Associated Press

ESTOCOLMO (AP) — La semana del Nobel comenzaba en Estocolmo y Oslo, donde los laureados ofrecían conferencias de prensa y charlas antes de recibir los prestigiosos premios.

Estaba previsto que el húngaro László Krasznahorkai, quien ganó el premio de Literatura por sus novelas surrealistas y anárquicas que combinan una visión del mundo sombría con un humor mordaz, diera una conferencia en Estocolmo el domingo en una de sus inusales apariciones públicas.

Cuando los jueces del Nobel anunciaron el premio en octubre, describieron al escritor de 71 años como “un gran escritor épico” cuyo trabajo “se caracteriza por el absurdismo y el exceso grotesco”.

“La obra de Krasznahorkai puede verse como parte de una tradición centroeuropea”, dijo la organización del Premio Nobel. “Características importantes son el pesimismo y el apocalipsis, pero también el humor y la imprevisibilidad”.

El ganador del año pasado fue la autora surcoreana Han Kang. El ganador de 2023 fue el escritor noruego Jon Fosse, cuyo trabajo incluye una épica de siete libros compuesta por una sola oración.

Mientras tanto, el director del Instituto Nobel Noruego, Kristian Harpviken, dijo el sábado que la líder opositora venezolana María Corina Machado, laureada del premio de la Paz, llegaría a Oslo esta semana para recibir su premio en persona.

La opositora de 58 años, quien ganó por su lucha para lograr una transición democrática en la nación sudamericana, ha estado escondida y no se la ha visto en público desde enero.

Harpviken dijo a la emisora pública noruega NRK que se esperaba que Machado recogiera personalmente el premio el miércoles.

“Hablé con la ganadora del premio de la Paz anoche, y ella vendrá a Oslo”, dijo Harpviken, según NRK.

Las ceremonias de entrega de los Nobel se celebran el 10 de diciembre, aniversario de la muerte de Alfred Nobel en 1896. La ceremonia de entrega del premio de la paz se realiza en Oslo y las otras ceremonias se llevan a cabo en Estocolmo.

___

Esta historia fue traducida del inglés por un editor de AP con la ayuda de una herramienta de inteligencia artificial generativa.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/07/los-laureados-del-nobel-llegan-para-una-semana-de-eventos-y-premios-en-estocolmo-y-oslo/ 

A former stable building that once was part of the broader Pullman Company industrial campus, where terracotta horse heads still adorn the second story facade, has been a working part of the community since the early 1900s.

These days, the building is being used to help community members how to work and build, offering instruction in woodworking, preservation and skilled trades.

“There’s a story to be told in Pullman and its beautiful architecture,” said Nick Lubovich, founder and executive director of the Pullman Tech Workshop, which is housed in the building at 11314 S. Front St. “Unless it’s handled properly, it will go away.”

Before it was the Pullman Tech Workshop, the former stable building had been home to Argus Brewery from 2009 until it closed at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Lubovich was a brewery historian there from 2009 until 2020. He and his wife, Barb, a midwife, also bought a home in Pullman more than 20 years ago, which was in need of repair.

He started stripping the wood in his home and realized it would take forever. So he asked some men he saw hanging around nearby if they’d be willing to help and they did.

“I saw some adults in the street who were probably unemployed and told them I just needed someone to help me strip the wood,” he recalled.  “They became very good at it and went on to strip other houses. That was my ‘ah ha’ moment.

He likened the situation to the old proverb about feeding the hungry versus teaching them how to obtain food. “I had taught someone how to fish,” Lubovich said.

That was the inspiration for the Pullman Tech Workshop, which was founded in 2021.

Tamika Powell, a college friend of Lubovich’s who had been working as an early childhood education teacher but wanted a new career path, joined the effort as well.

Pullman Tech Workshop founder Nick Lubovich delivers paint to La’Shawn Smith, left, who is now part of the Workshop’s Advanced Workforce Development Training program, and assistant instructor Donovan Parks, as they work painting part of the porch for a home in Pullman during a recent session at the workshop along Front Street between Roseland and Pullman. (Janice Neumann/Daily Southtown)

Powell handles special projects, including a vegetable garden, also worked by students, who get to enjoy the food once grown.

“I love it because it’s really relaxing to me,” said Powell, explaining the gardening has that effect on students, too. “It grounds me.”

Besides teaching how to restore the many historic properties in the area, the workshop teaches skills to people, many who can use a second chance. The workshop is a “trauma-informed facility,” Powell said, and veggies are just one of the foods offered to students to be sure they don’t go hungry while there. There’s also fresh coffee, snacks and fruit cups. A laundry room is also available to students.

The lobby is cozy and welcoming, with a cabinet full of pictures and mementos made by students, and there’s stained glass artwork on the wall and comfy seating.

“Our participants always say it feels like family here, and we take that seriously,” said Powell. “Community and support are just as important as technical skills.”

Lubovich said people can’t be expected to learn if they are hungry or worrying about their clothes being dirty.

“And that’s why there’s always warm coffee here,” he said.

Nick Lubovich and Tamika Powell showcase the Pullman Tech Workshop laundry room, which is named after Lubovich’s mom. It’s made available to students because people can’t be expected to learn if they are hungry or worrying about their clothes being dirty, he said. Janice Neumann/Daily Southtown)

One of the founding donor firms was SC Johnson, which owns Method Products in Pullman. Johnson recently donated $75,000 to the workshop’s Advanced Workforce Development Training program.

“There were so many young people who wanted to learn,” Lubovich said of the help the grant will provide. “They (Johnson) believed in our vision at the very beginning, and that support helps us transform both people and places.”

The workshop offers an eight-week Handyman Service and Building Maintenance Training program which teaches drywall repair, basic plumbing and electrical and painting, and takes place in a large room with work tables and tons of equipment. Upstairs, students use a lab room to practice their skills fixing toilets, pipes on sinks and patching holes in walls. The walls are then torn down and rebuilt by the next cohort of students.

Students also do repairs or painting at nearby Greenstone United Methodist Church, which they call the “living lab.”

A Social Enterprise Program offers custom woodworking, marketing products and digital fabrication services to consumers.

Student Da’Shawn Smith recently sat in the workshop helping shop manager Donovan Parks paint a door for a Pullman rowhouse, after having milled and primed the wood.  Smith had done basic training and was now in the Advanced Workshop Development Training.  He now wants to become an electrician.

Some of the organizations that work with the workshop include Voice of the City/After School Matters, Mercy Home, YWCA, Hire 360, United Way, CEDA/UpLift Harvey, Chicago CRED and Chicago Handyman, which sends instructors, who were recently there doing a team-building exercise.

Other major donors have included Blue Cross/Blue Shield and the Tullman Family Office.

“They come here and see what we’re doing,” Lubovich said of the donors.  “They see what we’re doing is changing lives.”

Janice Neumann is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown. 

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/07/pullman-tech-workshop/ 

An endorsement by a former one-term lieutenant governor who has been out of office for a decade ordinarily wouldn’t hold much significance in a primary campaign for U.S. Senate.

But an endorsement from Sheila Simon might be a slight exception. Not because of the ex-lieutenant governor‘s individual political influence, but because, even as the Democratic voter base in downstate Illinois is ever-shrinking, her support highlights that statewide candidates must still spend considerable time and energy wooing party members far from deep-blue Cook County.

That’s become particularly true in the Democratic Party’s Senate primary campaign. All three major candidates in the race are from the Chicago region and are running to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Springfield, who for the last 28 years has balanced an upstate-downstate split in Illinois’ Senate representation.

Although ballots cast outside the six-county Chicago region accounted for less than a quarter of the overall vote in the past two contested Democratic Senate primaries, in 2010 and 2016, the announcement last week that Simon was backing U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi‘s candidacy serves as a reminder that all three top-tier candidates in the March 17 primary know building credibility beyond Chicago and its increasingly Democratic suburbs is essential.

Simon’s backing does, of course, carry some modest political weight. Now a law professor at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, she’s the daughter of the late U.S. Sen. Paul Simon, the man Durbin replaced in the Senate in 1997. She also remains a recognizable and well-connected figure in a region where her family name is tied to the identity and history of local Democratic politics.

Coming out on top of a primary field that currently stands at 14 candidates will require building a coalition of support that extends beyond Chicago and Cook County, said John Jackson, a visiting professor at SIU’s Paul Simon Public Policy Institute.

That’s a big part of the reason the top three candidates have played up their downstate bona fides, Jackson said.

For both Krishnamoorthi, of northwest suburban Schaumburg, and Rep. Robin Kelly, of south suburban Lynwood, that means emphasizing their Peoria roots: his upbringing in an immigrant family there and her time at Bradley University and two decades, on and off, spent living in the central Illinois river city. Kelly also points to the makeup of her current congressional district, which stretches from Chicago’s South Side to Danville in east-central Illinois.

A South Side native, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton leans on her two terms in statewide office alongside Gov. JB Pritzker, particularly her role leading the Governor’s Rural Affairs Council, and her education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

One thing that can help distinguish a candidate, particularly in parts of the state that often feel overlooked or forgotten, is face time with voters, Jackson said.

“People want to be — especially (party) activists — want to be talked to,” Jackson said. “They want people (running for office) to show up.”

Even in the age of social media algorithms, TV advertising also remains an important tool for candidates to become familiar to voters.

With several visits to Carbondale and other communities in the region this year and TV ads airing on multiple networks since summer, including on affiliates based out of nearby Kentucky and Missouri, Krishnamoorthi has built an advantage, at least in that corner of southern Illinois, “that’s going to be hard for the other two to match,” Jackson said.

Building a strong base of support downstate in the early stages of the campaign allows candidates to focus more attention and resources on Chicago and its voter-rich suburbs as primary day gets closer. It has possibly become even more important with the rise of early voting, both in person and by mail. Voters actually will start casting ballots during the first week of February.

In the state’s closest Democratic Senate primary in recent memory, then-Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias in 2010 topped a field of five candidates.

Giannoulias, who lost the general election that November to Republican Mark Kirk of Highland Park, won his party’s primary by 5 percentage points over his nearest competitor, former federal prosecutor and Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman.

Giannoulias’ margin of victory was padded by a strong showing outside Cook County and the five collar counties. While he won the Chicago area vote by 2 percentage points, he took the downstate vote by nearly 16 points.

This year, “if it’s close enough, especially in a three-candidate race, downstate could be a factor,” said Dan Shomon, a lobbyist and political consultant who was campaign manager and political director for Barack Obama’s 2004 U.S. Senate run. The host of lesser-known candidates on the ballot could further split the vote.

U.S. Reps. Robin Kelly, from left, and Raja Krishnamoorthi and Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton stand after a candidate forum for their U.S. Senate race at IBEW Local 134 in Chicago on Nov. 13, 2025. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)

To shore up support outside the Chicago area, “it’s important … that you’re there, you’re there early and you’re there often,” said Shomon, who isn’t working with any of the current Senate candidates but has contributed $1,000 each to Krishnamoorthi’s campaign fund and a Stratton-affiliated political action committee.

In 2004, Obama, a state senator from Chicago, lost the downstate vote in the Democratic primary by nearly 16 percentage points to the better-connected, better-funded campaign of then-Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes. But the time Obama spent downstate, going back to a 1997 trip to southern Illinois when he was a freshman state lawmaker, helped him outperform expectations, garnering just over a quarter of the vote outside Cook and the collar counties in the Senate primary, Shomon said.

For Krishnamoorthi, the recent endorsement is “important because of the Simon credibility factor,” Shomon said. And the amount of time Krishnamoorthi, a five-term congressman, has spent building support far from his home base in the northwest suburbs “makes a huge difference,” Shomon said.

“It also shows that a candidate who’s Asian American can get votes in areas where there’s very few Asian Americans,” he said.

Stratton also “has spent a significant amount of time downstate,” Shomon said.

Indeed, while Krishnamoorthi has made his central Illinois roots a central theme, launching his campaign in front of his childhood home in Peoria, and has traversed the state for many months, including an eight-stop downstate listening tour over the summer that brought him to Simon’s Carbondale home, neither of the other major candidates is conceding the downstate vote.

Stratton, who was the first candidate to officially enter the race, has made campaign stops from Rockford to Murphysboro and from Alton to Champaign-Urbana.

Like Krishnamoorthi, the two-term lieutenant governor has focused on securing endorsements from downstate Democratic Party chairs, whose support can bring on-the-ground manpower.

Stratton has received the backing of local party chiefs in nine downstate counties, compared with 14 for Krishnamoorthi. Stratton’s backers include the chair in Jackson County, which includes Carbondale.

“In addition to campaign appearances across the state, the lieutenant governor has spent the last seven years traveling to communities in every corner of Illinois and meeting with Illinoisans in her official capacity,” campaign spokesperson Allison Janowski said in a statement. “She’s the only candidate who has represented the entire state, and she’s not a stranger to communities in southern, central, northwestern Illinois, or in the Greater Chicago region. They know her, they know her record, and she has delivered real results for their communities.”

That’s true for Brandi Bradley, chair of the Williamson County Democratic Party in far southern Illinois.

A former staffer for Durbin and southern Illinois U.S. Reps. Jerry Costello and Bill Enyart, Bradley has gotten to know Stratton over the years in her role as a local party leader. Bradley also has been the Pritzker-appointed Illinois designee to the multistate Delta Regional Authority, which supports economic development in the lower Mississippi River and Alabama Black Belt regions. She’s worked with Stratton in that capacity as well.

“She’s spent the time, and she’s listened,” Bradley said. “And so to me, it was an easy choice. It wasn’t just about a campaign. She knows our region well, and I’ve worked really well with her.”

While Krishnamoorthi and Kelly have congressional experience, to represent a region in the Senate, “the core thing you have to have is an understanding of the area, the issues and a love for the people, and then you can represent them in Washington well,” Bradley said. Stratton’s “experience with the state and working the whole state is more valuable than someone that has been … working in Washington.”

Kelly, meanwhile, has focused her downstate campaigning in more populous areas such as Rockford, Springfield, Peoria, Champaign-Urbana, the Quad Cities and the Metro East region just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. But she’s also made stops as far south as Carbondale and DuQuoin and hit smaller communities in central and western Illinois.

Kelly’s “people over profits” message, which includes supporting a $17-per-hour federal minimum wage, resonates with voters concerned about affordability across the state, including rural communities like those in her district, her campaign said.

That economic platform, which also includes a proposed minimum federal tax on individuals whose annual net worth exceeds $100 million, is an important part of Kelly’s appeal to state Rep. Carol Ammons, an Urbana Democrat who has endorsed the seven-term congresswoman.

The boundaries of Ammons’ Illinois House district and Kelly’s congressional district are about 12 miles apart, but the two have worked together on numerous legislative and political issues, and Kelly’s is a familiar face on the U. of I.’s flagship campus and in the broader Champaign-Urbana community, Ammons said.

In addition to knowing the needs of rural communities like those she represents in Congress, Kelly “knows how Washington works,” Ammons said. “She’s been there long enough to know how to get things done, and that experience is going to be extraordinarily invaluable in the moment that we’re in in D.C. and in the nation.”

For her part, Sheila Simon, who served alongside Gov. Pat Quinn from 2011 to 2015, is somewhat skeptical about how much influence her individual endorsement — even with its implicit attachment to her father’s legacy — will have on the outcome of the Senate primary.

Such endorsements “probably don’t carry a whole lot of weight at all, but maybe it causes a few people to pay some closer attention and to look into a candidate that they might have overlooked before. So that’s what I’m hoping for.”

Simon has known Krishnamoorthi since his unsuccessful primary campaign for state comptroller in 2010, the same year she was elected lieutenant governor alongside Quinn. When Krishnamoorthi came to speak at SIU’s law school early this year, before he jumped into the Senate race, Simon was impressed by the way the congressman connected with an audience that ranged from the Simon Institute’s John Jackson to Nick Wilhelm, the 15-year-old son of a colleague.

Simon also touted Krishnamoorthi’s ability to draw on his experience growing up in a family that for a time relied on federal public assistance to address the challenges facing low- and middle-income Illinois families today.

When Krishnamoorthi returned to Carbondale in July for a campaign event at Simon’s home, Nick Wilhelm was in attendance again, this time introducing the candidate to the small group.

Making that kind of connection with supporters far from home is key to running a statewide campaign, Simon said.

“The math adds up to spending a lot of time in the Chicago area because that’s where most of the primary voters are,” she said. “But my vote down here in Carbondale counts as much as anyone’s vote up in Chicago. … You need to be able to appeal to the state, and campaigns are part of the process of getting you ready to serve. And whoever is elected the next United States senator is going to be serving the whole state, and they’re going to be able to do a better job if they know the whole state, if they have someone they can call in every part.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/07/illinois-senate-race-downstate-democrats/ 

Over the past few months, a troubling pattern has emerged across America’s major cities. As President Donald Trump’s administration dispatches federal agents and National Guard troops to jurisdictions — often over the objections of local residents and leaders — police departments are being forced to navigate an increasingly precarious position. If they embrace federal intervention, they risk being seen as acting against the will of the communities they serve. If they fail to align with Washington’s agenda, they invite political backlash for not showing unquestioning loyalty to the “thin blue line” that unites law enforcement.

This no-win situation is yet another symptom of the growing politicization of law enforcement and public safety. And as a retired police lieutenant who spent more than two decades on the force, I see this trend as an existential threat to the legitimacy our profession relies on to be effective.

Anyone who has worked in this field knows that policing can only function through community trust and cooperation. Our ability to uphold safety depends on the public’s belief that police are there to protect them — not to serve as an occupying force or an arm of political power. Federal encroachment on local policing blurs that line, creating a tightrope act that’s proving difficult for departments to balance.

In the Chicago area, federal law enforcement’s heavy-handed tactics have put local police directly in the crossfire, both literally and figuratively. After federal agents repeatedly deployed tear gas in residential neighborhoods — exposing at least 40 Chicago police officers and countless bystanders — a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the use of certain types of force against protesters. In nearby Broadview, federal agents have also tear-gassed local police officers outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility that has drawn regular protests. The village’s police chief has accused ICE agents of making false police reports, and his department has opened at least three criminal investigations into incidents involving ICE agents.

In Washington, D.C., local police are facing sharp criticism after failing to document a shooting by a federal agent during an October traffic stop. While the Metropolitan Police Department was not responsible for the shooting, its decision not to include the gunfire in a subsequent incident report has raised serious questions about transparency and accountability. One officer even testified that a superior instructed him not to document the incident in court records. Whether that decision stemmed from confusion, pressure or fear of political repercussions, the result is the same: a loss of public trust that hinders the department’s ability to do the job effectively.

Similar problems have emerged in Portland, where police leaders have testified that federal intervention has made their jobs harder, not easier. During a recent federal trial over the legality of sending National Guard troops to the city, a local police commander told the court that protests swelled in size and intensity following Trump’s deployment order. He also documented “startling” incidents of excessive force by federal officers, including the use of tear gas and pepper balls affecting both protesters and local police. His testimony reinforced concerns among local officials who have warned that federal involvement is creating unnecessary danger for officers and the public alike.

These episodes point to rising tensions between local and federal law enforcement, which are only complicating the broader public safety landscape. Each new confrontation creates additional risks for the community and forces local police to divert attention from their core work of preventing and solving crime. That strain appeared to surface again in Chicago in October, when Border Patrol agents clashed with protesters and local police were accused of not providing adequate backup to secure the scene — a claim the city’s police superintendent has denied.

Some departments have also sought to carve out some much-needed middle ground in the face of this emerging conflict. After millions of Americans took to the streets for October’s “No Kings” protests, several large agencies publicly thanked demonstrators for keeping the peace and reaffirmed their commitment to protecting First Amendment rights.

Rather than buy into an “us versus them” framing, police in cities such as Chicago, Seattle, San Diego and New York issued statements that remained community-focused and free of partisan posturing. These departments seemed to recognize that the protesters were people whose trust and support they need to be effective and whose freedoms they are sworn to uphold. At a time of rising polarization, this sort of engagement reminds the public that police ultimately serve the community, not any political entity. But the politicized nature of federal interference only makes that message harder to maintain.

At its core, policing depends on legitimacy — the belief that officers act fairly, lawfully and in service of the people. Once that belief falters, public trust falters with it. The more law enforcement is pulled into partisan battles, the harder it becomes for officers to foster cooperation. Instead of building partnerships, they’re left trying to police through division.

If leaders truly want to act in the interest of public safety, they should start by ensuring that police remain insulated from politics. That means respecting the boundaries between federal and local authority, holding law enforcement to high standards of transparency and accountability, and trusting communities to shape their own safety priorities. At the end of the day, policing works best when departments can focus on their core mission — keeping communities safe —without the added distraction of politics.

Retired Lt. Diane Goldstein is a 21-year police veteran and executive director of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, known as LEAP, a nonprofit group of police, judges and other law enforcement professionals who support policies that improve public safety and police-community relations.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/07/opinion-police-federal-law-enforcement-public-safety-politicization/ 

Hazel McNally laughed as a prosecutor described how she brutally murdered her infant twins.

She “laughed uproariously” as witnesses and lawyers sniped, she “snickered” at grieving family and had a “twinkle of merriment return to her eyes” as her husband described how she would pelt him with plates and shoes, according to a Chicago Tribune report.

“While Frank McNally, her 55 year old husband accuser, sat with glum face, alternately glaring at a witness and glancing away towards a nearby window, Mrs. McNally, just 26 and jauntily dressed, snickered behind her gloved hand as his son, Lloyd, told how tenderly the ‘father’ had carried one of the ‘dummy twins,’” the Oct. 19, 1922, Tribune said.

For three days in 1922, Hammond hosted a murder trial that captivated and confused the nation. Autoworker Frank McNally had accused his wife of killing their children — Laurene Hazel McNally and her twin brother, Lauren Frank McNally — and disposing of their bodies.

The mother’s defense? The babies she nursed, walked around Hammond in a stroller, took to Chicago on shopping trips and kept under a veil in a darkened room for ill-defined health reasons were actually two doll heads she attached to baby clothes and stuffed with straw.

“‘Doll Murder’ Dazes Court” a Tribune headline blared. The Los Angeles Times’ front page begged “Twins, Dolls, or Hoax?” as the New York Times tucked its coverage inside under “Amusements.” Locally, papers dubbed it the “Twin-Doll Mystery,” the “Phantom Twins” or, in alliteration from the South Bend Tribune, “The Sensational ‘Sawdust Babies’ Affair.”

Frank McNally sits during his wife’s trial in October 1922, where he accused Hazel McNally of murdering their twin babies and replacing them with dolls. (Chicago Tribune historical photo)

Monday would have been Lauren and Laurene McNally’s 104rd birthday, if they existed.

Tribune reports and records from the Indiana State Library and South Bend Historical Society showed how the case played out.

Hazel McNally claimed the babies had always been dolls, sometimes saying it was a test to see if Frank would be a good father, sometimes saying it was a scheme concocted with her husband to make his ex-wife jealous, and sometimes saying a “mother mania” made her claim dolls, random babies and, in one case, a dog as her own children.

Frank McNally said the dolls appeared a few months after the babies’ birth. He said Hazel McNally told him passing off dolls as their children would keep up appearances during the twins’ long hospital stays, but over the months he slowly, horrifyingly realized his babies were never coming home.

As police tore up the McNallys’ former backyard for bodies, the courts called friends, neighbors and family to testify whether Lauren and Laurene were babies or dolls.

“Here’s where it gets weird,” Kristie Erickson, the South Bend Historical Society’s deputy executive director, told the Tribune in a recent interview: No one could agree.

From housekeeper to wife

Hazel Hills met Frank McNally in November 1920, answering a Tribune ad for a housekeeper. She was 24 with a 7-year-old from a previous marriage. He was a divorced grandfather in his 50s. They married on April 23, 1921.

Hazel seemed to blend well with Frank’s family, becoming particularly close to her similar-aged daughter-in-law Cleora McNally. During one of their swimming trips to Lake Michigan that summer, Hazel had a confession. “At that time she told me she was to become a mother and that it was distasteful to her,” Cleora testified.

Hazel McNally, 26, is seen while on trial in October 1922 for the murder of her twin babies, who she said were just dolls. Her husband, Frank McNally, disagreed. (Chicago Tribune historical photo)

Any pregnancy would presumably have been over by September, when Hazel McNally put an ad in the Lake County Times looking to “adopt an infant at once.”

It’s possible Hazel McNally had a miscarriage or that she had an abortion, which was illegal in Indiana before 1973 and since 2023. But her lawyer objected to Hazel McNally’s doctor testifying about whether she had been pregnant, instead presenting a statement from a doctor in Wisconsin saying Hazel McNally had been unable to have children since an operation in 1919.

Amid this mystery, the twins were or weren’t born on Dec. 8, 1921. They were too sickly for visitors, Hazel said. She kept them in a darkened room under a veil, saying the midwife had used too much boric acid on their eyes. Applying some boric acid was a common practice after birth at the time. Mary Griffiths, a nurse Frank McNally had hired, said she later discovered no midwife had been called.

The diapers were never soiled, Griffiths said. Hazel McNally explained the children had such tender skin that she lined their diapers with cotton. “She would wrap the cotton in newspaper and hand it to me to burn,” the Lake County Times quoted Griffiths. “I never had any reason to doubt her so I never examined any of the cotton.”

But Griffiths also testified she helped Hazel McNally pump full bottles, lactation that was more likely if Hazel McNally had been pregnant and was still producing prolactin. Griffiths also testified she saw Hazel McNally wipe blood from the boy’s nose.

“Dolls don’t bleed,” Griffiths snapped at Hazel McNally’s lawyer.

The Hammond home and yard of Frank McNally, who claimed that his wife, Hazel McNally, killed their twin babies. A search was made on the property for the bodies of the missing twins in 1922. Editors note: This historic print shows handpainting and crop marks. (Underwood & Underwood)

In late January 1922, Frank McNally said, his wife took Lauren to a hospital in Chicago for a “leaking valve of the heart” and took his sister, Laurene, four weeks later. “She said it had some trouble I didn’t know anything about,” Frank McNally testified. “When she came back she had the two dummies.”

Hazel, Frank said, cajoled, browbeat and at points physically abused him into pretending the dolls were their children, parading the phantoms in a baby buggy.

That spring, suspicious neighbor Agnes Schermer snuck into the darkened, closed-off nursery and lifted the veil over the crib. Glassy, lifeless eyes met her gaze.

“I didn’t know whether the baby was sick or dead, and I put the cover back quick,” Schermer testified. “Later I told Mrs. McNally they were saying in the neighborhood she was carrying dummies around. I had to laugh when I saw her pushing them in the carriage after that.”

The couple retired the buggy and changed the story to say the twins were with Hazel McNally’s parents. Hazel McNally said she smashed the dolls. She and her husband separated that September. In early October, Hazel McNally said her husband begged her to take him back. Frank McNally said his wife hit him with a mop.

While she was in jail awaiting trial for assault, Frank McNally swore out the murder charges.

Reasonable doubt

After three days of swirling, contradictory stories, Judge Henry Cleveland dismissed the case.

He found prosecutors had raised reasonable doubt as to whether the twins had lived, but hadn’t proved they died. No corpus, no delicti. The courtroom crowd of mostly women cheered. Hazel McNally fainted. Frank McNally quietly snuck out the back.

Hazel McNally, left, shakes the hand of Judge Henry C. Cleveland while thanking him for throwing out her murder case, while her mother, Emily Hills, right, and her attorney, Sam Schwartz, second from left, watch in a Hammond courtroom on Oct. 20, 1922. McNally was sitting on a table after fainting when she heard the news of the case being thrown out. (Chicago Tribune historical photo)

Frank McNally died of pneumonia in February 1923, swearing to the end that his wife got away with murder by concocting a story too ridiculous to doubt. They never divorced; his death certificate lists Hazel McNally as his widow. Today, he rests in an unmarked grave in South Bend’s Highland Cemetery.

No record of Hazel McNally’s final days could be located. “Did she change her name back to her maiden name, or take another name entirely, or move away? I don’t know,” Erickson said. “She vanishes into the wind.”

The last known photograph of “Doll Mother” Hazel McNally appeared in the November 1922 issue of the trade journal Toys & Novelties. She sits smiling with two dolls she bought at a Hammond department store after the trial. They were perfect matches, she claimed, for her dear departed twins and perfect product placement, the dollmakers hoped, for New York-based Fleischaker & Baum’s Effanbee line.

“We’ll say it’s a triumph for American made dolls, for when they are produced so close to life that they fool the father and the neighbors, it’s going some,” the toy journal said.

Paul Dailing is a freelancer writer and creator of the Chicago Corruption Walking Tour. You can find more at www.pauldailing.com. 

Have an idea for Vintage Chicago Tribune? Share it with Marianne Mather at mmather@chicagotribune.com and Kori Rumore at krumore@chicagotribune.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/07/sawdust-babies-murder-vintage-chicago-tribune/ 

Buckle up, Chicago. Mayor Brandon Johnson is running the Hail Mary play, both for Chicago’s finances and his political future.

The mayor’s lengthy response on Thursday to an alternative budget framework put forth by 26 aldermen last week was an exercise in political irresponsibility. The mayor’s team dismissed virtually all of the suggestions the majority of the council made and came back with almost no alternative proposals of their own. And the mayor’s cheering section, the Chicago Teachers Union, decided, appallingly, to engage in the politics of personal destruction naming “The Alders willing to shutdown our city,” suggesting they will provide backup if Johnson digs in sufficiently for Chicago’s own version of a federal government shutdown. Be very afraid of that.

If nothing else, this budget season has exposed as fiction the mayor’s repeated claim of being more collaborative than his predecessors when it comes to relations with the City Council. In the past, Johnson’s “collaboration,” such as it’s been, has been born of necessity as much as anything else — a consequence of a divisive brand of politics that has sapped aldermanic confidence in his leadership. It’s not surprising that any pretense to give-and-take is on the shelf now that we’re fast approaching election season in Chicago.

But it is dismaying. And, if you care about Chicago’s future, very worrying.

Long after a majority of alders made it clear they wouldn’t support reviving the city’s corporate head tax, Johnson’s insistence on a monthly $21 tax on each worker at businesses employing 100 or more is beginning to put Chicago in truly perilous territory when it comes to its finances.

Team Johnson estimates that tax would generate $100 million; the city’s budget gap is $1.2 billion. A head tax would crush whatever remaining confidence companies and investors have in Chicago as a healthy place to do business. There are clear alternatives to that much-despised levy, but we’re not in the realm of logic and practicality anymore.

Johnson clearly wants desperately to stand for reelection having made the “rich” pay more in taxes to bankroll his agenda. That goal is what has animated his mayoralty from the start, and he’s obviously been frustrated at his inability to convince Springfield lawmakers, the business community and even ordinary Chicago voters to endorse more levies on a business sector that already is heavily taxed.

Now, it’s the City Council’s turn. And they’re not buying what the mayor is selling either.

As a result, the first week of December is nearing its close and Johnson has only brinksmanship on offer. It would be one thing if all that was at stake was his future political standing. But he’s holding Chicago itself hostage over an ideological demand that at the end of the day isn’t critical to balancing the budget.

What do we mean by “holding Chicago hostage”? The agencies that determine the city’s credit rating — Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and the like — are watching this process just like us journalists and other interested observers. Those agencies, in determining how much of a risk the city’s bonds are for investors, will consider not just the details of the final budget product for 2026 but how the council and mayor arrived at it.

In short, the stability of Chicago’s governance is a factor in these ratings as well. And right now Chicago simply isn’t a good bet on that score if you’re an investor, whether in the city’s bonds, a real estate project or a new restaurant. Chicago’s credit rating currently is a scant (and wobbly) two notches above junk status.

So Johnson at this stage truly is playing with fire. If he continues on this course — threatening budget vetoes, summarily dismissing potentially viable cost-cutting or revenue ideas — soon there will be open discussion of precisely what happens if the budget isn’t passed by the Dec. 31 deadline. That’s never happened in this city’s long history. Never.

Ask President Donald Trump and members of Congress from either party how much they enjoyed the longest federal government shutdown ever. The federal government can issue debt and print money to paper over fiscal woes. But our city’s functionality depends heavily on the confidence of bondholders, many of whom don’t live here. Blowing the deadline would be disastrous.

It’s not too late. The mayor should pivot and begin engaging in good faith with aldermen, including his own Finance Committee chair, Ald. Pat Dowell, 3rd, who was among the 26 to sign last week’s letter outlining budget alternatives to the head tax.

Unions representing the city’s workforce also should understand that even if they end up “winning” in this budget crisis by not agreeing to any money-saving concessions, they will risk losing far more in the future if the city’s access to the debt markets is badly constrained or even shut off. If the mayor isn’t going to provide appropriate leadership, those unions could help fill the breach — and it would be in their self-interest to do so. Now.

Unfortunately, an awful lot of short-term thinking seems still to be at work in the budget showdown.

Shared sacrifice is the only realistic — and fair — way out of this mess.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/07/editorial-mayor-brandon-johnson-budget-council-head-tax-credit-ratings/ 

U.S. politics this coming year will be defined by the midterm elections, and if current trends continue, Democrats could take back Congress.

According to recent Marist polling, Democrats lead by 14 points on the national ballot question, while President Donald Trump’s approval rating is at a new low of 36%.

The question is whether, and how, Democrats can keep the momentum going to turn out voters.

There are lessons to be learned from November’s elections. That both progressives and moderates swept to victory might suggest that the way to go for Democrats in 2026 is to build a bigger tent to successfully navigate the choppy waters of a polarized electorate. But the real lesson of 2025 is that voters want a compelling alternative to the kind of politics that have made a safe, dignified and joyful life increasingly impossible for many people across the country.

Just think of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s campaign, which was a master class in uncompromising and unapologetic concern for all people that emphasized people’s real concerns about affordability. Or consider Virginia Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger’s emphasis on her competence and ability to address the high cost of living, rather than running on a platform of opposition to Trump.

This is not a new approach. In an influential 1979 article, the British cultural theorist Stuart Hall offered a diagnosis of the rise of the British new right and Labour’s inability to mount a defense. His analysis holds important insights for the current political moment in the United States.

In the midst of economic crisis, Margaret Thatcher was able to generate popular support for economic policies that hurt most ordinary Brits. Hall examined why British social democrats failed to stop what he aptly called “the great moving right show.”

According to Hall, Thatcher’s genius was to amplify people’s fears of economic loss and downward social mobility and recast them as a natural response to an assault on the British way of life. This way of life, ostensibly supported by the silent majority of ordinary British people, was built on individual responsibility, fairness and merit. It was threatened, or so Thatcher claimed, by irresponsible and unmeritorious immigrants, welfare scroungers and labor unionists who exploited the social safety net and dragged the country into economic crisis.

Sound familiar?

This narrative allowed Thatcher to build popular consent for economic austerity measures that purportedly punished welfare queens and lazy do-nothings but actually hurt the very Brits in whose interest Thatcher claimed to act.

Many on the British left took Thatcher’s electoral success as a sign of people’s confusion about which party really represented their interests. So social democrats saw it as their job to point out voters’ mistake and make them understand that their interests aligned them with the Labour Party. Yet instead of building a platform around those interests to give voters a compelling alternative to Thatcherism, Labour offered more of the same: New Labour championed the very neoliberal reforms that were Thatcherism’s signature project.

Voters’ desire for a response to their fears combined with their resentment of the condescension of social democratic elites and a sense of being heard by Thatcher’s appeal to the common sense of ordinary Brits. So, when Labour opted to respond to Thatcherism by meeting it on its own turf, voters asked to choose between two neoliberal reform projects preferred to talk to the organ grinder rather than the monkey.

Today’s Democratic Party would be wise to learn from Labour’s mistakes. If they hope to take back Congress in 2026, they should take seriously Americans’ fears of economic loss and remind them who is responsible: Republicans shut down the government, Republicans refuse to fund health care and Republicans are denying Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits to hungry Americans. Democrats should also point out that groceries have become more expensive under Trump, inflation has risen on his watch, the labor market is at its weakest since the Great Recession in 2009 and Trump’s tariffs are leading to higher prices for everything from coffee to furniture.

More importantly, Democrats have to engage voters in articulating a shared vision for the country’s future. Not being Trump will not cut it.

Scholars in my field of political theory have long argued that what matters in politics is that people feel heard, are inspired to participate in collective decision-making about their lives and are provided with the infrastructure — from free buses to affordable housing and groceries and free child care — that allows them to do so. Even though Hall wrote in, and about, 1970s Britain, his analysis has not lost any of its perspicacity or relevance.

U.S. Democrats are caught in the same moving right show as British social democrats were in the 1970s. Over the last decade, the Democratic Party’s response to Trumpism has been to declare itself the last hope against authoritarianism, while at the same time accepting Trumpism’s central premises — on immigration, welfare, health care and education, to name just a few. But playing the political game on your opponent’s terms is a surefire way to lose — especially if your opponent isn’t playing in good faith.

For Democrats clamoring to take back Congress in 2026, victory will neither be found in the center nor in a bigger tent, but in a way of doing politics that engages voters in a project of collective world-building.

Verena Erlenbusch-Anderson is an associate professor of philosophy and political science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a public voices fellow with The OpEd Project.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/07/opinion-democrats-take-back-congress-british-left-margaret-thatcher/ 

The phone at the White Eagle in Niles keeps ringing, with longtime customers asking for one last pierogi or a final bowl of its famed mushroom barley soup.

An older woman cried when she learned it wouldn’t be possible, recalled office manager Diane Palazzo of Victoria Venues, the current owner. The banquet hall had quietly closed its doors several weeks ago.

“She was totally shocked,” said Palazzo, who has attended events at White Eagle since childhood. “She said, ‘I don’t think you know what it means. I’ve had everything there.’ This is where all of her memories were.”

After more than six decades as a cornerstone of local Polish culture and a fixture in national politics, the iconic banquet hall and events center has shut its doors to the public.

The venue hosted a litany of dignitaries and celebrities over the years, from Pope John Paul II to President Jimmy Carter to former Polish President Lech Walesa. Three-time heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali was known to have dined there as well.

But it was more than just a magnet for celebrities. It was a constant in the community, a place where seemingly everyone has a memory of gathering. For generations, patrons marked every season of life at the White Eagle, celebrating their marriages and baptisms at the hall as well as grieving loved ones at funeral and memorial receptions.

Many regulars made a routine of visiting the White Eagle for a meal after paying their respects at the gravesites of loved ones at St. Adalbert Cemetery across the street, added Palazzo, whose own mother and father are buried there.

“It was something near and dear to their hearts,” she said. “People got married here. People christened their children (and celebrated) here. People buried their parents and had the funeral luncheon here. So it was just a part of their family.”

Now the 70,000-square-foot event space is slated for demolition.

Its famed onsite deli — known for sausage, sauerkraut and kolaczki cookies — served its last meal on Oct. 12.

“End of an era. Saying goodbye to a Niles landmark,” the venue’s website says. “The White Eagle is now permanently closed. Whether you joined us for a holiday brunch, stopped by to pick up some of our famous mushroom barley soup or celebrated a milestone event here, we’d like to thank you for being part of our story.”

History and heritage

During its heyday, the venue served as a social hub for the Chicago area’s large Polish diaspora as well as a center of political influence.

Amid a notoriously tough reelection campaign of 1980, President Jimmy Carter made a stop at the White Eagle to court the Polish American vote.

Attending the 100th anniversary dinner of the Polish National Alliance, the Democratic president addressed a crowd that included then-Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne and the U.S. ambassador to Poland.

“It’s been estimated that about 30% of all Americans can trace at least one of their ancestral lines back to Poland,” Carter said, just a few weeks before the November election. “Your first meeting was held in Chicago 100 years ago and I’m honored, as president, to join you in celebrating your 100th birthday. And I’m sure this second century will be just as successful as the first one.”

The business was founded in 1947 by Ted Przybylo, the son of Polish immigrants. Originally located in Chicago and operating under the name Andrew House, Przybylo moved the banquet hall to its current location in Niles in 1967.

The blonde brick-and-stone building rests on a stretch of Milwaukee Avenue designated as the Polish American Heritage Corridor by a state law in 2023, reflecting the numerous institutions along the strip with deep ties to Poland, including the Polish Museum of America, Oak Mill Bakery and several churches, as well as the White Eagle.

In its earliest days, the banquet hall hosted “hundreds and hundreds of weddings,” many for World War II soldiers who had returned home and were getting married in droves, recalled the founder’s son, Andrew Przybylo, the former mayor of Niles who co-owned the White Eagle for years with his five siblings.

“Back then, it wasn’t a matter of country clubs or getting married on a horse on a beach,” he said. “You would go to your local banquet hall. And my father had one of the better ones.”

Over the years, the wedding business continued to thrive: The White Eagle was known for its family-style service, where large platters of food were brought to the tables for all-you-could-eat banquets featuring a variety of dishes, Andrew Przybylo said.

The site also included a restaurant with a full menu serving steaks, chops and Polish specialties like golumpki, a hand-rolled stuffed cabbage dish.

“Mushroom barley soup was the house specialty,” he said, noting that it was made with imported dried mushrooms and whole cream. “Our barbecue ribs were extraordinary. The lamb shanks were very, very good.”

In its prime, the White Eagle “was the spot to be,” recalled Gabi Vargas, who worked there for the past 15 years.

“This place would be sold out,” she said. “You’d be looking on a Saturday, during its prime time, and it would not be available.”

The interior offered “an absolute authentic kind of Polish country decor,” Andrew Przybylo recalled.

Today, ornate candelabras still decorate the walls and brass chandeliers hang overhead. Plush old-world carpeting covers the flooring, a remnant of a bygone era.

Framed pictures of historical versions of the Polish coat of arms — featuring the national emblem of a white eagle on a red shield — dot the walls of one banquet hall room. A large red and white Polish flag hangs in the corner.

“We were always close and supportive of the Polish American community, as the community was supportive of us,” Andrew Przybylo said.

He credited his lengthy political career in part to the White Eagle. After his appointment to the Niles planning commission in 1987, he served as a village trustee for more than 20 years until his election as mayor in 2013, a title he held for eight years.

He was also a Democratic committeeman of Maine Township for more than a decade.

“I couldn’t have done those things without the White Eagle,” he added. “I was very grateful I was able to have a political career and a public service career, because of the White Eagle.”

A Tribune article in 1996 captured the way food and Chicago-area politics were customarily intertwined during campaign seasons — and how the White Eagle typified that tradition.

“Eateries are another must-campaign stop, especially for candidates trying to court ethnic groups,” the story said. “To woo African-American diners, they head to Army and Lou’s on the South Side or Edna’s on West Madison Street. For Polish Americans, it’s the White Eagle banquet hall in Niles.”

Another Tribune story explained why Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis prioritized stumping at the White Eagle during his uphill run against Republican Vice President George H.W. Bush in 1988.

“It’s no secret why Dukakis made his first Illinois visit of the fall campaign to the White Eagle restaurant in Niles,” the article said. “The White Eagle, owned by the Przybylo family since 1947, is a haven for white ethnic Democrats active in politics, and ethnic Democrats are one key to carrying Illinois.”

‘Loss of an icon’

But by the 2000s, the wedding industry began to change, with more couples celebrating their unions at country clubs, planning destination weddings or seeking nontraditional sites like zoos and botanical gardens, Andrew Przybylo said.

The 2008 global economic recession also hit the business hard, he added.

The Przybylo family sold the White Eagle to Victoria Venues in 2015, marking the occasion with a party on the premises that included performances by a local polka band. The lobby displayed photos and newspaper clippings that spanned the White Eagle’s history.

Some attendees said they were grateful the new owner planned to keep the business alive and many of its traditions intact.

Others had expressed trepidation.

“I think it’s a loss of an icon, a loss of heritage,” longtime customer Tom Suwinski told the Tribune at the time. “My dad is buried across the street — he’s turning over in his grave.”

As for the White Eagle’s recent closure, Andrew Przybylo said that “things change” and “you have to move on.”

But the former mayor anticipates he’ll likely “have some pangs when the building starts to go down.”

New owner Noah Properties is expected to take over the more than 6-acre site by the end of the year, making way for a 354-unit multifamily residential development with a restaurant and green space, which was approved by Niles officials in September.

Construction on the project is planned to begin in 2026, according to the suburb’s website. The building is expected to be demolished in the early phases, but, for many, the memories will remain. 

“I’m forever grateful for that building,” Andrew Przybylo said. “It was a marvelous run that we had there. Working hard and doing what we did as a family for other families. You couldn’t beat that. You couldn’t have a better job than that.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/07/white-eagle-niles-polish-community-political-scene/ 

As Patty Smith looked over the hundreds of toys piled up in her office at City Hall last week, the Aurora City Council member couldn’t help but smile at the overwhelming response she got from her 8th Ward constituents for this holiday toy drive to benefit the children at Mutual Ground, a domestic violence shelter in Aurora.

Still, that joy was shadowed by stirrings of long-ago pain from her own childhood in a household marked by trauma, poverty and abuse, she said.

It’s a side of this successful career woman, mother and city leader few are aware of, including those who referred to her “white privilege” at a heated City Council meeting last month.

But Smith has decided to go public with those toxic early years, not so much because of a phrase thrown out by those “who have no idea what I’ve been through,” she said, but because she’s well aware of what children who are victims of domestic violence are going through this time of year.

Smith remembers her father, long dead from cancer, as a “mean drunk” who was “severely abusive” – physically, mentally and emotionally — to his wife and five children in their small blue-collar town in upstate New York, she said.

“When you go through that in life you understand the confusion and sadness in a dysfunctional household.

“You go to bed on Christmas Eve and wonder if there will be a single gift under the tree,” Smith said, also recalling what it felt like to stand in welfare lines to get processed cheese and powdered milk.

The truly bad memories were from elementary school – when you are old enough to know just how horrible your life is but too young to have any control over it. For that reason, Smith, who in the past has organized toy drives in her ward, decided to focus this year on kids ages 6-12 at Mutual Ground.

But doing so, she soon realized, reopened that harsh chapter of her life, unleashing memories that included a “sad little Charlie Brown Christmas tree we would cut down” from a nearby field “because we could not afford to pay for one.”

Smith recalls one particularly bad day when her father was fighting her brothers in the kitchen. That’s when she “walked upstairs, packed my bags and walked out the door,” telling her mother she was no longer going to live in a home dominated by chaos and fear.

That night her father “was taken away by police.”

“I always wished I had the perfect Norman Rockwell childhood,” Smith noted. “But that simply was not the case.”

And so, after saving money from her job at a bank, 19-year-old Patty “bought a car and drove away” from this broken and chaotic season of her life.

That road into adulthood took her to Virginia, where she met her now ex-husband, and later New Jersey and Texas. In 1990 Smith’s family, including three children, arrived in Aurora’s 8th Ward and “made it our home.”

For Smith, having a parent who called her “dirt” and declared she’d “never amount to much” only spurred her to do the opposite. When presented with forks in the road, she learned, there are always choices on which direction to take.

Now a certified paralegal and licensed real estate agent, the single mom says leaving her career to advocate for her oldest child, born with Down syndrome, seeded and nourished her strong connection to this community. In 2008, the late Aurora Mayor Tom Weisner named her Volunteer of the Year, and in 2019, she was elected to the City Council.

“I may have enjoyed white privilege but I worked my ass off to be where I am today,” Smith told me, referring to statements made at recent council meetings after she expressed concerns about how a proposed ordinance to limit ICE activity on city property could legally impact staff employees.

As a child of domestic violence, Smith knows how “blocking it out” can be a way of dealing with trauma. “But certain things will stir it up,” she told me. “And then you go down the rabbit hole for a couple weeks …”

While this has been Smith’s first time talking about her rough childhood, Smith admits that as “painful as it has been,” she has no regrets after watching the generosity of her ward.

Aurora Ald. Patty Smith, 8th Ward, who has spoken little over the years about her own traumatic childhood, delivers a city van filled with toys to Mutual Ground domestic violence shelter on Thursday. (Cristal Colon)

Smith estimates that within three weeks over 500 presents came in, so many that she and aide Cristal Colon had to borrow a city van to drop off the gifts to Mutual Ground on Thursday.

Smith’s excitement about that special delivery were still evident when we spoke again on Friday.

“It just feels so nice to do something good,” she said. “We shouldn’t have to walk a mile in other shoes to be kinder to one another.”

dcrosby@tribpub.com

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/07/column-toy-drive-for-mutual-ground-stirs-memories-of-aurora-city-council-members-own-traumatic-childhood/