Good morning, Chicago. ✶
🔎 Below: Threats from the Trump administration to flood Chicago with federal immigration enforcement this month haven’t yet come true.
🗞️ Plus: Ramadan coffee shop traditions keep Bridgeview nights hopping, the actual number of official meetings Cook County commissioners attend and more.
🕛: An 8-minute read
TODAY’S WEATHER ⛈️
Temperatures will fall to 41 and evening thunderstorms may be severe.
THE WATCHDOGS 🚁
Another deportation blitz hasn’t materialized in Chicago despite spring surge warning
By Jon Seidel, Tina Sfondeles and Sophie Sherry
False promises?: When U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino left town last fall, Chicago’s reprieve came with a warning: The tear gas, chaos and fear associated with Operation Midway Blitz could return fourfold this month. Now March is here, and President Donald Trump has fired U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, while Bovino was put on the sidelines in January after federal officers’ fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.
After the blitz: A source told the Chicago Sun-Times in November that 1,000 agents could return this month. But the enforcement surge in Minnesota turned out to be a breaking point, leaving the Trump administration struggling to justify the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Calls to reform immigration enforcement have led to a partial government shutdown. Senate Democrats last week blocked Homeland Security funding for a third time, refusing to approve a spending bill without stricter use-of-force policies and a ban on officers wearing masks.
DHS undeterred: A Homeland Security spokesperson said officials in the department “do not discuss future or potential operations,” and added, “Every day, DHS enforces the laws of the nation across the country including in Chicago.”
RELIGION 🕌
Ramadan nights turn Bridgeview’s Yemeni coffee shops into late-night hubs
By Ximena N. Beltran Quan Kiu
Specialty coffee and desesrts at Qamaria Yemeni Coffee Co. at 9970 S. Ridgeland Ave., Chicago Ridge,.on Friday, 6 March.. Late-night Yemeni cafes are already a popular spot year-round for socializing throughout the year as a late-night space that is alcohol-free and during Ramadan, it’s even busier. | Timothy Hiatt/For the Sun-Times
Bottoms up: A coffee haven has emerged in Bridgeview along Harlem Avenue and 87th Street. Several coffee shops have opened post-pandemic, forming a corridor that centers Middle Eastern flavors, design and culture. And during Ramadan, the energy intensifies.
Iftar treats: During the holy month, Muslims begin fasting daily at sunrise and abstain from eating or drinking anything until sunset. Iftar is the evening meal to break the fast. When the sun goes down, crowds line up for drinks and desserts like for qahwa, or Arabic coffee; adeni chai, a velvety black tea made with cardamom, milk and cinnamon; and honeycomb bread.
Wartime unease: “The war in Iran has affected things a little,” said Taha Monasar, co-owner of Qamaria Coffee. “People seem a bit worried about what might happen next, so the overall energy this Ramadan feels a bit more cautious than usual.”
CITY HALL 🏢
Some Cook County Board commissioners skip more than 20% of meetings
By Dan Mihalopoulos | WBEZ, Alden Loury | WBEZ and Amy Qin | WBEZ
The absentees: WBEZ compiled and analyzed Cook County commissioners’ attendance records from 800 public meetings going back to the start of the current term in December 2022, and found the sitting commissioners who were most frequently absent were Stanley Moore, Bridget Gainer and Kisha McCaskill.
The competition: Gainer works for the global professional services firm Aon. Drake Warren, challenger to her seat, said Gainer’s absenteeism was part of his motivation to run against her. If elected, he promised to have “stellar attendance” and not work at another job outside of being a county commissioner, which pays a salary of $102,170 a year, according to county budget records.
Excuse me?: The county board now considers many of the absences it recorded to be “excused.” Without any public debate, at the first meeting of the term, commissioners unanimously approved a one-paragraph amendment to their rules that allows them to call ahead of time to be marked down as excused. Excused absences can be taken for reasons like “illness, family emergency.”
MORE NEWS 🗞️
- Legal counterpunch: A high-powered Chicago law firm that fought Operation Midway Blitz in federal court announced a plan to push for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate and potentially charge law enforcement officials who carried out the deportation campaign.
- Police shooting: Chicago police shot and killed a person Monday in Humboldt Park while trying to pull over a vehicle wanted in a separate shooting investigation, police said.
- Travel advice: The U.S. State Department continues to warn against traveling to certain Mexican states in the wake of violence that broke out in Puerto Vallarta after the Mexican Army killed the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel on Feb. 22.
- Don’t tell me: Longtime Chicago newsman Bill Kurtis, along with his signature baritone pipes, is retiring from his role as judge and scorekeeper on NPR’s weekly hourlong news quiz program “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!”
- Remembering Celia Weiskopf: A Holocaust survivor who lost most of her family to the Nazis, Mrs. Weiskopf made her way from Poland to Chicago to live with an uncle following World War II. She died Jan. 16 at 101.
FROM THE PRESS BOX 🏈🏀🏒⚾️
- League year starts now: The Bears have been busy with a flurry of moves as they try to sharpen their roster and make prudent salary cap decisions.
- Wire fraud, bribery: One of the so-called fixers in a sprawling betting scheme that targeted DePaul University and other schools and allegedly raked in millions of dollars off big bets on rigged NCAA basketball games pleaded guilty Monday.
- Why wait?: Here’s why Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson has established a preference for making moves well before the NHL trade deadline.
- Cubs renovations: Where there once was just grass leading out to the bullpens and half-field now stands an 18,000-square-foot pitching and hitting lab at the Cubs’ spring training complex in Arizona.
CHICAGO MINI CROSSWORD 🌭
Today’s clue:
Tier for celebs that are barely even famous
BRIGHT ONE 🔆
Want to be vibrantly alive in your 90s? Here’s how my dad does it
By Stefano Esposito
Here’s the thing about Papa: Like many Italians, he has a flair for the melodramatic.
He’s been warning of his imminent passing for at least the past 10 years. He remains, though, among the most alive human beings I have ever met.
Papa talks to everyone: The butcher, the barista at his favorite coffee bar, a professor of Renaissance literature, a complete stranger one quarter his age. These aren’t people merely humoring an old man; he flashes his hazel eyes — speaking of his youth on Capri, the craggy island jutting from the turquoise waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea, or perhaps the 15th-century mill in Southwest England he renovated in the 1980s — and his listeners are entranced. Much the same way when years before, with microphone in hand, he charmed American, Australian and South African passengers as their tour director on coaches crisscrossing Europe.
On the morning of his birthday, Feb. 19, Papa hobbled down the hill, through a 14th-century stone gate — a remnant of the great defensive wall that at one time surrounded Florence — and stepped into his favorite coffee bar. Eliza, the barista, began a round of the Italian version of “Happy Birthday”: “Tanti auguri a te …”
YOUR DAILY QUESTION ☕️
What’s something you do that you believe keeps you young?
Reply to this email (please include your first and last name). We may run your answer in a future newsletter or story.
Yesterday, we asked you: What’s the most memorable name for a pet you’ve encountered? Bonus points for Chicago connections, of course.
Here’s some of what you said…
“I’ve met an English bulldog called Deep Dish.”
“My dog’s name is Payton Jordan Ditka.”
“Southside. He was a shepherd mix that lived at the hot dog stand named Fat Johnnie’s on south Western Avenue.”
“My favorite cat was named Wrigley! He was the best. Current cats are Rizzo and Dansby – yeah, I am a Cubs fan! I have lived in San Francisco for 32 years but cannot give up my Cubs!”
“Ok stop it!! This is a security question/answer. Don’t be telling people.”
PICTURE CHICAGO 📸
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Written and curated by: Esther Bergdahl
Editor: Eydie Cubarrubia
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