Good morning, Chicago. ✶
🔎 Below: Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson decry ICE agents as they arrive to work security at O’Hare International Airport.
🗞️ Plus: A former Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events deputy sues the city, the United Center’s owners could get a $55 million tax break, and more news you need to know.
📝 Keeping score: The Bulls defeated Rockets, 132-124.
📧 Subscribe: Get this newsletter delivered to your inbox weekday mornings.
⏱️: An 8-minute read
TODAY’S WEATHER 🌥️
Mostly cloudy with a high near 52.
TOP STORY 🔎
ICE at O’Hare: At least half a dozen U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were present Monday at O’Hare International Airport after the Trump administration said ICE would help short-staffed airport security personnel nationwide amid the ongoing partial government shutdown. The agents were seen at Terminals 1, 2 and 3.
DHS funding: President Donald Trump said Sunday he would send ICE agents to airports across the country to assist the Transportation Security Administration’s operations. O’Hare was among those 14 airports, according to CNN. Trump blamed TSA staffing issues, which have resulted in long security lines, on Democrats for not agreeing on a bill to fund the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Local pols react: Gov. Pritzker said immigration agents at airports were “causing chaos and instilling fear.” Mayor Johnson said in a statement that his office was using “every tool we have to ensure that people, no matter their immigration status, can travel … without harassment from the federal government.” U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García said ICE was “causing confusion and violence, like the incident in San Francisco last night,” referring to the arrest of a woman and her daughter Sunday at San Francisco International Airport.
WHISTLEBLOWER SUIT ⚖️
DCASE case: A former top deputy at Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the city and the department’s leader, alleging she was subject to a “concerted campaign of professional isolation and the systematic stripping of her duties.”
Key context: The lawsuit, filed Friday in Cook County Circuit Court by Rosalyn Kimberly Grigsby, names Kenya Merritt, DCASE’s interim head since October. Last week, Mayor Johnson nominated Merritt to lead the department permanently. Grigsby’s suit is the latest development in a turbulent era that includes Johnson’s previous choice for DCASE leader, Clinée Hedspeth, resigning as commissioner following a tenure that included high staff turnover and allegations of bullying.
The claims: Grigsby alleges her Feb. 27 termination was retaliation for formal complaints she filed with the city’s Office of Inspector General and the Department of Human Resources, reporting what she called a “pattern of misconduct, isolation, and retaliation to which she had been subjected.” The suit also alleges the city violated the Illinois Whistleblower Act. A city Department of Law spokesperson said Monday that it “does not comment on pending litigation.”
BUSINESS 💼
United Center upgrade: Mayor Johnson has proposed a nearly $55 million property tax break for the United Center’s 1901 Project — a benefit the arena’s owners say is essential to get their self-funded $7 billion project underway. Center ownership, which pitched the project in July 2024, envisions it as integrating into the surrounding neighborhood, with acres of green space, public parks, athletic courts and a public plaza that will be open year-round.
Alderman’s support: The tax incentive has the support of Ald. Walter “Red” Burnett (27th). He says the 1901 Project will be the largest investment on the Near West Side since the United Center was built more than 30 years ago, ending the area’s long drought in private investment. He anticipates the project will provide millions of dollars in new development and will generate new tax revenue.
MORE NEWS 🗞️
- Arson history: A man with a history of burning tents in Chicago parks was feeling “suicidal” when he ignited a mattress at a Rogers Park apartment last week, which led to the death of a Chicago firefighter, Cook County prosecutors said Monday.
- Man threatens synagogue: A Chicago man has been charged with threatening on social media to carry out a shooting at a synagogue earlier this month.
- Trump decries killing: President Trump used the killing of Loyola University Chicago student Sheridan Gorman to justify his push for mass deportations Monday.
- OnlyFans owner dead: Leonid Radvinsky, the online adult content platform OnlyFans’ owner who grew up in the Chicago suburbs, has died at 43, the company said Monday.
- Zoning stalemate: Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce President Jack Lavin is urging Mayor Johnson to break the City Council stalemate over selecting a new Zoning Committee chair, an impasse that has stalled more than 40 development projects.
- Theater accolades: Kokandy Productions’ “Jekyll & Hyde” and Invictus Theatre’s “Angels in America” tied for the most honors Monday at the 52nd Non-Equity Jeff Awards.
MUSIC 🎶
Baby’s first tour: On a recent morning in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Emma Gerstein slipped into her hotel room’s bathroom while her 10-month-old son, Ronan, was napping. In a few hours, Gerstein would be on a plane headed for New York City, where she was due for a rehearsal with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and its music director, Klaus Mäkelä, at Carnegie Hall. Gerstein was at the start of a weeklong tour that would also go to Boston and Bethesda, Maryland. All the while she had her baby in tow.
Touring while parenting: Mäkelä is ramping up events with Chicago’s orchestra as he prepares to take the podium in 2027. Gerstein, the orchestra’s second flute, wanted to be there for his first tour with the symphony. But she also wanted to keep breastfeeding her son, who is her second child.
Key context: Women in the arts who perform in highly visible, prestigious roles have often privately discussed how to balance work and parenthood: Backstage, in locker rooms, over the rhythmic whir of breast pumps. Even at the symphony, which music directors have helped make more welcoming for families, there remains a fear that motherhood can be a career killer. On tour, Gerstein kept a diary for WBEZ, offering a rare window into a working mom’s perennial balancing act.
FROM THE PRESS BOX ⚾🏀
- Suzuki still injured: Cubs manager Craig Counsell said Monday that right fielder Seiya Suzuki would begin the season on the injured list.
- Bulls hang on: The Bulls ground out a 132-124 win against the Rockets, despite a combined 73 points from Houston’s 1-2 punch of Kevin Durant and Alperen Sengun.
- Fighting Illini fall: No. 2 seed Vanderbilt beat seventh-seeded Illinois 75-57 Monday night to advance to the Sweet 16 in the women’s NCAA Tournament.
CHICAGO MINI CROSSWORD 🌭
Today’s clue: 3D: 🌭 Company that calls their cheesecake “Chicago’s most famous dessert”
BRIGHT ONE 🔆
The whole point for the Chicago Snowballs — the city’s new co-ed baseball team that will offer up a brand of ball made popular by the Savannah Bananas in recent years — is to be goofy and entertain. Think baseball’s version of the Harlem Globetrotters.
The Banana League offers a variety of exhibition baseball known as Banana Ball, which has filled the country’s biggest stadiums with family friendly two-hour games featuring hurlers on stilts, flaming bats, backflipping catches, singing, dancing and the occasional crawling-baby race between innings.
The Snowballs, which have no affiliation with the Banana League, will take the field for their first game in front of paying customers on May 2 at Kerry Wood Cubs Field in Roscoe Village. Snowballs CEO Cherie Travis likens them to a traveling circus, with about 10 games a month scheduled through September at ballparks in the Chicago area and around the Midwest.
“Everything that coaches have been telling them their whole lives: ‘Don’t mess around. Don’t be a show off.’ We told them we are encouraging that. That is what we want to see,” said Snowballs Project Manager Kristen Adamiak. “As soon as we gave them that freedom they were instantly like, ‘OK. Let’s go.’”
PICTURE CHICAGO 📸
Yesterday, we asked you: What’s the longest you’ve ever worked at one place? What made you stay?
Here’s some of what you said…
“30 years: Best job ever! La Porte County Public Library!” — Linda Shortt
“I worked over 13 years for a company in the Loop. I stayed there because I worked with some excellent people and I was given opportunities to step outside my comfort zone — even directing an employee holiday chorus on a volunteer basis for many years, a ‘note-worthy’ accomplishment!” — Paul Lockwood
“Longest time worked [was] 19 years. Great bosses, recognition, promotions and raises.” — Linda Stern
“My first full-time job out of college was at Leo Burnett USA … spent 21 years there. They had the ‘golden handcuffs’ … loads of benefits that just got better year after year … left in 2000 to raise my new baby.” — Christine Bock
“I’ve been working at Rush in the UIC Medical District for 11.5 years, which is crazy to think about … I didn’t expect to stay here this long! But I’ve found a wonderful professional home working with people who really care about the patients and the communities we serve.” — Sharon Wauzzinski
Thanks for reading the Sun-Times Morning Edition!
Got a story you think we missed? Email us here.
Written and curated by: Phyllis Cha
Editor: Eydie Cubarrubia
The Chicago Sun-Times is a nonprofit supported by readers like you. Become a member to make stories like these free and available to everyone. Learn more at suntimes.com/member.
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March 24, 2026 at 02:37PM
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