Good morning, Chicago. ✶
🔎 Below: After a lobbyist, who’s under 65, got tax breaks for seniors on his home, Cook County made him pay up. Then, it renewed them.
🗞️ Plus: Sisters question mom’s cremated remains from a troubled funeral home, what’s next for the former Stateway Gardens site and more news you need to know.
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⏱️: An 8-minute read
TODAY’S WEATHER ☀️
Mostly sunny with a high near 82.
CHICAGO JIGSAW PUZZLE 🧩
Piece together history to reveal more about today’s photo from the Sun-Times archives.
TODAY’S TOP STORY 🔎
After non-senior got property tax discounts, Cook County made him pay. Then, it renewed them.
Reporting by Tim Novak and Keenan Chen
Non-senior discount: Armando W. Saleh, a former Cook County employee turned lobbyist, got more than $20,000 in property tax breaks meant for low-income senior citizens — even though voting records and other government documents say he’s 56 years old. How? Saleh submitted a passport to the Cook County assessor’s office that showed him as being 15 years older, according to a Sun-Times investigation of the government office.
Breaks secured: The passport, issued in March 2021, was among many documents used by Saleh, an ex-chief of staff to a Cook County commissioner, to secure 69 tax breaks that saved him a total of more than $80,000 under Assessor Fritz Kaegi and two predecessors going back to 1998.
How’d this happen?: It’s unclear why the three assessors kept approving tax breaks on Saleh’s two homes despite a state law that limits those exemptions to just one, an owner-occupied home.
Watchdogs investigations: Saleh is now the latest of more than a dozen homeowners who have lost their tax breaks following Sun-Times investigations of the county office.
GRAVE INJUSTICE ✶
Sisters have cremated remains and doubt, wondering, ‘Where is my mama?’
Reporting by Cindy Hernandez
Chilling discovery: When sisters Franquella and Marshawna Campbell learned that Clark Morgan, the man who had picked up their mother’s body from hospice, had been accused of mishandling human remains, they turned to the urn sitting on the table in their mother’s living room. They opened it and began to question everything, including whether the urn’s contents are ashes at all.
Key context: The state shut down South Chicago Chapel this month after receiving a tip that owners Clark and Johanna Morgan were improperly storing bodies. Inside the funeral home, investigators found 56 bodies in various stages of decomposition. Last year, a Chicago Heights Crematory, owned by the Morgans, was shut down.
Search for answers: Most of the bodies have been identified, and families have been notified, but the Campbells might never get that call. When they visited the Cook County medical examiner’s office to ask whether their mother was among the bodies recovered from South Chicago Chapel, officials told them they were still working to identify the remains. The sisters want what’s inside their mother’s urn tested, but the medical examiner’s office said they don’t have the tools to test cremains.
WEATHER 🌪️
More than 200 tornadoes have hit Illinois this year. The reason why is unclear.
Reporting by Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco and Matt Simon
Tornado tally: So far this year, 207 tornadoes and counting have touched down in Illinois. That figure may rise as officials continue working through the remaining post-storm assessments, according to the National Weather Service. This is the third year in a row that Illinois has experienced a triple-digit tornado season; the state’s historical average is closer to 50.
Research continues: Experts agree it doesn’t seem that climate change is in and of itself resulting in more tornadoes. If that seems unsatisfyingly inconclusive, it’s not for lack of trying. Tornadoes are hyperlocal weather events, so they’re difficult to simulate in climate models. Massive hurricanes, on the other hand, are easier to model. So scientists are still working to figure out how much the change in tornado activity is due to natural variability — what you’d expect if humans hadn’t warmed the planet — versus what’s the consequence of runaway greenhouse gas emissions.
MORE NEWS YOU NEED 🗞️
- Murder suspect remains jailed: Tommy Schaefer, the ex-boyfriend of Heather Mack, who’s long been accused of beating her mother to death in an international murder plot, will remain in federal custody while he awaits trial early next year.
- Ex-exec in federal lockup: Anosh Ahmed, Loretto Hospital’s indicted former chief financial officer, has returned after years abroad and is being held in Chicago’s federal jail, arriving just as a new grand jury accused him of scamming the federal government out of roughly $200 million.
- First cyclospora suit: A Chicago librarian sickened after eating Taco Bell has filed, apparently, the first Illinois lawsuit linked to the cyclospora outbreak, officials and their law firm announced Thursday morning. Taylor Fresh Foods, Inc. and Taylor Farms California, Inc. are targeted in the suit.
- CPS reviewed by Congress: A U.S. House committee is demanding that Chicago Public Schools turn over documents, including complaints about policies that support transgender students, as GOP members of Congress continue to look into whether CPS’ policies violate federal law.
- Board race thins: Jennifer Custer, an incumbent school board member, is withdrawing from the race to be the first elected Chicago Board of Education president, citing “special interests prepared to spend millions of dollars.”
- Zoo mourns snow leopard: Lincoln Park Zoo announced the death of its 8-year-old snow leopard Ozzy “following a rapid deterioration in his health.”
- Stateway Gardens site plans: The city gave initial approvals to a developer’s $70 million plan to redevelop the former public housing site in Bronzeville into a housing and retail destination, anchored by a Pete’s Market.
DOLLY PARTON TRIBUTE 🦋
Woodstock orchard to unveil larger-than-life homage to Dolly Parton
Reporting by Selena Fragassi
Rural homage: All Seasons Orchard in suburban Woodstock has paved a new course through its crops and on Saturday will unveil its larger-than-life homage to the country superstar who passed away Tuesday at the age of 80. It’s a 6-acre corn maze carved in Parton’s likeness, with her wide smile and big bouffant part of the course, along with the inscription, “An American Treasure.”
Key context: The Dolly Parton concept had been in the works for nearly three years, going through the approval process with Parton and her Imagination Library book-gifting program. Proceeds from this season’s ticket sales will be donated to local Imagination Library chapters, continuing the mission to provide free books for children.
More Parton tributes: In Chicago, tributes to Parton are scheduled this weekend at Hideout Inn, Roscoe’s Tavern, Sidetrack and more.
ON WBEZ 91.5 FM 📻
In the Loop with Sasha-Ann Simons, 9 a.m.
- Weekly news recap: A panel of journalists, including WBEZ’s Sarah Karp, AXIOS Chicago’s Carrie Shepherd and Illinois Answers Project’s Alex Nitkin, breaks down the week’s top stories.
Say More with Mary Dixon and Patrick Smith, 10 a.m.
- Are you protein maxxing?: The protein maxxing trend is taking over the internet. Is this all medically necessary? When is it too much? Guests and callers weigh in.
MUST-READ COMMENTARY 🗣️
- Lynn Sweet: Friday is the anniversary of former President Barack Obama’s famous tan suit press conference. It’s also the date Emmett Till was savagely murdered, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech — and more.
- Javonte Anderson: I grew up in Gary. I’ve never seen a power outage like this.
- Jeffrey Sterling: Northwestern must elevate — not retreat from — its African studies program.
- Neil Steinberg: How are kids supposed to learn anything if AI does their work for them?
FROM THE PRESS BOX 🏈⚾
- What’s next for Williams: The Bears want QB Caleb Williams to get better in the red zone. As training camp wound to a close Thursday, coach Ben Johnson reiterated that desire.
- Rizzo in the booth: Anthony Rizzo is taking the next step in his broadcasting journey as a booth analyst for the Reds-Cubs game on NBC’s “Sunday Night Baseball.”
- Venable reflects: Ahead of the season’s home stretch, White Sox manager Will Venable is rating, celebrating — and self-evaluating.
- High school football preview: Mike Clark takes a look at five of the most-anticipated games of Week 2.
CHICAGO MINI CROSSWORD 🌭
Today’s clue: 3D: Historic lakefront hotel where Princess Diana once stayed
BRIGHT ONE 🔆
GoodWaves fest aims to spread the good word of hip-hop
Reporting by Selena Fragassi
GoodWaves is on a mission to bring goodwill to Chicago’s hip-hop community.
The new multiday music festival and conference kicks off Friday with two days of panels and networking at Venue Six10, featuring talks with rappers Killer Mike and Vic Mensa as well as writing sessions with Brother Ali and Phenom.
It will be followed by an all-day festival Sunday at Salt Shed, headlined by Killer Mike, with additional performances from Snow Tha Product and Rapsody, alongside up-and-coming local talents Recoechi and Pinqy Ring. The nonprofit collective Floating Museum will also be present with three monuments.
All of the events are free (They’re “sold out,” but there is a waitlist that people can sign up for online).
“I want everyone to feel welcome. No one should feel like hip-hop is alien or not safe. We’re too old for that. And we are amplifying that by taking down the barrier of having to pay to [take] part,” said fest organizer and Los Angeles-based rapper MURS 3:16.
“Our goal is to solidify Chicago as the fourth pillar of the hip-hop community in the United States behind New York, Los Angeles and Atlanta,” he said.
YOUR DAILY QUESTION ☕️
What’s an underrated park or green space in Chicago? Tell us what makes it special. 🌳
Reply to this question via email (please include your first and last name). We may run your answer in a future newsletter or story.
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Written and curated by: Matt Moore
Edited by: Michael Lansu