Today in Chicago History: Chicago Defender — ‘the world's greatest weekly' — founded by Robert Sengstacke Abbott
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Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
High temperature: 94 degrees (1949)
Low temperature: 32 degrees (1992)
Precipitation: 1.66 inches (1892)
Snowfall: None
1905: The Chicago Defender newspaper is founded. Robert Sengstacke Abbott started the newspaper he called 'The World's Greatest Weekly,' encouraging Black Americans born and raised in the South — like himself — to move north during the Great Migration of the 20th century. More than two-thirds of the newspaper's readership base was located outside of Chicago by the start of World War I, according to the Defender.
Evolving from a weekly into a daily newspaper, the Defender became a national voice for African Americans, documenting racial inequality and championing the Civil Rights movement. Abbott thanked the children who sold his newspaper on street corners by throwing a parade in their honor. It's known today as the Bud Billiken Parade.
The Defender ceased print publication in 2019, but still exists in a digital format at chicagodefender.com.
1930: The Merchandise Mart opened. At 24 stories and 4.2 million square feet, the building was then the largest in the world, surpassed by the Pentagon a decade later. The space was developed by Marshall Field & Co. to house wholesale products for department store buyers.
The massive building, which had its own 60654 ZIP code, was rebranded as the Mart as part of a $40 million renovation in 2016.
1970: After the fatal shootings that took place during a protest over U.S. military involvement in Vietnam and Cambodia at Kent State University in Ohio, classes were canceled for the rest of the week at Northwestern University.
2005: Podiatrist Ronald Mikos was found guilty in the death of Joyce Brannon, a nurse and church caretaker who was going to testify against him in a Medicare fraud investigation.
Authorities alleged in a 25-count indictment that Mikos defrauded Medicare of more than $1.25 million by falsely claiming to have performed thousands of surgeries and that he obstructed justice by recruiting patients to lie to investigators about the fraud. In Brannon's case, authorities said, Mikos fraudulently billed Medicare for 85 surgeries on her feet that had not been carried out.
After deliberating for parts of three days during the punishment phase of the trial, some jurors told the Tribune the decision to impose the death penalty had been a difficult one. Mikos, who claims he is innocent, is incarcerated in the federal prison in Terre Haute. President Joe Biden commuted the federal death sentence for the former Chicago podiatrist to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Dec. 23, 2024.
2017: Ebony announced plans to move editorial operations to Los Angeles, cutting one-third of its staff.
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Time Magazine
30 minutes ago
- Time Magazine
Texas Officials Question Weather Service Warning Amid Floods
Texan communities are dealing with the impact of the deadly flash floods along the Guadalupe River, which have killed at least 67 people so far. Search and rescue efforts continue for those unaccounted for, including girls from the Camp Mystic summer camp, which Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said was "horrendously ravaged' by the flood waters. As authorities and locals assembled to deal with the impact, some Texas officials raised concerns about the warnings they received from the National Weather Service (NWS), saying the predictions had underestimated the incoming rainfall and did not adequately prepare local authorities for what was to come. Texas Division of Emergency Management chief Nim Kidd told reporters at a press conference on Friday that NWS advisories and forecasts 'did not predict the amount of rain we saw.' When asked about the severity of the warnings he did see, Kidd said: 'The original forecast that we received Wednesday from the National Weather Service predicted 3-6 inches of rain in the Concho Valley and 4-8 inches in the Hill Country. The amount of rain that fell at this specific location was never in any of those forecasts.' Kidd was not the only Texas official to call into question the weather notices. Dalton Rice, the city manager for Kerrville, said it 'dumped more rain than what was forecast.' Meanwhile, Kerr County judge Rob Kelly told reporters: 'We didn't know this flood was coming. Rest assured, no one knew this kind of flood was coming. We have floods all the time… when it rains, we get water. We had no reason to believe that this was going to be anything like what's happened here. None whatsoever.' Kelly also said he did not know what kind of warning, if any, the leaders at Camp Mystic would have received ahead of the flash floods. Read More: Rescuers Search for Girls From Texas Camp as Flooding Death Toll Rises The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which houses the NWS, is among the agencies that have experienced mass layoffs under the Trump Administration, with firings of probationary employees starting just weeks after Trump returned to the White May, the former directors of the NWS published an open letter to 'the American people,' warning that Trump's cuts leave 'the nation's official weather forecasting entity at a significant deficit—down more than 10% of its staffing—just as we head into the busiest time for severe storm predictions like tornadoes and hurricanes.' The authors of the letter highlighted their fears, saying: 'Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that there will be needless loss of life. We know that's a nightmare shared by those on the forecasting front lines—and by the people who depend on their efforts.' Rick Spinrad, the former administrator of NOAA, has addressed the current concerns, saying that while many of the weather forecast offices are not currently operating with a full staff, it's too soon to tell if that impacted how the floods were forecast and dealt with."A lot of the weather forecast offices now are not operating at full complement of staff, which means that you're really putting an extra burden on these folks. I don't know how much that was a factor in what happened in Texas this weekend," he said on Saturday. "Without research, without staff to do the work, we can assume that the predictions, and not just hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, drought, wildfires, tsunamis, for that matter, are undoubtedly going to degrade. And that means that people's ability to prepare for these storms will be compromised." The NWS San Antonio office on Monday predicted a potential for 'downpours' and heavy rain, which then escalated to a forecast of up to 7 inches of rainfall in isolated areas. On Thursday, the office issued a broad flood watch for parts of south-central Texas, including Kerr County, though the most severe warnings started when the NWS issued a 'life-threatening flash flooding' warning in Kerrville at 1:14 a.m. local time on Friday. The alert triggered the Emergency Alert System, which would have sounded the alarm on cell phones throughout the area, providing people had service and had not turned off their emergency alerts. The alert was issued roughly three hours before the first reports of flooding came in. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem joined Gov. Abbott at a press conference on Saturday afternoon, where she defended the agency against suggestions that its warnings fell short, but also said that Trump is currently overseeing an upgrade of the technology used to deliver weather alerts to the public. 'We know everybody wants more warning time and that's why we're working to update the technology that has been neglected for far too long,' she said. Meanwhile, meteorologists have said the NWS did all it could in regards to the forecasts issued prior to the floods. On Saturday, meteorologist John Morales took to social media to defend the NWS, stating that the local officials 'blaming NWS are wrong.' 'I don't see any evidence that cuts to NOAA/NWS caused any degradation in the anticipatory weather warnings ahead of this Texas tragedy,' Morales said, sharing data from the NWS. Morales later said that while nothing more could have been done prior to the flooding, he is of the opinion that unfilled positions at the NWS San Antonio station—some impacted by DOGE-driven cuts and others pre-dating Trump's second term—could have impacted the NWS' ability to effectively coordinate with local officials after the floods struck. 'The relationship between emergency managers, media, and [the] NWS is cultivated over years. It is a three-legged stool that can age well as long as it's maintained with good comms and practice,' Morales said. 'Having NWS managers—Meteorologist in Charge, Warning Coordination Meteorologist, and Science Operations Officer—missing would break the stool, but slowly.' TIME has reached out to the National Weather Service for comment. Read More: Mass Layoffs at NOAA Spark Concerns Over Weather, Climate Research Other meteorologists have also come out and said that the NWS did all it could have done prior to the floods. Meteorologist Chris Vagasky told Wired that it is incredibly difficult for a meteorologist to actually say how much rainfall will occur. 'The signal was out there that this is going to be a heavy, significant rainfall event,' Vagasky said. 'But pinpointing exactly where that's going to fall? You can't do that.' While meteorologist sensed a weather event of some sort was on the horizon, the timing of the flash flood warnings left people with little time to act. In a press conference on Sunday morning, Kerrville City manager Rice was asked about why summer camps were not evacuated, despite the warning days earlier that a storm could occur. In response, Rice said: 'That, that is a great question, but again, we want to make sure that we continue to focus. We still have 11 missing children that we want to get reunited with our families.'
New York Times
31 minutes ago
- New York Times
Live Updates: More Flooding Looms as Searchers Scramble to Find Missing
Surveying the damage along the Guadalupe River on Saturday. The river surged to nearly 30 feet. Several more inches of rain were expected on Sunday in areas of Central Texas devastated by flooding over the weekend, forecasters said. Up to four inches could fall, with isolated areas potentially receiving up to 10 inches through Monday, according to the National Weather Service. Jason Runyen, a meteorologist at the Weather Service's office for Austin, San Antonio and the surrounding areas, said that while river levels across the region had receded, more rain could exacerbate flooding in the area. Flash flooding in the region killed more than 50 people over the weekend, with dozens more missing. 'We're kind of saturated now,' he said. 'So any additional amounts, even if we don't get up to 10 inches, could cause flooding.' The Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center placed a Level 2 out of 4 risk for flash floods over portions of North and Central Texas and the Hill Country through Monday afternoon. Further rounds of heavy rain were expected at the beginning of the week before drier conditions develop. 'There's still chances of daily precipitation in the forecast on Monday and Tuesday,' Mr. Runyen said. 'It trends drier and warmer beyond Tuesday.' The flooding that began on Friday was triggered by a combination of a moist tropical air mass — the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry — and a slow-moving storm system, which together fueled powerful thunderstorms. Forecast risk of excessive rain for Sunday Risk Some Moderate High Mr. Runyen said that the storms occurred in two separate waves: one Thursday night into Friday morning, and the other Friday night into Sunday morning. Ahead of the storms, the Weather Service issued a broad flood watch for parts of south-central Texas, including Kerr County, specifying the possibility of rainfall totals up to three inches and isolated amounts of five to seven inches. But for some areas, the actual totals far exceeded those projections. 'Most areas were between five to 10 inches,' Mr. Runyen said. 'But there was a little pocket of eight to 12 inches, that exceeded our values in our flood watch,' he added, referring to areas near the Guadalupe River where many people were killed. Texas officials appeared to blame the Weather Service for forecasts on Wednesday that underestimated the amount of rain that was coming. Former Weather Service officials have said that the forecasts were as good as could be expected, given the way the storms escalated and the remarkable levels of rainfall. Some experts questioned whether staffing shortages at the Weather Service also made it harder for the forecasting agency to coordinate with local emergency managers as floodwaters rose. In the early hours of Friday morning, a 'particularly dangerous situation' warning was issued for Kerr County, highlighting communities along the Guadalupe River as high-risk areas. Rainfall estimates in this swath were for five to 10 inches. Other counties, such as Tom Green County, were also placed under similar warnings Friday morning as heavy rain fell. Later on Friday, another intense round of rain battered the region. A new flood watch was issued, including portions of the Hill Country, warning of isolated rainfall totals up to 10 inches. Again, this amount was exceeded. Up to 16 inches of rain fell in Kirby, southwest of Austin, from Friday into Saturday, Mr. Runyen said. The deluge caused rivers in the region to rise to major flood stages. The Guadalupe River reached 29.45 feet — its second highest level on record, surpassing the levels that led to the devastating flood of 1987 in the same area, according to the Weather Service. The actual river levels this weekend might have been even higher than recorded, however, according to Mr. Runyen, who said that the river gauge was 'washed out' during the storm. 'We think that may have been a record,' he said. Flooding also occurred north of Kerrville, in San Angelo, where a National Weather Service office had issued river flood warnings on Friday for all parts of the San Saba, Concho and Colorado rivers. A flash flood emergency was declared for the Llano River in Mason County early Friday afternoon due to rapid rise. The warning urged residents, 'If you live along or near the river in this area, take action immediately as this is a life-threatening situation!' The San Gabriel River also experienced flooding.
Yahoo
42 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Flash floods like the one that swept through Texas are the nation's top storm-related killer
The monstrous, swift-moving flood that swept through the Hill Country of Texas on Friday, killing at least 67 people and leaving many more missing, was a flash flood, the nation's top storm-related killer. Among those missing are girls attending a summer camp. Authorities said about 850 people had been rescued, including some by helicopter. Here are some facts about flash floods. According to the National Weather Service, a flash flood is flooding that begins within six hours, and often in as little as three hours, of heavy rainfall. Waters rise so quickly that people are caught off guard, according to the weather service. Many people run into trouble while traveling. If at home or work, the water can rise so quickly that people are trapped before they have time to think about escape. That is just what happened to residents along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County and the surrounding area after at least 10 inches (25 centimeters) poured from the sky early Friday morning. Fast-moving waters along the river rose 26 feet (8 meters) in just 45 minutes before dawn Friday, washing away homes and vehicles. The danger was not over as more heavy rains were expected Saturday, and flash flood warnings and flood watches remained in effect for parts of central Texas. On Thursday afternoon, the National Weather Service issued a flood watch, estimating rising water of up to 7 inches (17 centimeters) in spots. A 'watch' means conditions are favorable for a flood and people should be prepared, but hazardous conditions might not develop. But the watch was upgraded to a flood warning overnight, a notice that impacted 30,000 people. A warning is issued when flooding is imminent or occurring, the weather service says. Lt,. Gov. Dan Patrick said the potential for heavy rain and flooding covered a large area, and 'everything was done to give them a heads-up that you could have heavy rain.' However, when asked about how people were notified in Kerr County so that they could get to safety, Judge Rob Kelly, the county's chief elected official, said: 'We do not have a warning system.' When reporters pushed on why more precautions weren't taken, Kelly responded: 'Rest assured, no one knew this kind of flood was coming.' Last year, 145 people died in flash floods, according to the weather service. On average over the past 30 years, floods have claimed 127 lives annually. Nearly half of all flood-related fatalities involve vehicles. Flood deaths affect all age groups. Many people don't realize that a car becomes difficult to control in just 6 inches (15 centimeters) of water and can be swept away in as little as 18 inches (46 centimeters). So instead of finding a detour, too often people try to drive through water at underpasses or other low-lying areas. It can happen anywhere, according to the weather service, which says that 'the normally tranquil streams and creeks in your neighborhood can become raging torrents if heavy rain falls overhead.' An area can be flooded even without rain — if it's downstream of a torrential rainstorm and a swollen stream heads its way. Hurricanes, tropical storms, non-cyclonic weather systems carrying heavy rain and dam failures are some weather events that can cause flash flooding. They can happen in rural areas or in large cities. ___ Associated Press writer Adrian Sainz contributed. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW
