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First Post
03-07-2025
- First Post
Drive-by shooting in Chicago: 4 killed, 14 others hospitalised; police look for shooter
Police said 13 women and five men ranging in age from 21 to 32 were shot, and that the dead included two men and two women. At least three were critically injured, added police read more Advertisement Officers work the scene of a shooting in Chicago on Wednesday. AP The upbeat mood in a busy Chicago neighborhood known for its restaurants and nightlife quickly turned into horror late Wednesday as shots were fired at a crowd from a fast-moving vehicle, killing four people. After the shots rang out, some people fell to the ground or screamed, witnesses said. 'I can only describe it as a war zone,' Chicago pastor Donovan Price, who responds to communities and people in crisis, told The Associated Press. 'Just mayhem and blood and screaming and confusion as people tried to find their friends and phones. It was a horrendous, tragic, dramatic scene.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The shooting was a cowardly act, said Larry Snelling, Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department, and Mayor Brandon Johnson at a Thursday news conference. The shooting was isolated to a location rented out for a specific event, Snelling said. 'In a matter of seconds, they were able to shoot 18 people, taking four lives,' he said. Police said the driver immediately fled and that no one was in custody. Snelling asked the public to submit anonymous tips to help detectives identify suspects. Police said 13 women and five men ranging in age from 21 to 32 were shot, and that the dead included two men and two women. At least three were critically injured, police said Thursday. Those shot were taken to hospitals. Snelling said police are trying to determine a motive and that the venue is closed 'until we get to the bottom of this.' Snelling did not give an exact number of shooters but said police found two different calibers of casings and are still reviewing footage from the shooting. 'Clearly, there was some target in some way,' Snelling said. 'This wasn't some random shooting.' Price said people in the crowd outside Artis Restaurant and Lounge in the city's River North neighborhood told him they had been at an album release party for a rapper. Videos on social media showed a red carpet outside and guests mingling and dancing inside. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The Black and LGBTQ-owned Creole restaurant, which opened in April, posted on Instagram that it was created as a safe space 'where Black, Brown, Queer, and allied communities could gather, be celebrated, and feel at home in River North.' They said, 'what happened last night disrupted it in the most painful way.' Mello Buckzz, a rapper from Chicago's East Side whose fanbase is largely women, was performing at the restaurant for her album release party. She asked for prayers and expressed her anger and sadness on social media. 'My heart broke into so many pieces,' the artist said on Instagram hours after the shooting. Video showed people waiting and crying outside of hospitals. Other images showed multiple police and ambulances at the scene of the shooting. Price expressed sadness that the shooting took place outside of a local business aiming to make a difference in the community and just days after city-wide Pride month celebrations. 'Folks need places like that now,' Price said. 'It's a rough world.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The shooting took place days before the Fourth of July weekend, when Chicago and other major cities often see a surge in gun violence, despite overall decreases in gun violence in Chicago in recent years. Last year, over 100 people were shot, including at least 19 deaths, during the holiday weekend. Mayor Brandon Johnson said at the time that the violence 'has left our city in a state of grief.'
Business Journals
26-06-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
How Oregon ranks in terms of LGBTQ businesses
Oregon ranks high in an index that considers states' percentage of the LGBTQ workforce, the number of known LGBTQ-owned businesses and the states' unemployment rates, among other measures.
Chicago Tribune
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
What to do in Chicago this weekend: Chicago Pride Fest, Juneteenth Festival and Summer Smash
Our picks for events in and around Chicago this weekend. Get your rainbow on at the 24th annual Chicago Pride Fest. Jesse McCartney, Confidence Man, Deborah Cox, Aluna and The Aces headline the two-day celebration in Northalsted. Beyond the three stages — which also will feature drag performance and the Chicago Gay Men's Chorus — watch for the Proud Pet Parade at noon June 22 and check out spaces dedicated to teens and Chicago LGBTQ-owned businesses offer rainbow cakes, colorful coffees and a 'third space' for allSoak up summer at Meltin' Margs, as this genre-defying festival brings together house and country music. Dance and sway all weekend long as a dozen acts perform, including Ship Wrek, Wuki and the Eli Young in 2020, Black boating enthusiasts have gathered on Lake Michigan for a 'floating festival of culture.' The event spills onto land with a lineup jam-packed with concerts and parties. Bring your own boat or join a Facebook group to network your way onto someone else's Toliver and Yeat, Future, Young Thug and Chance the Rapper top the bill at this three-day hip hop festival. Want to plan your Summer Smash weekend? Check out Britt Julious's full guide on what not to Grammy Award-winning jazz musician Diana Krall offers a fantastic excuse to board the train to Ravinia. Perfect summer night. Ravinia's Reach Teach Play Jazz Mentors & Scholars will also many times have you walked past the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum on your way to the Lincoln Park Zoo, but never ventured inside? Your visit is overdue, and now you have a great reason to go. On June 20, the museum will stay open late for a special evening featuring live animals, drop-by scientist tables, nature play, music, face painters, nature walks and more. While you're there, check out the rest of the museum and its new, interactive exhibit, 'By a Thread: Nature's Resilience.'More than 30 years since its founding in Australia, this beloved children's band continues to delight. The Wiggles' Bouncing Balls Tour rolls into the Rosemont Theatre — a fun, air-conditioned way to burn off preschooler the Juneteenth celebration going this weekend at a festival in West Pullman featuring live music and dance, family fun and food from Black-owned restaurants. Hosted by the Far South Community Development Corp., the event also offers small business and housing in Chicago: Ric Wilson, line dancing and AshantiJumpstart your exercise routine with something a little more scenic. Stretch on Millennium Park's Great Lawn with Raven Harris' pilates class or Paula Bui's yoga. Try cardio kickboxing with Jake Garcia or Zumba with Xavier Euzarraga. Mecca Perry programs the music for the first two you summit Soldier Field's 1,600 stairs — roughly the equivalent of an 80-story building? Take on the challenge to support the American Lung Association.
Chicago Tribune
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
These Chicago LGBTQ-owned businesses offer rainbow cakes, colorful coffees and a ‘third space' for all
To properly celebrate Pride Month, you need quite a lot of energy and definitely a lot of cake. Thanks to October Cafe, Jennivee's Bakery and Chicago Sugar Daddy, there are plenty of ways to keep the caffeine tank full and the sweet tooth satisfied while also supporting LGBTQ-owned small businesses in Chicago. Jennivee's Bakery If Tiffany's sold cakes instead of diamonds and had a penchant for rainbows, it might be Jennivee's Bakery on Halsted Street. Rainbow pillows perch on a long pink booth and two faux crystal chandeliers dangle over a black and white checkered floor, the base of a spacious dining area that compelled chef and owner Jenni Vee to upgrade to this location from her beloved original storefront nearly a year ago. 'This is the gayest bakery in Chicago,' she said. Vee immigrated to the United States from Cebu, Philippines, to pursue a career as a physical therapist. In 2017, she pivoted, employing 'pure ambition and a little bit of delusion' to open a bakery in Lakeview and realize a passion for baking she had been nurturing since age 6. Vee ran her original storefront on the other side of the neighborhood for seven years before opening this location last June. The new space screams French chic turned a little cheeky: The woman in the Renaissance-style painting (ornate frame and all) casts a sly expression across the room, while the smudged mirror on the back wall reflects rainbow flower leis hung from classy light fixtures. A woman's silhouette holds up a cupcake in Vee's lace-trimmed pink logo. 'I wanted it to be fun, feminine, yet cozy and inviting,' Vee said. Her cakes fit right in. Vee supercharges classic vanilla buttercream with bright colors and edible glitter. The vivid purple of her signature ube cake has new neighbors every month as Vee brainstorms fresh ideas, mostly based on Filipino flavors but with European baking techniques (think a mango buttercream cake). This month, pride-themed cakes and cupcakes star in the display case. Rainbow sprinkles coat the outside of a large vanilla cake, with eddies of rainbow icing, coated in edible glitter, lining the top. The cupcake version is much the same: vanilla cake with a hefty swirl of multicolored buttercream icing. Vee has also created an edible monument to transgender pride in a lemon cake with strawberry filling. Stripes of baby blue, pink and white icing paint the transgender flag on the outside; cutting into the cake reveals the same pattern within. The rainbow cupcakes are bestsellers at Jennivee's, but the pink and blue cake is most significant for Vee, a transgender woman herself. As both business owner and head baker — her black chef's coat is usually powdered with flour, her hands stained with icing — Vee won't have time this June to participate in the Chicago Pride Parade. The parade, however, marches right past her bakery, so she's expecting a barrage of orders. 'The party comes here,' Vee said. Since upgrading her space, Vee has become accustomed to mayhem: The bakery gets busiest during its later hours, when customers crowd in for cake, gelato and the comfort of a 'third space' like Jennivee's. Audrey Borden and Michelle Gonzalez wanted to wave a pride flag in an area they thought could use a little more color. The couple opened October Cafe in Norwood Park, where Gonzalez grew up, two years ago in August. The fall-themed coffee shop offers a proudly queer space for those in search of community. 'I feel like that's what was intended for us — to make roots in a place where I grew up, and kind of push against the norms around here,' Gonzalez said. 'It hasn't been easy, but we're making it happen. I'm here — they're gonna hear me, they're gonna see me.' Borden and Gonzalez do nothing with subtlety: Their pop music bumps through the space, their flavors are varied and loud, and their jack-o'-lantern decorations watch guests from every wall. For June, giant pride flags hang off one wall while a banner of smaller flags decorates another. Borden and Gonzalez's love for each other, much like their love for October, is easy to spot. They met in 2019 at a 'Queers and Allies' meeting at North Park University, where Borden was a freshman and Gonzalez a junior. They were married in 2023, and Borden is now eight weeks pregnant with 'baby pumpkin.' On the first of every month, Gonzalez and Borden roll out a new flight of specialty drinks. After the fall flight, which is available year-round, June's rainbow flight is the most popular. It features an orange-yellow mango and peach jasmine tea, a lavender latte, a red strawberry lemonade and a darker purple ube vanilla latte. Insiders know that this flight, like all the rest, is available year-round on October Cafe's secret menu. In lieu of having a business float at the Chicago Pride Parade — Gonzalez and Borden said it's a hefty fee — October Cafe will host pride bingo June 20, a drag queen story hour June 21, and small business events June 21-22 to highlight other queer-owned businesses. Everyone who works at this Lakeview bakery is gay. 'It's not a criteria, I swear,' laughed owner and baker James Cox. But for Pride Month, it is fitting. In September 2021, Cox opened Chicago Sugar Daddy with his partner — in both business and life — Rayan Ibasco. The bakery's name is a callback to their early days as a couple, when Cox would shower Ibasco in sweet baked goods that earned him the moniker 'sugar daddy.' At the shop, Cox handles everything baking-related while Ibasco files taxes and organizes payroll on top of working another full-time job as an international student recruiter. Ibasco, who grew up in Manila, Philippines, moved to the United States in 2017 and graduated from DePaul University. Cox moved to Chicago to get his degree from the French Pastry School; he earned it in 2007. He was an executive pastry chef at several restaurants and hotels in the Chicago area, and was the general manager at Jennivee's right before opening Sugar Daddy. Sugar Daddy focuses more on catering and custom orders. Cox bakes a lot of wedding cakes — he's looking at around 200 this year, 60% of which he estimates are for queer weddings. June is the bakery's busiest month, as all sorts of companies, as well as regular customers, order pride-themed goods. In the bricks-and-mortar, Cox fills the display case with chocolate and marble cupcakes iced with a rainbow swirl of thick Swiss buttercream. He also spruces up a basic sugar cookie with a rainbow watercolor effect and a heart shape. 'Any way to incorporate rainbows,' Cox said. The trademark at Chicago Sugar Daddy is connection. Ibasco and Cox are both bad at names, but they remember faces and, more importantly, everyone's favorite order. Cox knows what to recommend for the woman who stops in before her hair appointment (chocolate) and the little boy whose grandmother brings him 'to go see James' (the marble cupcake). Ibasco is adamant that Chicago Sugar Daddy never become too corporate. 'We want to continue to be a home away from home forever,' Ibasco said. 'The bakery has been a gateway for us to be closer to the community.' Cox and Ibasco will continue to spread sweetness to their community on the day of the Chicago Pride Parade — June 29 — when they plan to hand out free slices of rainbow cake.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Gets Real: LGBTQ+ owned business in spotlight during Pride Month
A Seattle restaurant is cooking up delicious meals, all while breaking down barriers. During June, celebrating Gay Pride, KIRO 7 is highlighting local businesses owned by members of the LGBTQ-plus community. 'Fat's Chicken and Waffles' has been serving up chicken and waffles and a whole lot more in Seattle's Central District for a decade. The owner and main server happen to be a married couple, a couple of Erikas! They are a couple in business, a couple in life, too. And don't you dare misspell the first name they both share. 'It's E-R-I-K-A,' said Erika Kidd, laughing. 'And we are the Erikas!' chimed in Erika White. Erika White and her wife, Erika Kidd, delicately navigate the space at White's restaurant 'Fat's Chicken and Waffles' in Seattle's Central District. Why did you want to open a restaurant? White was asked. 'Ah, well, when I was growing up my father was a chef,' White said. 'So, you know, our house was like the host house and it was always like great parties and good food. And, you know, I love to cook as well.' But White had other loves, too. She was on the 1987 Garfield High School Girls' State Championship Basketball Team. And she was big in Seattle's hip-hop scene until the 2010s. That's when she reconnected with Erika Kidd and opened Fat's Chicken. 'It's been 10 years, all the way across the board,' Kidd said. 'Yeah, it's been a great journey, yeah.' 'You're both gay,' they were asked. 'Has that ever been a factor at all in your work, in your, in the way the community has treated you?' 'I mean, it's different for everybody, I guess, you know,' Kidd said. 'Family and friends and community, you know.' 'I feel like our friends, even our straight friends, you know everyone just, there's just love,' White said. 'At our wedding it was just love.' Fat's Chicken and Waffles is one of several LGBTQ-plus businesses featured by The Intentionalist, a Seattle-based social enterprise focused on giving incentives to the rest of us to spend our money here. 'Folks will be able to explore and hopefully discover LGBTQ-owned small businesses. Laura Clise is The Intentionalist's founder and CEO. 'Folks can enjoy a free treat thanks to the BECU equity in action pre-pay tab,' said Clise. 'And our hope is folks get a little taste and then come back for more.' A little taste of Pride, too. Eight LGBTQ-plus restaurants in the greater Seattle area are featured on the Intentionalist's website.
