Riot Fest lets go contractor and apologizes after ‘hostile’ meeting – Chicago Tribune

Good morning, Chicago.

With a community-led movement to evict big-ticket music festivals from Douglass Park gaining steam, Riot Fest management has let go its event organizer and apologized to the community for his tone at a neighborhood meeting last week that only seemed to exacerbate the festival’s fraught relationship with residents.

The community meeting on Aug. 2 was the first of its kind by Riot Fest since the multi-day punk, rock and hip-hop festival moved to Douglass Park in 2015. The meeting is now a requirement by the Chicago Park District, but residents said it was poorly advertised, in the middle of a weekday and didn’t include chairs for the elderly or an interpreter for Spanish speakers. Riot Fest spokesperson Heather West said the meeting was conducted without management’s authorization. Read the full story here.

Here are the top stories you need to know to start your day.

COVID-19 tracker | Monkeypox tracker | Afternoon briefing | Compare gas prices | Puzzles & Games | Daily horoscope | Ask Amy | Today’s eNewspaper edition

Robert Boik, the Chicago Police Department’s executive director of constitutional policing and reform, was fired by the superintendent Tuesday after sending an email asking for a reversal of a decision to distribute his staff to patrol instead of officer training, according to multiple police sources.

Boik had been in the role for about a year and a half and was fired without warning, sources said. Monday morning he sent an email to police Superintendent David Brown after he was told the Office of Constitutional Policing and Reform had to send 46 individuals back to patrol.

Republican candidate for governor Darren Bailey, who faced bipartisan criticism for declaring that Holocaust deaths during World War II paled in comparison with lives lost through abortion, contends Jewish community leaders have told him he was right.

Afternoon Briefing

Daily

Chicago Tribune editors’ top story picks, delivered to your inbox each afternoon.

“All the people at the Cabads (apparently referring to members of Chabad, a Jewish religious movement) that we met with and the Jewish rabbis, they said, ‘No, you’re actually right,’” Bailey said.

In a historic move, judges overturned seven murder convictions in a single day. Many of the exonerees have spent decades in prison for slayings that took place between 1989 and 1996.

The Cook County state’s attorney’s office had filed motions in the seven cases and an eighth to be heard at the Leighton Criminal Court Building. In an unprecedented move, State’s Attorney Kim Foxx announced at a news conference Tuesday morning that prosecutors “can no longer stand by these convictions,” leading to the mass dismissal.

History was made in the first round of the 2022 Major League Baseball draft. For the first time in 30 years, nine Black players were drafted in the first round, including four of the top five selections.

Through programs such as the Breakthrough Series, Hank Aaron Invitational and DREAM Series, MLB has been working to reverse the much-discussed decline in Black American players. About 7% of current major-leaguers are Black American, and that number drops to 4% in NCAA Division I baseball.

Since he was diagnosed with limb girdle muscular dystrophy in March 2021, Billy Zureikat has had to make some adjustments in his Logan Square home kitchen.

But these acclimations aren’t just for daily home cooking. Since last summer, Zureikat’s kitchen has become a laboratory for his handcrafted pizzas and sandwiches that have graced menus at Pizza Friendly Pizza, Split-Rail, J.P. Graziano’s and others.