas Board of Directors Takes Unanimous Actions to Preserve Integrity of Examination Process,” the prestigious Court of Master Sommeliers — the...
Controversies surrounding the major candidates for governor cast a long shadow over the final broadcast debate of the campaign Thursday, with Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democrat J.B. Pritzker defending accusations of wrongdoing and trying to cast the other as having engaged in criminal conduct. The...
This is the fourth in a series of position-by-position analyses about the Cubs entering the offseason. 1. Does Kris Bryant stay with the Cubs? If so, at third base? Relax, folks. The Cubs, like most teams with plenty of young talent several years away from free agency, attempt to sign those players...
Declaring that his red "MAGA" hat makes him "feel like Superman," rapper Kanye West made a free-styling appearance in the Oval Office on Thursday. Ahead of a private lunch, President Donald Trump and West spoke with reporters as they sat across from each other at the Resolute Desk. West dominated...
For President Donald Trump, Saudi Arabia is not just a political ally. It has also been a customer. Trump's business relationships with the Saudi government - and rich Saudi business executives - go back to at least the 1990s. In Trump's hard times, a Saudi prince bought a superyacht and hotel...
A Cook County Circuit Court jury granted a Michigan family $50 million on Tuesday, agreeing that the severe brain damage suffered by the family’s oldest son was a result of negligence and bad decisions by a doctor and attending nurse who delivered him at NorthShore Evanston Hospital in 2009. “The...
A Republican donor and operative from Chicago's North Shore who said he had tried to obtain Hillary Clinton's missing emails from Russian hackers killed himself in a Minnesota hotel room days after talking to The Wall Street Journal about his efforts, public records show. In mid-May, in a room...
Standing in front of a camera, Lynzy Lab smiles, laughs and says that she wrote a song. The vertical camera view shows Lab, a dance lecturer at Texas State University, holding her ukulele in a YouTube video published Sunday. Days earlier, President Donald Trump described how the national debate...
Jose Torres passes the busy commercial intersection on his way to and from work most days. The area on the Southwest Side has changed a lot since that night four years ago when fate brought him and his son there moments before a Chicago police officer fatally shot Laquan McDonald. But the violent...
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Jimmy Butler contrives to publicly rip young teammates. After demanding a trade over the summer but not getting it, Butler showed up Wednesday for his first Timberwolves practice and proceeded to rip everybody on and off the court from coach and basketball President...
Thomas Caldwell once told a federal agent that selling guns was an addiction. Even after being told to stop because he had no license, the Wisconsin man kept peddling firearms, posting more than 200 ads on a controversial website. One of those guns, a Glock 26 9 mm handgun, ended up in the hands...