WBEZ’s Weekly News Recap: July 17, 2026

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Community leaders coming together just yesterday to address ice activity across multiple neighborhoods.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:07)
An accusation against a well-known South Side pastor.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:10)
Alders approving $425 million in TIF to support infrastructure development for a new 22,000 seat stadium for the Chicago Fire soccer team.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:20)
The Shedd Aquarium is helping out with a major rescue. They are preparing to take in Beluga whales from a closed marine park in Canada.

**Sasha Ann Simons** (0:28)
Hey Chicago, I'm Sasha Ann Simons and this is In the Loop.
We're breaking down the biggest stories of the week in our Weekly News Recap. The Chicago Police Department is saying goodbye to Superintendent Larry Snelling. Three former Loretto Hospital execs are at the center of federal fraud cases. Music festivals are making headlines for the wrong reasons. Plus, Chicago Public Schools released its mid-year budget, and things are not looking good.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:59)
Chicago Public Schools officials explain why they are laying off hundreds of employees within the district.

**SPEAKER_7** (1:04)
These are all impacts that are disruptive to the education of our students, the learning experience, and ultimately, the academic outcomes that we're projecting for next year.

**SPEAKER_8** (1:14)
Our air quality consistently ranking among the worst of any major city in the world today.

**Sasha Ann Simons** (1:21)
Dad, who is that?

**Quinn Myers** (1:23)
And why is he in our kitchen? That's Alexei Janulius. He's everywhere fighting Trump.

**SPEAKER_10** (1:27)
Bye to Police Superintendent Larry Snelling because he's clocking in for the last time after nearly three years on the job as superintendent.

**Sasha Ann Simons** (1:33)
Now, before we get to the recap, I'm joined now by Bob Herguth. He's a Chicago Sun-Times investigative reporter and he was one of our panelists this week. Hey, Bob, good to see you.

**Bob Herguth** (1:42)
Hey, thanks for having me.

**Sasha Ann Simons** (1:43)
So you always have your eye on what's happening with church leaders in our area. And you recently reported on a former local Mormon leader who pleaded guilty to disturbing crimes involving children. So what's that about?

**Bob Herguth** (1:55)
Sure.
There's this guy named Wade Christopherson and he for a number of years was a member and leader of a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints congregation up in the far Northwest suburbs. He was accused up there of molesting one or more children and was confronted by leadership and excommunicated and then allowed back in, moved out of state and resumed some sort of leadership as well as membership in another congregation in Ohio. And while there, he was accused of more sex crimes, not involving the church property per se, but his past incidents and allegations apparently had never come out or were not told to the congregation. And so he was arrested and just recently pled guilty.

**Sasha Ann Simons** (2:49)
So when I hear stories like this, the first thing that comes to mind, Bob, is how is he able to move around like this, right? How does something like that not come up to the surface?

**Bob Herguth** (2:59)
And the answer is, I don't know. But one of the reasons this has gained a lot of attention beyond just a normal alleged sex case is that he is the brother of a guy named D. Todd Christopherson, who is one of the international leaders of the Mormon Church, of LDS. And so there were questions about what he knew and when and why he didn't tell anybody.
He, through a spokesman, has acknowledged that he knew about some of the past allegations against his brother in or about 2020 and did not tell anybody out of respect for the victims, alleged victims' wishes at the time. So there's still a lot of questions and that just aren't answered and he won't come to the phone and he won't talk to me on any of this.

**Sasha Ann Simons** (3:51)
And the Mormon Church, I mean, it's not alone facing these kinds of problems, is it?

**Bob Herguth** (3:55)
Oh, God, no. I mean, I've been writing about the Catholic Church for years and there's also, I mean, a lot of evidence that this is going on at a disturbing level in evangelical churches and Protestant churches. There's actually a local reporter named Julie Royce who runs a website that covers sex abuse and corruption alleged, you know, in Protestant evangelical communities. That's, you know, it's staggering.

**Sasha Ann Simons** (4:21)
I'm glad you're on top of this. Thank you so much for that great reporting, Bob.
Also at the table this week, a Chicago reporter for Axios, Carrie Shepherd, and Quinn Myers, a Block Club Chicago reporter covering Wicker Park, West Town, and Bucktown, as well as City Hall.