Illinois news

• This Week In Black History March 5-11, 2025

  06-03-2025 22:35
  
   
  March 51770—Crispus Attucks is shot and killed by British soldiers becoming the first American to die in the struggle for American Independence from England. Attucks was an escaped slave who became a sailor and rope maker. It is unclear exactly how he became involved in the protest of that day. But a crowd had gathered and began to taunt British troops. Attucks, who was of Black and Indian parentage, was inspired to give a speech in which he spoke of the importance of freedom. Sudde
  
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• Review: Seven Veils

  06-03-2025 21:27 via chicagoreader.com
  
  The pursuit of perfection intoxicates Jeanine (Amanda Seyfried). The aspiring young opera director is charged with assuming her late mentor’s role as director to restage Richard Strauss’s Salome. Near the beginning of Atom Egoyan’s Seven Veils, Jeanine announces her plan to tweak her mentor’s original production—standard practice, perhaps, but also a sly nod to a […]
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• Review: Mickey 17

  06-03-2025 21:27 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Mickey 17 in wide release in theaters
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• Review: Last Breath

  06-03-2025 21:27 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Last Breath in wide release in theaters
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• Mother Prepper swims Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Mexican currents at the next Monday Night Foodball

  06-03-2025 20:09 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Stephanie Xiques’s culinary inheritance is the ropa-birria. That’s a taco built upon a crispy but pliable tortilla formed from garlicky green plantain masa. It swaddles an alloy of Mexi-Cuban shredded beef and molten Monterey Jack, dipped in a brick-red consommé. It’s only the most recent bequest from two grandmothers—and a husband—and it makes its debut […]
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• Editor’s note: Best of Chicago 2024

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  For the last few years, our Best of Chicago issue has come out at the “will we ever have a spring” time of winter here in the midwest, when the temperature in our coverage area can fluctuate wildly every 24 hours and the entire city has that gray tinge left over from random ice skids, […]
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• Celebrating Black Journalism: NABJ-Chicago Honors the Legacy and Future of the Black Press

  06-03-2025 16:00
  
  From L-R: Noel Bentley of DePaul NABJ, Myiti Sengstacke Rice of Chicago Defender Charities, Melody Spann-Cooper of WVON, and Naba’a Muhammad of The Final Call (Photo Credit, Marshelle Sanders).
  When reflecting on Black journalism, it is vital to recognize the pioneers who paved the way for us to be heard and seen, helping our culture stay informed and navigate life. These trailblazers created influential outlets such as The Freedom’s Journal (early 1800s), The North Star (1847), The
  
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• Best zine for getting a grip on the midwest rave ecosystem

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  I love absorbing as much about dance music as I possibly can, even beyond writing about it for my day job. I occasionally cover the subgenres that have grown out of house and techno, but even if I dedicated my whole beat to them, I’d fall short of the Talmudic focus required to get the […]
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• Best zero-waste general store

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Most of us have become accustomed to carrying our own reusable bags to the grocery store. But for going the next step in zero-waste shopping, it’s hard to beat Lincoln Square’s Eco Flamingo, which opened in 2020. Here you can find a carefully curated selection of, as their website says, “package-free, plastic-free, environmentally responsible, cruelty-free, […]
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• Best way to start the week

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  There were not a lot of bright spots in 2020, but I have a clear memory of the launch of Longman and Eagle’s Sundae Mondays in September of that year. The series was originally a collaboration between Pretty Cool Ice Cream founder Dana Cree and chef Max Robbins (then a managing partner at Longman & […]
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• Best way to hear Nine Inch Nails’ original demo tape

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Since opening in 2021, the Museum of Post Punk & Industrial Music has proved itself a Reader fan favorite, winning “best museum” in 2023 and clinching second runner-up this year. This folk museum of artifacts from Martin Atkins’s career—he started drumming in Public Image Ltd in 1979, cofounded Pigface in 1990, and currently serves as […]
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• Best way to celebrate/ignore Father’s Day

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  My dad died long before I moved to Rogers Park, and to my knowledge, he never spent any time as a kid along the lakefront at Loyola Park. But I’ve found it comforting every Father’s Day weekend to take in the Artists of the Wall Festival, when people from all over the community come together […]
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• Best use of $1.75 on a Thursday night

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Noble Square watering hole the Chipp Inn has a lot of things going for it, including its residential block location (W. Fry Street and N. Greenview Avenue), softball team, annual chili cook-off, and drunken spelling bee. A more low-key introduction, outside the tavern’s high holy days, is its Thursday night grab-bag special. For the inflation-proof […]
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• Best undersung pulp author that I randomly discovered while poring through the stacks

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  I’ve been visiting Paper or Plastic since they announced their original pop-up in 2022. Eventually, I got to know James Hughes, half of the ownership duo. (Dante Carfagna is his partner.) In late summer 2023, they came into the collection of renowned University of Chicago professor Terence Martin, and I was in a position to […]
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• Best trash talkers

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  This homegrown nonprofit knows what we’re craving post-COVID—a place to make connections while making a difference. Founder Sophie Rallo found herself at an isolating crossroads when her sister and BFF left Chicago two years ago. A new Boston terrier became her sidekick, and they explored Wicker Park together in search of community, without much success. […]
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• Best state park for beach bunnies, birds, and prairies

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Illinois Beach State Park is a bit like someone took Big Marsh Park, Montrose Beach, and Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie and mashed them together like an early-2000s RJD2 banger. Located just south of the Wisconsin border and an hour north of the Loop, the 4,160 acre park is the last remnant of Illinois’s natural shoreline. […]
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• Best slam poetry network

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Slam poetry in Chicago is getting a shot in the arm from Frankie’s Tee, a media platform and talk show founded in 2024. Hosted by west-side natives Tanya “Tee” Smith and Frankie Fabre, Frankie’s Tee dives deep into all things poetry, featuring appearances from slam poetry legends, interviews with people on the street, and more.  […]
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• Best return of street theater

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Running across Puppet Bike in early December on Clark Street in Andersonville after several years of not seeing it, I felt myself smiling more than I had since November 6. In my line of work, I see a lot of shows (including great puppet theater). But there’s just something about Puppet Bike that gets me […]
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• Best reflection on Nazi punching as you age

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  On April 28, Chicago Teachers Union organizer Nora Flanagan approached the mike in the back room of Gman Tavern to answer the question: “How does it feel?” She stood in front of the viral image of white nationalist Richard Spencer getting punched during an Australian Broadcasting Corporation interview following Donald Trump’s first inauguration. She was […]
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• Best reason to watch the worst team in history

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  On September 24, 2024, the Chicago White Sox were teetering on the brink of all-time futility with a record-tying 120 losses in the season. Pale Hose pitcher Prelander Berroa gave up Angels infielder Jack López’s first career homer, putting the Sox in a 2–0 hole in the eighth. But in the bottom of the inning, […]
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• Best public display of affection for house music

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  In March 2023, when Preservation Chicago included the modest brick building at 206 S. Jefferson on its annual list of historic local buildings most in danger of demolition, it sparked a worldwide outcry. That’s because this unassuming structure used to be the Warehouse, the club that incubated what’s now known as house music. Nightlife legend […]
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• Best pro-Palestine plant shop with a size-inclusive clothing section

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  The Green Goose Shop isn’t just a store—it’s a thoughtfully cultivated space where retail, sustainability, and community care converge. The shop feels intentional: lush greenery lines the walls, size-inclusive clothing hangs on colorful racks, and local makers’ work is prominently featured. Owner Sarah Brunet’s first child was just seven months old when she revamped the […]
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• Best preteen pet activist

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  “You don’t need to do big things to make an impact,” says ten-year-old Paige Bentley, an inspiring champion of animal rescue who has been carrying dog treats in her pockets since she could talk. Paige’s changemaking work started two years ago after a birthday trip to the Catcade, a Lakeview cat cafe and rescue. She […]
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• Best place to rollerblade along the lakefront

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Some may argue that the entire 18-mile-long paved lakefront trail is the prime rollerblading spot. And sure, they may be right. However, everyone has to admit that the lakefront gets busy—and rightfully so—with hordes of tourists, bikers, or beachgoers blocking the path for smooth riding.  But there’s an area along the lakefront that doesn’t require […]
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• Best place to grocery shop for those with crippling decision anxiety

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Edgewater Produce has everything you need and nothing you don’t.  As someone with crippling decision anxiety, shopping at Jewel or Mariano’s is a harrowing experience. I will spend 20 minutes staring at a dairy case, agonizing over which of the store’s ten brands of milk to buy. Edgewater Produce (EP) on the other hand has […]
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• Best outdoor bench for a smoke session

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Chicagoans love a gag. A four-foot alligator named Chance the Snapper captured the hearts of the city and the nation in 2019 after he was spotted basking in the Humboldt Park lagoon. Last year, it was the “rat hole” that set social media ablaze; gawkers eager to ogle at the near-perfect imprint of a rat […]
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• Best of Chicago 2024: Sports & Recreation

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
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• Best of Chicago 2024: Music & Nightlife

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
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• Best of Chicago 2024: Food & Drink

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
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• Best of Chicago 2024: City Life

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
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• Best of Chicago 2024: Cannabis

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
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• Best of Chicago 2024: Buy Local

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
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• Best of Chicago 2024: Arts & Culture

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
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• Best northwest-side local landmark and lore

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Quench your thirst for community at Chicago’s most famous public water pump. Day or night, there is almost always a line of aqua-curious folks at “Chicago’s fountain of youth” on Irving Park in Schiller Woods. The outsize mythology of this peculiar pump on the city’s fringes makes it a destination for locals and tourists alike, […]
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• Best niche screening-turned-membership drive at the Music Box Theatre

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  On a warm Friday last October, I saw a tweet from the Music Box Theatre announcing a one-night-only tenth-anniversary screening of Over the Garden Wall (2014)—free, but exclusively for Music Box members. Within minutes, my wife and I had purchased a dual membership. Over the Garden Wall is an animated Cartoon Network miniseries that follows […]
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• Best new green initiative

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  In late 2023, the city quietly launched a composting program, now available at 20 drop-off locations around the city. It accepts a wide variety of material—including commonly composted items such as coffee grounds and fruit and veggie scraps and harder-to-handle stuff like cooked food, cheese, and bread. That’s because the waste goes to a commercial […]
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• Best neighborhood talent show

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  The best talk show in town is not broadcast. It’s not even recorded. Every other Monday, Derek Bish transforms the cozy back room of Lincoln Square bar the Getaway into the set of Welcome to the Show, where he hosts talented Chicagoans in all kinds of disciplines. Musicians and comedians are heavily featured, sure, but […]
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• Best moviegoing experience born out of the pandemic but still thriving

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  ChiTown Drive-In was born in response to the pandemic, at a time when Chicago was practicing social distancing but craving connection. Post-lockdown, the drive-in is holding strong in Pilsen, showing classics such as Grease (1978) and Jurassic Park (1993), and hosting horror movie binges around Halloween with films like Scream (1996) and A Nightmare on […]
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• Best locally made, horror-themed confections

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Traditionally speaking, macarons are delicate things, arranged in pastel rows like tiny couture hats fit for debutantes. But at Bad Channel, their horror-themed pastries arrive with a bite. They might bleed locally made preserves (the Blob) or resemble Ghostface (Cookies & Scream). And they might remind you of a childhood spent watching horror movies peeped […]
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• Best local stained glass artist

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  For Ben Houtkamp, stained glass was never part of the plan. His father, Frank, had spent decades mastering the craft, earning a reputation as a stained glass expert, but Ben gravitated toward drawing instead. That changed a few years ago when one of his geometric sketches seemed like it could translate perfectly into glass. What […]
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• Best live variety show to get kicked off YouTube

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Since 2022, Kellie Wyatt and Izah Ransohoff have been organizing the most brilliantly disgusting variety show whose name says it all: Yuck! It’s a format-defying celebration of all things bad taste that’s appeared at both under- and aboveground venues. In my experience, Yuck! is one of the most consistently COVID-conscious shows, always requiring audiences to […]
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• Best lactation support clinic that’s open to anyone

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Nursing a baby is one of those things that’s often portrayed as simple, natural, even easy. A word to new parents: Don’t let that fool you. There’s actually a lot to learn when it comes to feeding a newborn, from how to know if your latch is successful to avoiding mastitis to protecting your nipples […]
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• Best international baseball coverage by a local journalist

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Baseball is known as “America’s pastime,” but it’s no secret that the game has reached new levels of globalization in the last 25 years. In 2017, Palestine quietly became a new frontier for the sport with the founding of the Palestine Baseball & Softball Federation in Gaza. In 2019, Chicago-based journalist Nader Ihmoud saw a […]
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• Best Indigenous arts organization

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  The Center for Native Futures (CfNF) sits in a sunny downtown storefront space at Adams and Dearborn. Inside you will find contemporary visual art exhibitions alongside community programming and a studio residency—all in service of centering Native voices and advancing Indigenous Futurism, which CfNF describes as the “artistic means for expanding possibilities and realities by […]
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• Best functioning neon anachronism

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  The four-color beacon hanging above Frank’s Pizzeria in Montclare has been radiating since 1952. That was before there were area codes in Chicago, when telephone numbers began with a pair of letters signaling switchboard exchanges that connected calls by flesh and blood operators. The “AV” corresponds to the two and the eight on an old-timey […]
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• Best ethical footwear that will last you a lifetime

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  In a city like Chicago, where style meets sustainability, and high-end meets down-to-earth, Seres provides the right answer to footwear. Founded by Vanessa Arroyo, 35, almost two years ago, Seres combines Arroyo’s rich Chicana heritage with her experience designing shoes for the luxury brand Rag & Bone—all while remaining committed to creating ethically made footwear […]
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• Best deal for swimmers

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  The Chicago Park District is quickly becoming one of my favorite public institutions in the city, a close runner-up to my beloved Chicago Public Library. A few years ago, the park district–owned McFetridge Sports Center was where I reconnected with my love of ice-skating, a habit that is still going strong. More recently, I’ve also […]
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• Best continually operational 24-hour sex shop

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  River North has long been the epicenter of Chicago nightlife. From the heyday of jazz clubs in the 1950s to the advent of the nightclubs of today, the unassuming single-story building at 53 W. Hubbard has sat sentry through it all. Once home to the Illinois Terrazzo and Tile Company (with the intricate mosaic door […]
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• Best collective of artists and musicians that turns ten in 2025

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  “OK, well, no one’s checking this out, let’s create our own thing.” That’s how drummer and recording engineer Bill Harris described his decision to launch the Amalgam collective in 2015, speaking with Reader staffer Leor Galil a couple years ago. Harris wanted to support newer experimental and improvising musicians in Chicago—people who felt overlooked as […]
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• Best collab between a Chicago artist and a cannabis lifestyle brand

  06-03-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Weed and hip-hop is a love story as old as time. In Chicago, producer Thelonious Martin’s name and music are practically synonymous with weed, not only for his stoner-friendly beats but also for birthing the viral “Me vs. the Weed” meme format. In 2024, he collaborated with local cannabis lifestyle brand Black Hippy Farms to […]
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