Stories by Daniel Hautzinger

Caroll Spinney, who performed Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street for almost 50 years, died at the age of 85 on Sunday. Revisit a 2003 interview with him on Chicago Tonight where he tells memorable stories, like the time he got in an argument with Mister Rogers. 

January often has the worst weather of the year, but luckily there are plenty of exciting shows to keep you busy at home, from new dramas to eye-catching food and travel shows, informative documentaries to the return of some favorite series.

Don't miss your chance to ride on the bus or train in the CTA's Holiday Fleet, which brings Santa around the city over the next month. 

50 years ago, the promising young Black Panther leader Fred Hampton was killed during a police raid. Hampton's organizing and the outcry after his death helped lead to the election of Harold Washington and Bobby Rush, who was a Panther at the time of the raid. 

Find all the ways you can watch the House Judiciary Committee's public impeachment hearings, either over-the-air or digitally, here. 

"I never really loved high school lunches or any of that, anything outside of what my mom prepared in the kitchen," says Ray Espiritu, the owner of Isla Pilipina in Lincoln Square. When he didn't know what to do after graduating, he decided to take over a restaurant.

Himalayan Sherpa Kitchen serves many hard-to-find Nepali specialties, which combine Indian, Tibetan, and Chinese culinary influences, unlike many other Nepali restaurants in Chicago, which offer mostly North Indian dishes.

Instead of serving bland rolls that are simply vehicles for butter or sopping up gravy this Thanksgiving, try something that is seasonally appropriate and has its own flavor, in this recipe for Pumpkin Seed Rolls from Christopher Kimball's Milk Street.

Andrea Andrade and Jose Navea didn't plan to stay in Chicago when they came to visit. Now they operate their own restaurant serving arepas, a nostalgic staple food of their home country of Venezuela. "You can't say Venezuela and not say arepas," Navea says. 

Since the Chicago area is not a publishing hub, Agate Publishing is easy to overlook. But its location outside a hub of the industry lets it find overlooked talent: it published the debut novels of Jesmyn Ward and Kiese Laymon, and has a current National Book Award contender in Burn the Place.

Find all the ways you can watch, either over-the-air or digitally, here. 

"I really believe in the power of storytelling," says the director and producer of WTTW's new digital series FIRSTHAND: Gun Violence, which tells the stories of five people whose lives have been upended by gun violence. 

In the season finale of Press, Duncan's fortunes turn while the Herald works on an important story revealing government surveillance. Holly prepares to confront Duncan's cynical journalism while he struggles between principles and survival. 

In Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum, the main characters meet historical figures as children and learn from the values that they model to help surmount their own issues. “We all have these qualities that these historical figures had," says the illustrator behind the series.

As the Post deals with negative publicity and Duncan copes with personal issues, he and the paper finally begin to seem fallible and vulnerable. Meanwhile, Amina has a hopeful and ambitious announcement at the Herald.