Good morning, Chicago. ✶
🔎 Below: A man convicted of laundering more than $300,000 for a reputed Mexican cocaine trafficker is closely associated with a chain of social equity marijuana dispensaries.
🗞️ Plus: The Chicago Board of Education’s pick to lead Chicago Public Schools, a push to give fans a chance to buy the Bears and more news you need to know.
📝 Keeping score: The Cubs lost to the Nationals, 10-4; the White Sox fell to the Brewers, 14-2; the Blackhawks were bested by the Flyers, 5-1.
📧 Subscribe: Get this newsletter delivered to your inbox weekday mornings.
⏱️: A 9-minute read
TODAY’S WEATHER 🌤️
Mostly sunny with a high near 42.
TODAY’S TOP STORY 🔎
Cocaine cash launderer is still key figure in legal Illinois cannabis empire
By Frank Main and Tom Schuba
Special delivery: They showed up looking like delivery guys, lugging shopping bags from a Whole Foods Market. When they knocked on the door of David Berger’s home in Ukrainian Village, he let them in. But the bags weren’t filled with groceries. They were stuffed with stacks of cash, prosecutors say, that Berger was helping to launder for a Mexican cocaine trafficking ring in 2021.
Key context: Berger wasn’t just another middleman in a drug scheme. He was also becoming a major player in Illinois’ state regulated cannabis industry. Now, he’s a convicted felon.
At issue: Berger, 42, who was found guilty late last year of federal money laundering charges, remains licensed by the state of Illinois to be in the legal weed business. And he continues to be affiliated with a network of dispensaries operating in Chicago, the suburbs and downstate under the Ivy Hall name. Records show Berger is listed as a manager of four Ivy Hall dispensaries and a registered agent for eight of them.
Social equity dispensary: One Ivy Hall store, in Bucktown, was hailed as part of Illinois’ social equity push to bring Black and Latino entrepreneurs into the cannabis business. Gov. JB Pritzker showed up to celebrate the dispensary’s opening in 2022.
PUBLIC SAFETY 🚒
Mourners pay respects to fallen firefighter
By Kade Heather
Supporters unite: Loved ones, fellow firefighters and supporters gathered Thursday at St. Rita of Cascia Shrine Chapel in Ashburn for a visitation honoring Chicago firefighter Michael Altman, 32, who died last week after battling a Rogers Park blaze. Altman’s funeral had been planned for Friday, but was postponed after his wife went into labor Thursday. She reportedly gave birth to a girl.
Suspect detained: Sheaves Slate, 27, is charged with murder, residential arson and aggravated arson injuring a firefighter in connection with the fire. At a hearing Monday, Slate was ordered detained. Firefighters packed the courtroom in support of Altman, as they had during an earlier hearing.
EDUCATION 🍎
CPS Board selects Macquline King as permanent CEO, will vote on contract Monday
By Sarah Karp and Emmanuel Camarillo
Board’s pick: The Chicago Board of Education will vote Monday to appoint Macquline King as the permanent leader of Chicago Public Schools, catapulting a Black woman with homegrown talent to the district’s top post 10 months after she was appointed to the interim role. According to documents posted on the CPS Board’s website Thursday, the school board has offered King the job and she has accepted it.
Possible salary: The proposed contract would be effective July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2029 — meaning she would lead the district well past the transition to a fully elected school board. If approved, King’s salary will start at $380,000, more than former CEO Pedro Martinez, who was paid $340,000 per year on a five-year contract.
POLITICS ✶
- ‘Call to action’: An email from 14 former prosecutors seeks the support of hundreds of fellow alums to push back against President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, claiming he has used the agency to retaliate against foes.
- Convicted of threatening Trump: Federal jurors convicted a Winthrop Harbor man of threatening — in a video he posted online — judges, doctors, lawyers, police and President Trump, even though the man’s lawyer argued “this is the biggest Trumper you’re going to find.”
- Trump promises TSA pay: President Trump said Thursday he would sign an order instructing the Homeland Security secretary to immediately pay Transportation Security Administration agents as Congress struggles to reach a funding deal.
- Tackling pension crisis: Mayor Brandon Johnson is crafting a plan to chip away at a $35.8 billion pension crisis. It’s likely to offer city employees the option of buying out a portion of their future pension benefits in exchange for a lump-sum payment upfront.
MORE NEWS YOU NEED 🗞️
- 2 charged in killing: The men are accused in the murder of 67-year-old Jerry Lewis, a businessman who was involved in a massive redevelopment project around the United Center.
- Ald. Hadden threatened: The 49th Ward’s office has closed for the rest of the week due to “threats of violence” to Ald. Maria Hadden and her staff, following backlash to comments she made after the killing of Loyola student Sheridan Gorman.
- Remembering Bernie Bluestein: Mr. Bluestein was one of the remaining members of the “Ghost Army,” a top secret unit tasked with drawing the attention of the Nazis away from the movements of the real Allied forces during World War II. He died this week at age 102.
- Lincoln auction: Nearly 200 artifacts mostly linked to Abraham Lincoln sold for more than $1 million at a local auction Thursday, including some items originally purchased for display at the state-run Lincoln presidential museum in Springfield.
- Sweet life: Mars Snacking plans to invest $100 million to expand its global headquarters in Chicago and create more than 600 jobs.
WEEKEND PLANS 🎉
🎭 ‘The Beauty Project’
7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
📍Freyja Salon, 4955 N. Damen Ave.
An immersive theatrical experience that speaks to issues of identity, belonging and quality of life.
Admission: Sliding scale from $30 to pay-what-you-can.
🎶 Sonny Landreth and The Iguanas
8 p.m. Friday
📍Old Town School of Folk Music, 4544 N. Lincoln Ave.
The Cajun slide guitar great Landreth and his band share a double bill with New Orleans rockers The Iguanas.
Admission: $61
🎥 ‘Truth to Self: An Evening of Short Films’
3 p.m. Saturday
📍South Asia Institute, 1925 S. Michigan Ave.
An evening of works by South Asian female filmmakers based in Chicago: Imaan Hasan, Saloni Nahar and Eesha Patkar.
Admission: $7.18
OPENING DAY ⚾
On Opening Day, some Cubs fans lean into sports betting boom while others remain wary
By Nader Issa
Bettor up: Millions of baseball fans have jumped into the betting arena. Betting ads litter stadiums and television broadcasts. Sportsbooks are opening at ballparks including Wrigley Field. And gambling is as easy as ever on mobile apps.
Key context: Illinois legalized sports gambling in early 2020 and has seen participation soar. More than 26.3 million sports bets have already been placed in Illinois this year, the vast majority online, according to the Illinois Gaming Board. Fans at Wrigley Field can bet on their phones like anyone else — or they can head down to the DraftKings Sportsbook office at the ballpark.
Fans sound off: We spoke with fans at the Friendly Confines to get their thoughts on sports betting. “I think it’s way too accessible,” one fan said. Another told us betting has made young fans like him become more engaged with sports than they otherwise would have been.
WATCH: OPENING DAY AT WRIGLEY FIELD ▶️
FROM THE PRESS BOX 🏈🏀
- Publicly owned Bears?: A new bill from Sen. Bernie Sanders and Texas Rep. Greg Casar would allow sports teams to be offered up for sale one year before owners can move them. They pointedly bashed the Bears’ effort to relocate to Indiana.
- Sky’s free agency path: Signing the biggest stars remains an unrealistic dream for the Sky despite how badly they need it. But they can target “bubble players.”
- College basketball: Illinois hammered Houston, advancing to play Iowa for a spot in the Final Four.
CHICAGO MINI CROSSWORD 🌭
Today’s clue: 1A: Slide (DJ Casper song whose music video was filmed downtown)
BRIGHT ONE 🔆
Hurray For The Riff Raff embraces new life in Chicago
By Courtney Kueppers
In 2024, Alynda Segarra released “The Past is Still Alive,” the eighth studio album under the moniker Hurray for the Riff Raff. On tour that year, Segarra was backed by a band made up of heavy-hitting Chicago musicians, including Sen Morimoto and Nnamdi Ogbonnaya. Together, their sound clicked.
The experience inspired the Bronx native to move to Chicago full time, and to capture the energy of the moment with a new live album, “Live Forever,” recorded last summer at the Old Town School of Folk Music. The album came out last week digitally and releases in record form in May.
The project, produced by Chicago’s Johnny Wilson, includes the entirety of the critically acclaimed record “The Past is Still Alive,” which was largely inspired by Segarra’s time riding freight rails across the country as a teenager. The musician ultimately settled in New Orleans, a city that provided inspiration for much of Hurray for the Riff Raff’s catalog. But after nearly 20 years there, Segarra said, “I’d been really needing to make a change in my life.” So, they left the Big Easy for Chicago.
Segarra, 39, said they’ve found camaraderie among fellow musicians and energy in the city’s creative scene and Midwest niceness.
“I definitely need to live in a place where I’m surrounded by other artistic people and also a place that I can afford to pay rent, to be real,” Segarra said. “Chicago has been so welcoming to me and so loving to me.”
YOUR DAILY QUESTION ☕️
Yesterday, we asked you: What’s your defining Opening Day memory?
Here’s some of what you said, edited for clarity and space.
“I am about to attend my 50th consecutive White Sox opener next Thursday … I’ll never forget the first one in 1976, which was the bicentennial. Bill Veeck dressed up as a colonial Minuteman and paraded around the ballpark chatting with fans. I came on a chartered bus trip from UChicago. Beer was 50 cents.” — Roger Deschner
“In high school, me and friends got our parents to call us [out of] school so we could take the bus to Wrigley. We walked up and bought tickets; you could do that in the early ’80s. Last row of upper deck, wind blowing through, freezing. Drinking hot chocolate we spiked with peppermint schnapps a friend stole from his parents’ bar.” — Vince SanFilippo
“My best Opening Day memory was April 18, 1991, when the White Sox opened the season at the new Comiskey Park. A news reporter, Neil Parker from WXRT radio, was interviewing fans and asking for their impressions of the stadium. Somehow, my soundbite made the noon broadcast — probably because I ended it with, ‘Cub fans, eat your stinking hearts out!'” — Mary Jo Cannizzo
“My older brother took me to an Opening Day in the early ’80s … and it had snowed a few inches overnight. When we arrived to wait in line for bleacher tickets, the grounds crew was shoveling snow off the field out into the streets beyond the outfield walls. The first row of the bleachers was packed down with snow and unusable. I recall some rowdy fans throwing snowballs … This was also the debut game for Ryne Sandberg with the Cubs, and the Cubs won!” — Brian Phad
Thanks for reading the Sun-Times Morning Edition! We’ll see you next week.
Got a story you think we missed? Email us here.
Written and curated by: Matt Moore
Editor: Eydie Cubarrubia
Hat tip: Sun-Times’ Joel Carlson for “bettor up,” which you’ll find on the front of today’s print edition — on newsstands and online now.
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