Immigration policy can’t be painted with a broad brush. Unfortunately, that message hasn’t quite reached the likes of Donald Trump, the newly-embattled president, who has been met with intense local and national resistance to his recent executive orders. With the stroke of a pen, Trump sent people scrambling at airports around the world, with an authoritarian edict that seemed more like 1939 than 2017. Trump’s actions are only temporarily halted by a federal court challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Thursday, June 29, 2017. Jason Van Dyke testifies about the aftermath of the Laquan McDonald shooting in pretrial hearing Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke testified Wednesday about the events that occurred after he shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald to death in 2014. Van Dyke, who is charged with first-degree murder, official misconduct, and 16 counts of aggravated battery, testified for approximately half an hour about statements he made to his superiors and other officers after the shooting....

Blue Rider Press A few years ago, inspired by her boyfriend, who cared a lot about clothes, Sheila Heti, the author of the great autobiographical novel/philosophical inquiry How Should a Person Be?, decided that it was time to learn how to put more thought into her personal appearance and become more stylish. And, yes, there were a few that were boring and self-involved that I wanted to skip. But most I wanted to keep reading....

On Tuesday night, after a three-year wait in a refugee camp, prolonged by ten days by President Donald Trump’s executive order that temporarily banned entry to the United States to refugees and nationals of seven mostly Islamic countries, three Syrian refugees, Baraa, Abdulmajeed, and their 16-month-old daughter finally arrived in Chicago. Their flight landed on schedule, at 5:50 PM, and they cleared customs just before 7 PM. Baraa’s parents and siblings were waiting for them; the hugging started even before they’d cleared the barrier that blocked the door to customs....

The Beauty Queen of Leenane Maureen (Jaimelyn Gray) is a middle-aged woman who lives with her senile elderly mother, Mag (Kate Harris), in a small Irish village. At her breaking point, Maureen has one last chance to be happy, but Mag is determined to stop it. The amazing thing about Irish playwright Martin McDonagh’s 1996 black comedy, here directed by Luda Lopatina Solomon for Bluebird Arts, is how it lulls you into a false sense of security—one minute you’re laughing, the next you’re cringing, as moments of tenderness are quickly outdone by grisly betrayals....

They are stay-at-home mothers who want to be there for their families but also feel productive and want to contribute to their household budgets; they are men leaving behind meaningless jobs and trying to help the communities where they live; they are people working long nights and multiple jobs to pursue a dream; they are makers. In a world of fast consumption, inhumane manufacturing practices, and short-sighted ways of creating wealth, these Chicagoans are doing it right....

“I had the whole town gaffed up,” Freddy says, “the bartender, the waiter. I was Audie Weiss.” At the time, Freddy had a bad leg. He looked like he could barely stand. By the time Karas caught on, Freddy had already cashed $200,000 in chips. Karas still owed him $800,000. The hustlers who arranged the games were tentative about collecting. Karas got suspicious. Back in Vegas, he started asking around about a guy with glasses and a bad leg who played one pocket....

—Olivia Ortiz­ Olivia Ortiz was 17 when she arrived at the University of Chicago five years ago. She was bright and studious and aspired to live a life of the mind—a common aspiration among U. of C. students. She says now that she was sheltered; she’d attended a mostly female charter school in Phoenix and knew little about boys. She did know a bit about sexual harassment after working one summer at a movie theater....

The Mets could be weary opponents for the Cubs in the National League Championship series, which opens Saturday in New York. Both teams are flying high, but it’s been more than figurative for the Mets. The Cubs’ most formidable starters will be rested and ready to go in the first two games—Jon Lester on Saturday and Jake Arrieta on Sunday. The Mets’ starting rotation is deep, but one of their top pitchers, Jacob deGrom, threw 105 pitches last night, and so won’t be available over the weekend....

As recent events unfold, a pressing question emerges: Who’s the bigger fraud, Judge Brett Kavanaugh or Governor Bruce Rauner? “I’m not questioning that Dr. Ford may have been sexually assaulted . . . “ Or, as Rauner himself put it: “Boy, I’ve got to tell you, holding up the center has been incredibly hard as governor.” For his first three years as governor, Rauner was able to drag Republican legislators off the cliff with him on his anti-union policies....

AP Photos Cubs rookie Javier Baez has some of us daydreaming about—dare we say it?—winning baseball. I received a text the other night from my friend and colleague Ben Joravsky, and strangely enough it wasn’t about Rahm Emanuel. And after a week in the majors, Baez is striking out more than one of every three times he steps to the plate. I always enjoyed the movie version, starring Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs, the aging rookie with a mysterious past whose talent and grace transforms a team from doomed to triumphant....

Last fall, there was a moment when it seemed all but impossible that the Chicago Cubs would win the World Series and Donald J. Trump would win the presidency. On October 30, after Cleveland Indians ace Corey Kluber silenced the bats of Joe Maddon’s team to go up 3-1 in the World Series, Nate Silver’s statistics-driven news website FiveThirtyEight published a post declaring “The Cubs Have A Smaller Chance Of Winning Than Trump Does,” citing forecast models that gave the Cubs and Trump a 15 percent and 21 percent chance of victory, respectively....

Friday, June 9 Blues Village Stage Wrigley Square 11 AM The Blues Kids Foundation Showcase hosted by Fernando Jones 2:30 PM The Blues Kids Foundation Showcase 6:45 PM The Blues Kids Foundation Jam Session 3:45 PM Mike Wheeler Band 4 PM Jarekus Singleton 4:15 PM Tribute to Barrelhouse Chuck featuring Billy Flynn, Johnny Iguana, Roosevelt Purifoy, and Piano Willie O’Shawny

Mike Houlihan, founder of the Irish American Movie Hooley festival, is so dedicated to Irish-American filmmakers and culture that this year he screened 50 domestic and international submissions before he and Barbara Scharres, director of programming at the Gene Siskel Film Center, settled on the three films they felt were the most consonant with the Hooley’s mission of furthering the traditions of Irish storytelling. The strongest of the festival’s trio of films is Mother’s Day, a moving BBC drama based on a real-life late 20th-century campaign to end “the troubles” in Northern Ireland....

A little more than two months ago I suggested in a blog post that the recent opening of a Lawrence Avenue storefront restaurant called L.D. Pho might signal a demographic swing toward the Vietnamese taking place on the far-west end of Lincoln Square. What I didn’t realize was that for three years prior a Vietnamese restaurant had already existed in the same space, a place I’d passed hundreds of times but dismissed because its name—New Asia—suggested the sort of pan-Asian dilettantism that makes the eyes glaze over....

Courtesy Nothing Special Productions The #TMAAPP Band serenades ensemble members. For all his poetry, Shakespeare was always one for a good penis joke. Nothing Special Productions nails the Bard’s bawdy sense of fun with its adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing, taking us on a wild ride where Benedick totes a mini Patrón bottle and hungover party guests slug down Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. There are so many F-bombs in the first act you start to lose count....

Courtesy Achy Obejas Achy Obejas Looking for something to do today? Agenda‘s got you covered. For more on these events and others, check out the Reader‘s daily Agenda page.

COURTESY ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO Saul Steinberg’s Downtown Building, 1952 Looking for something to do today? Agenda‘s got you covered. For more on these events and others, check out the Reader‘s daily Agenda page.

Piggybacking on the success of Italian-food wonderland Eataly, celeb chef and restaurateur Richard Sandoval plans to open Latinicity, a 22,000-square-foot monument to our collective love of Latin food, inside Block 37 in the Loop. So far we know that it’ll have a grocery section, a dozen food stands slinging things like ceviche and grilled meats, a wine bar, a tapas restaurant, a coffee bar, and a lounge. James Beard Award-winning chef Jose Garces (Mercat a la Planxa, Rural Society) will oversee the culinary program and operation of the tapas spot....

A Reader staffer shares three musical obsessions, then asks someone (who asks someone else) to take a turn. Peter is curious what’s in the rotation of . . . Arto Lindsay I’ve been a fan of Arto Lindsay since a friend turned me on to his 1999 album Prize years ago. I’ve done my homework, going all the way back to DNA by way of the Ambitious Lovers and checking out albums Lindsay produced for other artists, but still I wasn’t prepared for seeing him live at Constellation last month....