Illinois news

• Full house

  03-12-2025 18:13 via chicagoreader.com
  The Moviegoer is the diary of a local film buff, collecting the best of what Chicago’s independent and underground film scene has to offer. The big room at the Music Box Theatre has a capacity of about seven hundred, a number I know well from my time working for the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival, […]
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• Step into Chloe Gould’s Bronzeville home at DixiePura Kitchen

  29-12-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Every Sunday, young Chloe Gould walked a few blocks to her grandmother’s Bronzeville home for family dinner.  The house was small, she said—about 1,500 square feet—but it brimmed with love and, on Sundays, nearly 40 guests. Gould began helping her grandmother in the kitchen when she was eight, and together, they prepared collard greens, pot […]
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• Review: Is This Thing On?

  29-12-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Is This Thing On? in limited release in theaters
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• Rep. Joyce Beatty Sues To Remove Trump’s Name From Kennedy Center

  29-12-2025 04:11 via chicagodefender.com
  A Democratic lawmaker has filed a lawsuit over the move to add President Donald Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center.According to CNN, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), an ex officio trustee of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, filed the suit on Monday (December 21), arguing that only Congress has the power to rename or add memorial designations to the federally governed performing arts institution.“This is a flagrant violation of the rul
  
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• Obama Reveals She Was Supposed To See The Reiners On Night Of Their Deaths

  29-12-2025 04:03 via chicagodefender.com
  Former first lady Michelle Obama is opening up about the close relationship that she and her husband, former President Barack Obama, had with director Rob and Michele Reiner, who were recently found dead inside their Los Angeles home.During an interview with Jimmy Kimmel on Monday (December 15), “The Look” author revealed that she and her husband were planning to meet with the Reiners on the night of their death.“We’ve known t
  
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• Venus Williams Marries Andrea Preti In Palm Beach Wedding

  29-12-2025 03:57 via chicagodefender.com
  Tennis superstar Venus Williams is officially married.According to USA Today, Williams, 45, tied the knot with Italian actor and model Andrea Preti, 37, on Saturday (December 20) following a multi-day celebration with family and friends in South Florida.The pair marked their union with five days of festivities. Celebrations kicked off last week after Williams’ sister, Serena, gifted the couple a yacht, where they hosted a small gathering with about a dozen close r
  
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• J. Pharoah Doss: Politically motivated violence and the lack of honesty

  28-12-2025 23:47 via chicagodefender.com
  This year, Minnesota Democratic State Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband were murdered at their house, while prominent conservative spokesperson Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking on a college campus.Hortman’s murderer had a list of Democratic officials he intended to assassinate, but Kirk’s killer wanted to stop the conservative activist from spreading hate. According to law enforcement, both murders were politically motivated. Instead of condemning political extremi
  
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• Review: Ella McKay

  28-12-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Ella McKay in wide release in theaters
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• Watch Night: How Black Americans Welcomed Freedom With Prayer

  28-12-2025 05:33 via chicagodefender.com
  Watch Night or ‘Freedom’s Eve’ commemorates when African Americans watched and waited for the Emancipation Proclamation.by Rev. Dorothy S. BoulwareOn the night of Dec. 31, 1862, under cover of darkness and winter cold, groups of Americans of African descent — some free, others still enslaved — gathered quietly across the country. As the Civil War raged and their fate hung in the balance, Black men, women, and children came together to observe Watch N
  
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• Holiday Faith Reads from Black Authors and Black Publishers

  28-12-2025 05:26 via chicagodefender.com
  From twins with earthly superpowers to daily devotionals, these books are worth your time — and support.by Rev. Dorothy S. BoulwareOverview:The landscape for faith-based books isn’t very diverse: only around 16% of religious-themed titles are written by Black authors, and even fewer have Black publishers. But the ranks of Black authors and publishers is growing.Stay Empowered With Our Daily Newsletters
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• Kitty Haywood’s voice helped shape Chicago music for decades 

  27-12-2025 20:41 via chicagoreader.com
  Some artists are so special to me that I’ll study every credit on their record sleeves, right down to the names of the studio musicians—and when those personnel aren’t named on the sleeve, as is so frequently the case, I’ll dig up that information elsewhere. Often I find that a session player is an innovator […]
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• Brennan Marion is on a meteoric rise

  27-12-2025 16:35 via chicagodefender.com
  BRENNAN MARION, IN HIS DAYS AT HOWARD UNIVERSITY. HE IS NOW THE OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO.Greensburg native now offensive coordinator for Deion Sanders at ColoradoThe New Pittsburgh Courier has learned that Brennan Marion was named the offen­sive coordinator for the University of Colorado football team by Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders on Dec. 5, 2025.An offensive master­mind, Marion comes to the Buffaloes from Sac­ramento State, where he inherited
  
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• Review: Bring Them Home

  27-12-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Bring Them Home in limited release on VOD
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• MR SONNY KNOWS for December 31, 2025

  27-12-2025 15:00 via chicagodefender.com
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• Review: Dust Bunny

  26-12-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Dust Bunny in limited release in theaters
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• Chicago Film Archives has preserved and digitized Bill Stamets’s Super 8 films

  26-12-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Filmmaker Bill Stamets points at my notepad when he says, slowly, “Tom Palazzolo.” Palazzolo: experimental filmmaker, documentarian, and photographer, best-known for his honest and spirited portrayals of urban life in Chicago. He taught filmmaking for decades at Richard J. Daley College and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Stamets points again—really points—when […]
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• This Week In Black History December 24-30, 2025

  26-12-2025 15:59 via chicagodefender.com
   DECEMBER 241881—The Edgefield Exodus be­gins. More than 5,000 Blacks, driv­en in part by a wave of White vio­lence and economic exploitation, begin leaving Edgefield County, S.C., and resettled in Arkansas. The movement was also encouraged by people like Pap Singleton who believed Southern Blacks could enjoy a better life if they moved to the Midwest. It is also believed that some Whites also encouraged the exodus in a bid to reduce South Carolina’s Black populatio
  
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• ‘An impossible situation’

  26-12-2025 13:00 via chicagoreader.com
  Terrance has followed the same routine for years. Once a week, he leaves his family around 7 AM and drives to the Second District police station, a rectangular, two-story building of beige bricks at 51st and Wentworth in Chicago’s Fuller Park neighborhood. Inside, he joins a handful of other people sitting on worn wooden benches […]
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• Revolutionary rap: Nigerian star Falz has kept protest music alive

  25-12-2025 22:00 via chicagodefender.com
  Artwork for The Feast, the latest release by Nigeria’s best known rapper, Falz. Bahd Guys Recordsby Paul Onanuga, Federal University, Oye EkitiNigerian rapper, actor and social media star Falz released his sixth studio album, The Feast, in 2025.Few Nigerian popular musicians have shown as much versatility and staying power as the man behind the #ElloBae and #WehDoneSir social media trends. For over a decade now, Falz has been marrying musical skills and social activism with digital s
  
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• Inside Malcolm X College’s Annual Kwanzaa Celebration | Unity, Community, and Purpose

  24-12-2025 23:13 via chicagodefender.com
  A conversation on how Kwanzaa’s principles guide leadership, education, and everyday life beyond the holiday.For generations, Kwanzaa has been more than a holiday. It is a practice. A philosophy. A way of living grounded in intention, responsibility, and collective progress. At Malcolm X College, that understanding is not seasonal. It is institutional.This year’s Annual Kwanzaa Celebration, taking place December 26 through January 1 at the college’s West Side campus, cont
  
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• Tattoos, toxins and the immune system – what you need to know before you get inked

  24-12-2025 20:20 via chicagodefender.com
  ViDI Studio/ShutterstockManal Mohammed, University of WestminsterFrom minimalist wrist designs to full sleeves, body art has become so common that it barely raises an eyebrow. But while the personal meaning of a tattoo may be obvious, the biological consequences are far less visible. Once tattoo ink enters the body, it does not stay put. Beneath the skin, tattoo pigments interact with the immune system in ways scientists are only just beginning to understand.Tattoos are generally considered saf
  
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• New year, new voices

  24-12-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  39th Young Playwrights Festival, 1/1-1/24, presented by Pegasus Theatre Chicago at Chicago Dramatists
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• MR SONNY KNOWS for December 24, 2025

  24-12-2025 15:00 via chicagodefender.com
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• Herbivore serves humans at the next Monday Night Foodball

  23-12-2025 21:53 via chicagoreader.com
  After Max Musto woke from his first ibogaine dream state, he looked down at the cheeseburger, chicken wing, and pork belly tattoos on his arm and received a message from the universe: “You can’t do this anymore.” Musto, a classicality trained cook, spent nine years on the line at spots like Spiaggia, Xoco, and Au […]
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• Economic Empowerment in Action: Black Women Uplifting Chicago Communities

  23-12-2025 17:19 via chicagodefender.com
  If you know the lyrics,“Sisters are doing it for themselves,
  Standing on their own two feet,
  And ringing on their own bells,”Across Chicago, Five Black women from different generations have built careers and give back emotionally, physically, socially, and economically to their communities.Even when faced with daunting challenges, political obstacles, adversity, and harsh economic moments, they dig deep, press on, and reach back to lift others as they move forward.Jermikko Shoshanna
  
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• Review: 100 Nights of Hero

  23-12-2025 16:00 via chicagoreader.com
  100 Nights of Hero in limited release in theaters
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• Matters of Life and Death: Make Your List and Check It Twice

  23-12-2025 01:57 via chicagodefender.com
  By Jehan Crump-Gibson, Contributing ColumnistSome of the biggest mistakes people make concern beneficiary designations. Either someone forgets to name a beneficiary on an account or forgets to update a beneficiary on an account. These mistakes result in a one-way ticket to probate court or in some cases, your money passing on against your wishes.A beneficiary is a person or entity that receives a benefit from something. Common examples of that “something” include trusts, wills, life
  
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• Property is Power! How Trump’s Assault on DEI Threatens Black Economic and Social Gains

  23-12-2025 01:54 via chicagodefender.com
  By Dr. Anthony O. KellumThere are moments in history when progress stalls not because people forget how to move forward, but because Donald Trump is actively working to push them backward. We are living in such a moment. Since taking office on January 20, 2025, Donald Trump has advanced a policy agenda that systematically undermines Black Americans under the guise of neutrality, legality, and “anti-wokeness.” These policies do not merely target programs or language; they target infr
  
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• Archiving 2025

  22-12-2025 21:00 via chicagoreader.com
  The Moviegoer is the diary of a local film buff, collecting the best of what Chicago’s independent and underground film scene has to offer. Before his final Picture Restart screening at Chicago Filmmakers this past Saturday, filmmaker and curator Ben Creech spoke of the discovery of a print of Fritz Lang’s original cut of Metropolis […]
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• Review: Resurrection

  22-12-2025 20:38 via chicagoreader.com
  Resurrection screening through Thu 12/1 at the Siskel Film Center
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