Daywatch: Nearly 17,000 patients traveled to Illinois for an abortion the year Roe fell — a 49% spike

Good morning, Chicago.

More than 56,000 abortions were performed in Illinois the year the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, marking the most pregnancy terminations statewide since the mid-1990s, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health’s annual abortion statistics report.

The rise in abortions that year was driven by a roughly 49% spike in out-of-state patients: Nearly 17,000 people came from other states to Illinois to terminate a pregnancy in 2022 compared with roughly 11,000 abortion seekers who traveled from other states in 2021, the data showed.

In contrast, the number of Illinois residents having abortions in-state decreased slightly, from a little over 40,000 in 2021 to nearly 39,000 in 2022.

Read the full story from the Tribune’s Angie Leventis Lourgos.

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Hundreds of migrants who recently arrived in Chicago have been staying in warming buses provided by the city and they haven’t taken a shower for days.

Many are hungry and sick with colds. Each night, they climb into eight warming buses to sleep at the Office of Emergency Management’s “landing zone” in the West Loop. The number of migrants has climbed to 324.

A South Side man already wanted by federal authorities was charged Wednesday with shooting a Chicago police officer in the Gold Coast neighborhood after burglarizing a luxury goods store.

“I’ve always said that if there came a point in time in this race where I couldn’t see a path to accomplishing that goal, that I would get out,” he said. “And it’s clear to be tonight that there isn’t a path for me to win the nomination, which is why I’m suspending my campaign tonight for president of the United States.”

Judge Arthur Engoron rescinded his conditional permission for the unusual plan on Wednesday, a day ahead of closing arguments. He had said that Trump would have to abide by the rules that apply to attorneys’ closing arguments and couldn’t assail the characters of his adversaries, the judge or others in the court system.

Prosecutors alleged the high-profile slaying of FBG Duck, whose real name was Carlton Weekly, was part of a deadly, yearslong conflict between two South Side gang factions who boasted about their exploits and killing rivals through drill rap tracks that often name-dropped specific victims.

But in her closing argument Wednesday, the attorney for the lead defendant, Charles Liggins, accused prosecutors of losing the “ability to distinguish entertainment fantasy from reality,” portraying the South Side rap culture as a lucrative entertainment business that reflected the violence of Chicago’s streets but in no way qualifies as evidence in a murder case.

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Connor Bedard “underwent successful surgery to repair his fractured jaw at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago and we expect him to be out of the lineup for approximately 6-8 weeks,” team physician Dr. Michael Terry said in a statement.

Saban, who won seven national championships — more than any other major college football coach — and turned Alabama back into a national powerhouse with six of those titles in just 17 seasons, is retiring, according to multiple outlets.

Scrooge and the elves are packed away for another year. And Chicago theater reaches boldly into 2024. The winter theater season, generally a time for substantial fare, is upon us.

Sometimes the biggest names in comedy are hard to ignore when they come through town. Just look at Hard Rock Live’s star-filled start to 2024 in Northwest Indiana: Ron White (Jan. 20) and Tim Allen (Jan. 27) one month, Marlon Wayans (Feb. 2) and George Lopez (Feb. 3) the next, before wrapping up with a March that includes Bill Burr (March 8) and Nikki Glaser (March 22).

But let’s spread the love.

“True Detective: Night Country” has a new writer, showrunner and director in Issa López. The setting is a small Alaskan town near the Arctic Circle. It’s late December and for a few weeks each winter the sun never rises; daily life takes place amid the inky darkness of night. That’s an intriguing starting point, writes critic Nina Metz.

When a team of research scientists goes missing from their impressively comfortable outpost, they’re eventually located out on the ice, naked and dead, their faces frozen in a rictus of fear. What the hell happened?