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CHICAGO — Smoke from Canadian wildfires once again is wafting into Chicago, causing hazy skies, reduced visibility and some air quality issues. Hundreds of fires have broken out in western Canada, spreading smoke throughout the Great Lakes region, according to the National Weather Service. You may see hazy and milky-looking skies across northern and central Illinois, according to the weather service.

This year's Dîner en Blanc celebrates the city's vast, diverse culinary culture.Why it matters: Each Chicago neighborhood offers a different set of ethnic traditions and scrumptious foods. For Dîner en Blanc's 10th anniversary, the fancy "outdoor picnic" features baskets with food from Maxwell Street, Greektown, Devon, Pilsen and Little Italy. Last year's Dîner en Blanc. Photo: Courtesy of Chris DiltsHow it works: The annual outdoor picnic is held at a secret location that guests don't learn about until they arrive at a separate meeting place. They must dress in white and bring their own picnic table and place settings; they can opt to provide their own baskets of food.Guests can also purchase tickets that include a prepared picnic basket and buy booze during dinner.Picnic baskets range from $52 for a French cheese and charcuterie platter served with a baguette to $82 for Little Italy-inspired surf and turf.Past locales have included the Art Institute, Lincoln Park Zoo and Federal Plaza.What to expect: This year the food is prepared by Charles Haracz of Blue Plate catering, with wine and champagne (the only beverage options) from local winery Glunz. If you go: Tickets for Wednesday's soiree range from $55 to $68.

Last October, a lakeside event venue in Chicago made headlines around the world after nearly 1,000 birds died in a single night after crashing into the building’s glass exterior. The next morning, the ground outside McCormick Place Lakeside Center looked like a “carpet of dead birds,” as one shocked onlooker described it at the time.

CHICAGO - A man was shot while standing on a front porch on Chicago's West Side Tuesday afternoon. At about 1:43 p.m., a 29-year-old man was on the front porch of a residence in the 1800 block of South St. Louis Avenue when an unknown vehicle pulled up, police said.

(The Center Square) – A major development is planned for the land around Chicago’s primary Democratic National Convention site. United Center next-generation owners Michael Reinsdorf and Danny Wirtz announced The 1901 Project, a $7 billion private investment on Chicago’s West Side. Plans include a 6,000-seat music hall, an elevated park, hotel and retail programming. Michael...

INDIANAPOLIS – The replay system in the Big Ten and across college football has been, generally speaking, a complete disaster. Ohio State fans will point to the 2019 Fiesta Bowl as State's Exhibit A. The 2022 Peach Bowl is also in the discussion. However, the good news is that...

Chicago’s newest independent vinyl shop, Bridgeport Records, opened its doors on July 12 at 3336 S. Halsted. The store is the brainchild of veteran deep-house DJ and producer Vick Lavender and former union leader Jerry Morrison, who’ve both spent decades in the house-music scene but connected for the first time only a few years ago. Lavender founded Sophisticado Recordings in the mid-2000s, and Morrison spent 22 years with the Service Employees International Union, where he played a major role building labor power in Illinois.

Newsroom vet succeeds Jennifer Graves in running newsroom

Spend the day with Garfield Park Conservatory’s Head Beekeeper, Marcin Matelski, and the Urban Roots teens to learn the basics of beekeeping: equipment, hive design and construction, bee biology and behavior, bee management and bee products. All experience levels welcome. Sunday, Aug. 11 and Sunday, Sept. 8, 2:15 pm-...

When: Every Friday and Saturday through Aug. 30, 2024. Cost: Free! No tickets or reservations required. Cool off at the end of a long week with indoor slime-making workshops on Fridays, then heat up your weekend with an all-day, outdoor block party on Saturday!. Sloomoo Summer Fridays. Fridays at 1...

The City of Chicago expanded its lawsuit against Glock to include the gun manufacturer's parent company and two Chicago-area gun retailers.

Wicker Park Fest turns 20 this year, and it’s marking the occasion with one of the most compelling neighborhood festivals of the city’s outdoor music season. Headliners include Knoxville alt-rock darlings Superdrag, returning to Chicago for the first time since 2009, and hometown R&B and neosoul sensation Jamila Woods. The three-day street fest packs in enough musical diversity to suit your mood, whether you’re in full-throttle party mode or just want to chill in the sun. Among the notable out-of-towners are introspective New York soul singer Duendita, surfy west-coast neopsych band La Luz, and Mississippi rock experimenters MSpaint. Much of the lineup’s appeal comes from local talents, of course, including hip-hop darlings Rich Robbins and Rich Jones, instrumental roots-reggae outfit the Drastics (who released a self-titled LP in January), punky power-pop band Woolworthy, and psychedelic cumbia and chica crew Chicha Roots. And in a welcome blast from the past, indie rockers Chin Up Chin Up, a favorite Chicago underground band throughout the 2000s, reunite for their first show in 15 years. Sunday’s programming on the Chi’tiva Stage, hosted by WBEZ under the name “The Home of House,” celebrates four decades of Chicago house music with an unassailable crew headlined by DJ Chip E., who helped pioneer the style as a young DJ in the mid-80s. The bill also includes DJ Psycho-Bitch, Ron Carroll, DJ Lady D, and techno master Microdot paying tribute to influential Chicago DJ and producer Paul Johnson, who died from complications of COVID-19 in 2021.

Toshimaru Nakamura and Tetuzi Akiyama probably wouldn’t say so themselves, but they can lay claim to having changed the sound of improvised music. Between 1998 and 2003 they ran two concert series, the Improvisation Meeting at Bar Aoyama and Meeting at Off Site, that established Tokyo as a center of an austere approach to spontaneous music making known variously as onkyo and electroacoustic improvisation; it’s characterized by sparse gestures, and it demands close listening from performers and audiences alike. Akiyama plays acoustic and electric guitars, and Nakamura plays no-input mixing board—by plugging a board’s output into its input, he turns it into an unpredictable feedback generator from which he coaxes static, sine tones, and abraded chirps. The musicians’ partnership has far outlived the scene they started, and for decades they’ve toured the world, separately and together, often collaborating with experimental musicians such as Keith Rowe, Gene Coleman, John Butcher, Tom Carter, David Sylvian, and Alan Licht. The previous Chicago visit, in 2015, was as part of an ensemble with improvisers Jason Kahn and Bryan Eubanks. Individually, each can kick up quite a ruckus, but on their most recent duo recording, Idiomatic Expressionism (Ftarri, 2021), they prove that they can still make magnetic music while yielding most of the stage to negative space. Sharing tonight’s bill is Superposition, the local duo of multi-instrumentalists Todd A. Carter and Michael Hartman, who also make up two-thirds of long-running experimental ensemble TV Pow. Their sole recording, Glaciers (Kettle Hole, 2023), consists of a series of groove-adjacent drum and keyboard instrumentals, but the one time I saw them, they played noise on laptops—they’re definitely keeping TV Pow’s anything-goes spirit alive. Sound-collage artist Sarah Lutkenhaus opens the show.

Timothy Hudson, a 40-year-old man from the 7500 block of S. Peoria, Chicago, Illinois, has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of a 32-year-old male, according to the Chicago Police Department. The Chicago Police Department alongside the Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force apprehended Hudson on the morning of July 21.

Simone Biles' husband is heading to Paris soon...

Welcome to the latest edition of Blackhawks Bytes, a series featuring quotes and comments from players, coaches, management, journalists and fans alike concerning everything Chicago Blackhawks. The purpose of this ongoing column is to capture a slice of the existing outlook, attitudes and culture surrounding the team. Please join me as we have some fun with the everyday, albeit fascinating aspect of human nature; the power of words.

A few years ago, the graduate students at the University of Chicago, where I teach, formed a legally recognized labor union. Last year, that union expanded to include the law school, at least to the extent that law students engage in paid work such as providing research assistance. Law students who want to work as research assistants must either join the union and pay dues, or else pay agency fees to the union even if they do not join. Either way, giving money to the union is a legally required condition of working as a research assistant.

Today at training camp the Chicago Bears are celebrating cancer survivors. This morning, we're joined by former Bear Chris Draft who talks about the importance of lung cancer awareness.

Naturally, a hot topic ahead of the 2024 NFL Draft was whether or not the Chicago Bears should select Caleb Williams with their No. 1 overall pick. But it turns out that even months later, these conversations are still being discussed. Or at least ESPN would like for the talking point to remain active. Monday’s Read more... The post ESPN uses misleading chyron for ‘Unsportsmanlike’ conversation about Bears, Caleb Williams appeared first on Awful Announcing.

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine has again been recognized among the best medical schools in the nation, ranking in tier one of research-oriented institutions, according to the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings, released today. The rankings feature a new methodology, with medical schools being placed into one of four tiers.