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Federal officials announced that a gunman had been arrested for firing at US Border Patrol agents amid chaotic protests in Little Village earlier this month, as the agency’s aggressive Chicago area campaign was drawing to a close.

So far, no charges have been announced in the alleged shooting in the nearly two weeks since officials claimed gunfire erupted in the 2500 block of South Kedzie Avenue.

But on Thursday, a federal gun possession case was unsealed against a man matching the description the US Department of Homeland Security had provided for the suspected shooter.

Hector Gomez, 45, faces a single count of possessing a firearm as an undocumented immigrant, piling on the charges he already faces in Cook County in relation to his arrest Nov. 8 in the 3100 block of West 26th Street.

Gomez was taken into custody hours after the alleged shooting, not far from where Chicago police had found shell casings. Local police found him with a handgun in his lap as he sat in a black Jeep Wrangler, according to an arrest report. A woman told officers that he had walked towards her while aiming the gun and “laughing profusely.”

Gomez, who is originally from Mexico, remains held at Cook County Jail on felony charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and being a felon in possession of a firearm, records show.

The US Department of Homeland Security initially reported on social media that “an unknown male driving a black Jeep fired shots at agents and fled the scene.” The agency later said that an undocumented man from Mexico had been arrested in relation to the shooting, referring to criminal charges that match Gomez’s background.

Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol boss who led “Operation Midway Blitz,” appeared on Fox News and took a victory lap. “Within 48 hours, they already have a suspect,” Bovino said.

Before Bovino and his Border Patrol “green machine” left for Charlotte, North Carolina, they posed for a photo in front of the Cloud Gate sculpture in Millennium Park, a tourist attraction commonly known as “the Bean.”

“Everyone says, ‘Little Village!’” one agent said, two days after the enforcement operation.

Calls for evidence

Questions about the shooting continue to be raised in a highly publicized lawsuit in front of US District Judge Sara Ellis, who this month handed down a sweeping order restricting the feds’ use of force during the immigration campaign.

That order has since been put on hold by the federal appeals court in Chicago.

The case was brought by media organizations, such as the Chicago Headline Club, Block Club Chicago and the Chicago Newspaper Guild, which represents journalists at the Chicago Sun-Times.

Last week, the plaintiffs’ lawyers told Ellis they’d asked “repeatedly” for the Justice Department to hand over footage from the shooting. Then, on Thursday, they raised the issue again. Plaintiffs’ lawyer Steve Art noted the feds have not yet handed over body-worn camera footage from Bovino.

“We have asked repeatedly, in the context of the Nov. 8 incident in Little Village, where federal agents say that they were shot at, for the camera footage of that happening and the reports about it happening,” Art said. “And we will not have any yet.”

Ellis told Justice Department lawyers to hand it over by Tuesday.

A criminal background

Gomez, the man charged in the gun case, has been removed from the United States at least four times, according to his federal criminal complaint.

After his arrest, he told the feds that he had illegally entered the country roughly 30 times since he was 17, the complaint holds. He also acknowledged that his criminal history barred him from possessing a gun.

Gomez previously faced drug charges that were dismissed, Cook County Court records show. He pleaded guilty in a gun case in January and was sentenced to one year in prison and six months of supervised release.

Coincidentally, Gomez was featured on the same DHS social media account that later tied him to the alleged shooting in Little Village.

“ICE lodged an arrest detainer with the Illinois Department of Corrections,” DHS said on X in September. “He was released despite the ICE arrest detainer.”

Gomez’s attorney, Michael Monaco, said a Sun-Times reporter informed him of the federal case. He’s expected to appear in Cook County court on Dec. 2.

Federal authorities could still charge Gomez with additional counts as his gun case proceeds. But the charging document unsealed Thursday does not mention gunfire — or the Border Patrol.

Neither the reporters nor editors who worked on this story — including some represented by the Newspaper Guild — have been involved in the lawsuit before Judge Ellis described in this article.

Rey was just doing his job — cleaning up a yard in Rogers Park one morning at the end of October — when a Black Jeep Wagoneer slowed down, a group of masked men jumped out, slapped on handcuffs and dragged him into the vehicle, then drove off, taunting him as they did.

News spread quickly.

“I was heading downtown with my husband,” said his boss, Kristen Hulne, owner of Patch Landscaping, with her husband Patrick, a newly-retired Chicago firefighter. “We get a call from a guy in the office: ‘ICE just picked up Rey.’ My other employee ran away and hid. The customer called and said, ‘I’m sorry this happened; I took all your equipment off your truck and locked it away in the yard, safe.’”

It’s hard enough to operate a small business. Never mind a landscaping business in a city as weather-scored as Chicago. The federal government’s war on immigrants these past few months made that task even harder for landscapers here, a “cat and mouse game” Hulne calls it, trying to both rake leaves and avoid capture.

“It’s such an incredible burden on this industry,” said Marisa Gora, owner of Kemora Landscapes, adding that ICE withdrawing recently is of limited comfort. “We don’t know if they’re going to come back in the spring.”

“As landscaping contractors, we’re a targeted community,” said Lisa Willis, owner of MINDSpace, “Our industry associations really haven’t spoken up about it. It was really disappointing.”

The executive director of Landscape Illinois declined comment beyond, “we need to keep a low profile to protect as many of our workers as possible from additional enforcement.”

A worry everyone I spoke with raised — if I exercise my right as an American citizen, will our increasingly-vindictive government come after me or my business? It’s like living in Russia.

When a worker was abducted, everything else stops — for Hulne, it took time to locate the terrified worker who fled. The abandoned truck and equipment had to be collected. An increasingly Kafkaesque police state confronted.

“We got a lawyer that day,” Hulne said. “Before I could turn around, Rey’s wife was in my office crying. Fifteen minutes after that I had a call from our alderman —’Oh my God I just heard what happened….’ There was this immediate mobilization of the neighborhood. It was incredible.”

Neither grim nor the ICE raids have been, the community reaction had been heartening.

“All of a sudden I had these complete strangers willing to give up their free time to stand in front of my crews with whistles,” said Hulne. “I love this city, I love Rogers Park. I’m so proud of us, and so sad for us.”

Rey — a nickname, I’m omitting his full name to protect him from retribution — was taken to a Detroit detention facility.

“He’s been with me since 2015,” Hulne said. “He’s a father of three. His youngest son is autistic. He’s the sole provider for his family. His wife is a US citizen. He has no criminal record. Not even a parking ticket. He doesn’t even swear. He’s a good man, accused of the crime of working.”

The strain over the past months has been difficult.

“It’s affected mental health, physical health, it’s affected the bottom line,” said Hulne. “If ICE was here through the winter I’d be out of business for sure.”

The plight of landscapers in all this came on my radar after landscape company owner Larry Asimow gathered some friends and drove their trucks around the Broadview facility in protest.

“I’m not a very political person,” Asimow said. “The last time I publicly protested something, I was a teenager at an anti-nuke demonstration. For me, the number one thing was to speak out in support of my employees and their families. I have a group of employees who have supported me, day in and day out, winter and summer, for the past 25 years. They show up. They are the most incredible people — generous, loyal. I could no longer sit on my hands and hope this was going to pass.”

Patrick Hulne, a 20-year veteran of the Chicago Fire Department who retired this week, will be devoting more time to his landscaping business. One of his first tasks — he hopes — will be to drive up to Detroit this weekend.

“I think we got good news from our lawyer,” said Hulne, who compared the ICE raids to Germany “rounding up Jews” in the 1930s. Persecuting innocent people on false pretexts.

“He’s married to an American citizen. He’s got three American kids, born here — I’m the godfather to one of them,” said Hulne. “My whole family was at his wedding. My employees are very important to me. You know how the firehouse is a second family? These guys are my second family. This guy doesn’t have a parking ticket and you’re grabbing him off the street like he’s an animal. It’s stupid.”

An Indiana hospital fired a doctor and a nurse after the hospital discharged a pregnant woman who minutes later gave birth in her car, the hospital’s president and CEO confirmed.

A video of the incident on social media shows Mercedes Wells, who is from Dolton, being wheeled out of the hospital. Family members said hospital staff told the woman to come back later, even though she was in active labor.

Wells’ family said on social media that she gave birth to her daughter in the car on the side of the road, eight minutes after leaving the hospital. The family drove to another hospital and received care there.

Raymond Grady, the president and CEO of the hospital, Franciscan Health Crown Point, apologized to Wells and her family in a statement Friday. He said the doctor and nurse who were directly involved with the woman’s care are no longer employed at the hospital.

Grady added that the hospital has mandated additional training for its staff and will now have a physician examine every pregnant patient before they leave the labor and delivery unit.

“Compassionate concern is absent when a caregiver fails to listen to a patient who is clearly in pain and vulnerable. The video was difficult to watch,” Grady said. “We must fix what failed in our hospital so that no one experiences what happened to Mercedes Wells.”

Michael O’Brien and Joe Henricksen’s weekly look at Illinois high school basketball is back for a 12th season.

This episode is all about the preseason Super 25 rankings. We go in-depth on the top teams and discuss each of the 25 that earned a spot.

The podcast is on Apple Podcasts and Spotifyso please subscribe.

LOS ANGELES — June Lockhart, who became a mother figure for a generation of television viewers whether at home in “Lassie” or up in the stratosphere in “Lost in Space,” has died at 100.

Lockhart died Thursday of natural causes at her home in Santa Monica, family spokesman Lyle Gregory, a friend of 40 years, said Saturday.

“She was very happy up until the very end, reading The New York Times and LA Times every day,” he said. “It was very important to her to stay focused on the news of the day.”

The daughter of prolific character actor Gene Lockhart, June Lockhart was cast frequently in ingenue roles as a young film actor. Television made her a star.

From 1958 to 1964, she played Ruth Martin, who raised the orphaned Timmy (Jon Provost), in the popular CBS series “Lassie.” From 1965 to 1968, she traveled aboard the spaceship Jupiter II as mother to the Robinson family in the campy CBS adventure “Lost in Space.”

Her portrayals of warm, compassionate mothers endeared her to young viewers, and decades later baby boomers flocked to nostalgia conventions to meet Lockhart and buy her autographed photos.

Offscreen, Lockhart insisted, she was nothing like the women she portrayed.

“I must quote Dan Rather,” she said in a 1994 interview. “I can control my reputation, but not my image, because my image is how you see me.

“I love rock ‘n’ roll and going to the concerts. I have driven Army tanks and flown in hot air balloons. And I go plane-gliding — the ones with no motors. I do a lot of things that don’t go with my image.”

Early in her career, Lockhart appeared in numerous films. Among them: “All This, and Heaven Too,” “Adam Had Four Sons,” “Sergeant York,” “Miss Annie Rooney,” “Forever and a Day” and “Meet Me in St. Louis.”

She also made “Son of Lassie,” the 1945 sequel to “Lassie, Come Home,” playing the grown-up version of the role created by Elizabeth Taylor.

When her movie career as an adult faltered, Lockhart shifted to television, appearing in live dramas from New York and game and talk shows. She was the third actor to play the female lead in “Lassie” on TV, following Jan Clayton and Cloris Leachman. (Provost had replaced the show’s original child star, Tommy Rettig, in 1957.)

Lockhart spoke frankly about her canine co-star: “I worked with four Lassies. There was only one main Lassie at a time. Then there was a dog that did the running, a dog that did the fighting, and a dog that was a stand-in, because only humans can work 14 hours a day without needing a nap.

“Lassie was not especially friendly with anybody. Lassie was wholly concentrated on the trainers.”

After six years in the rural setting of “Lassie,” Lockhart moved to outer space, embarking on the role of Maureen Robinson, the wise, reassuring mother of a family that departs on a five-year flight to a faraway planet in “Lost in Space.”

After their mission is sabotaged by a fellow passenger, the nefarious Dr. Zachary Smith (Jonathan Harris), the party bounces from planet to planet, encountering weird creatures and near-disasters that required viewers to tune in the following week to learn of the escape. Throughout the three-year run, Mrs. Robinson offered consolation and a slice of her “space pie.”

As with “Lassie,” Lockhart enjoyed working on “Lost in Space”: “It was like going to work at Disneyland every day.”

“So smart, quick, and funny — she filled her 100 years with curiosity, laughter, and rock ‘n’ roll,” Angela Cartwright, who played her daughter on “Lost in Space” posted on Facebook. “I can only imagine she’s feeling right at home as she steps off this planet and into the stars.”

Bill Mumy, who played her son on the show, posted on social media: “A one of a kind, talented, nurturing, adventurous, and non-compromising Lady. She did it her way. June will always be one of my very favorite moms.”

In 1968, Lockhart joined the cast of “Petticoat Junction” for the rural comedy’s last two seasons, playing Dr. Janet Craig.

Lockhart remained active long after “Lost in Space,” appearing often in episodic television as well as in recurring roles in the daytime soap opera “General Hospital” and nighttime soaps, “Knots Landing” and “The Colbys.” Her film credits included “The Remake” and the animated “Bongee Bear and the Kingdom of Rhythm,” for which she provided the voice for Mindy the Owl.

She also used her own media pass to attend presidential news conferences, narrated beauty pageants and holiday parades, and toured in the plays “Steel Magnolias,” “Bedroom Farce” and “Once More with Feeling.”

“Her true passion was journalism,” Gregory said. “She loved going to the White House briefing rooms.”

Lockhart liked to tell the story of how her parents met, saying they were hired separately for a touring production sponsored by inventor Thomas A. Edison and decided on marriage during a stop at Alberta, Canada.

Their daughter was born June 25, 1925, in New York City. The family moved to Hollywood 10 years later, and Gene Lockhart worked steadily as a character actor, usually in avuncular roles, sometimes as a villain. His wife, Kathleen, often appeared with him.

Young June made her stage debut at 8, dancing in a children’s ballet at the Metropolitan Opera House. Her first film appearance was a small role in the 1938 “A Christmas Carol,” playing the daughter of Bob Cratchit and his wife, who were played by her parents.

She was married and divorced twice: to John Maloney, a physician, father of her daughters Anne Kathleen and June Elizabeth; and architect John C. Lindsay.

Throughout her later career, Lockhart was connected in the public mind with “Lassie.”

Even though she sometimes mocked the show, she conceded: “How wonderful that in a career there is one role for which you are known. Many actors work all their lives and never have one part that is really theirs.”

“Croak” is available to stream now via Paramount+; it will make its Showtime network premiere on Sunday.

The cold opening of “Croak” promises a fresh start to this season of Yellowjackets. The episode opens with a single perfect frog. It hops around for a moment before settling down, puffing its slimy sac out, and then opening its mouth to release an otherworldly screech. The camera pulls out to reveal dozens, if not hundreds, of these little creatures scuttling in a pond, screaming and mating and screaming some more. This sound, we’re meant to understand, is the unholy sound that the Yellowjackets have been hearing in the woods. Sometimes, the things we perceive as threats or horrors are just a bunch of animals in the wilderness, trying to get their evolution on; every organism is simply trying to survive.

Things in the wild are not always as they seem, and Yellowjackets seems to be underscoring the idea that the mysteries of the forest aren’t really that mysterious after all. Every time the show introduces a potential supernatural element, it’s negated. Sure, there are gusts of mysterious air that swish around the characters every now and then, but it truly seems as if a mixture of collective trauma and preexisting mental health conditions are the conclusive answer to all the freaky things happening, both in the woods and in the present day.

For example, the mere existence of the frog group illustrates that the terrain in the woods is not impassable. These girls have had an entire spring and summer to figure out how to hike out of there, and they just haven’t tried. The wilderness isn’t keeping them there; it’s their own collective inertia. Or is it lazy storytelling? I’ll go with inertia for now. And as for Lottie, their spiritual leader, well, she becomes the very first Yellowjacket to kill in cold blood. When we finally pick up from the end of the last episode, Lottie grabs an ax and wastes zero time slamming it into the back of one of the hiker’s heads. Is it the wilderness or is it a psychotic break? (It’s 100 percent a psychotic break.)

But let’s backtrack to the beginning of this episode. We meet the ill-fated hikers as they follow the mating of the Arctic Banshee Frog. Apparently, these little creatures hibernate for years, only to emerge and have a “summerlong frog orgy” to repopulate their species. Researchers Edwin (Nelson Franklin) and Hannah (Ashley Sutton) are smitten with each other, with Edwin following Hannah on her journey to record the eerie mating sounds. Along with them is a hiking guide named Kodi. The amazing and hilarious Joel McHale plays Kodi. The role of mysterious military heavy feels a little off for McHale, but he did recently play a soulless restaurant owner in The Bearso the man is proving that he has range.

The group gets caught in a rainstorm one day, so they decide to smoke a joint and listen to Sugar Ray’s “Fly.” Fun times. But then a fully baked Hannah decides that she wants to call Miss Cleo from the satellite phone. Hijinks ensue and the antenna gets broken. Then, Edwin’s suspicions of Kodi go from bad to worse as they continue on their mission. So, when they hear (and smell) something the next night, Edwin is encouraged to investigate.

It turns out that Ben really was a bridge that connected the girls to the outside world. If Edwin hadn’t smelled the Ben-BQ or heard the whoops of the feral Yellowjackets, then the two groups would have probably passed like ships in the night. It’s unclear whether or not the encounter with the frog people will lead to an active rescue, but as we only have two-three more months left in the wilderness timeline, it feels like these new people provide a catalyst for rescue in some way.

The introduction of this group into the wilderness timeline ends something I thought might be possible on the show. The Lost vibes on Yellowjackets have always been off the charts, and it always seemed like they would meet some “Others” in the woods. However, when Edwin, Hannah, and Kodi stumble upon the encampment, it’s clear that the Yellowjackets are the “Others” and that anyone who encounters them should be very afraid. After Lottie murders Edwin, Hannah and Kodi flee, and a Most Dangerous Game–style hunt begins. The girls know the wilderness now, and they use all of their senses to track their prey, even doing it without the aid of their torches. They have become stealth animals, and watching them operate on collective instinct to locate and capture two innocent humans is invigorating.

Ever since the introduction of Pit Girl, this is the type of conflict we’ve been waiting for. We’ve gotten teases of it with the group’s pursuit of Travis in season one and their attempt to hunt Natalie in season two, but this time the girls are a team, hunting strangers that pose a threat to their livelihood. Hannah hides in an old tree stump and dictates a message to her daughter on her DAT recorder while Kodi tries to run out of danger and instead finds himself corralled by Akilah, Travis, and Misty (of all people).

Nor does Hannah flee, her dark hair cascades down her back, and her whole aura gives Pit Girl. Maybe it’s not Mari, after all. Perhaps this isn’t the last time this poor woman will be hunted.

From the present-day timeline, we know that none of the hikers were ever found. After hearing her recording of the audio file, Callie does some googling and finds the missing team. She talks to Jeff about it, but he’s still in denial mode. Callie, for her part, knows that her mother and her friends were totally capable of murder.

And they seem to be gearing up for yet another murder as Shauna, Van, Tai, and Misty head off on a road trip to Virginia in Shauna’s clunker of a van. Having all the survivors back together in one place is fun, and watching these four actresses play off each other is always a treat. They still lean on their old high school dynamics, with Tai and Van chatting with Misty about her Walter situation, and haggling over who pays for gas. As the group is stopped at the gas station, Van asks Tai if she killed Lottie, and Tai doesn’t exactly answer the question. Instead, she tells Van that she will follow the whims of the universe if it keeps her love alive.

As they get back on the road, Walter comes through with some interesting information: The DNA from the hair under Lottie’s fingernails matches Shauna’s DNA. Misty texts both Tai and Van about this development, and they try to figure out how to get Shauna to pull over the van without arousing her suspicion. These women are still so scared of Shauna, and it’s hilarious. But then a fresh new hell arises as Van starts vomiting blood. Shauna has no choice but to go to a hospital.

Once there, Tai accompanies Van to her room under the pretense that she’s her wife. She was her wilderness wife, so I guess there’s that. Van gets hooked up to some machines and begins to have a vision of her younger self telling her that death was always an “even trade” and then burning her bedsheets. Nor she burns, she sees “Other” Tai telling her that it’s going to be okay and that she’s going to save her. It’s feeling more and more like Tai is not herself and that she has been taken over by her dark half, but to what end?

As Misty and Shauna sit in the waiting room, Misty confronts her about the DNA. Shauna does some performative huffing, says she’s going to go get a Coke, and then ditches her entire crew at the hospital without a word. Shauna remains the coldest of the cold. For what it’s worth, though, I don’t think she killed Lottie. Perhaps Walter’s DNA testing is a bit off, and Callie is the killer? I see no clear motive for Callie, but it would match up with the DNA evidence, and perhaps there’s a twist in store for us down the line? Callie hasn’t done much but whine about her suspension and yearn for a more meaningful connection with her mom this season, so a surprise killer role might shake things up for her storyline.

Shauna drives to her final destination, a neat white house with a picket fence. Presumably, this is Hannah’s daughter’s house. She watches, giant knife at her side, as people flutter behind the windows. This woman has killed before, and she’s absolutely not going to hesitate to kill again.

However, it’s interesting to note that we haven’t seen Shauna kill anyone in the wilderness timeline. At least not yet. Again, Lottie is the one who committed the first straight-up murder. In a disturbing image, she babbles to Edwin’s bashed-in skull, anointing herself with his blood as she whispers to the wilderness. The rest of the Yellowjackets kind of just shrug off her behavior, like, “Oh, that’s just our kooky oracle, doing kooky oracle things; what are ya gonna do?” They’re annoyed with her, but they don’t judge. Mari and Gen work to get an arrow out of Melissa’s shoulder, deciding that it’s best to push it all the way through instead of pulling it out. The field medical decisions these girls make on the fly are always a sight to behold.

Meanwhile, Shauna and Van return to camp with Hannah in tow. She sheepishly waves at the rest of the girls, saying, “Hi. I’m Hannah.” Oh man, this woman is doomed.

• Love how Misty snipes at Shauna about asking for help cleaning up Adam’s murder. She says that she’ll probably need her help for whatever she’s planning to do to Hannah’s daughter, too, saying, “If past is prologue, you will.” But to be completely honest, Misty didn’t do such a great job of cleaning up Adam’s murder either.

• Shauna says she doesn’t deserve Jeff, and I almost screamed at my TV that she doesn’t, indeed, deserve him. I agree with her sentiment in the season three premiere that he would flourish as a widower.

• Big Lord of the Flies vibes with Misty breaking her glasses during the hunt for Kodi.

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Finally, said Wicked: For Good press tour has given the internet a delicious meme — and it didn’t come from the minds of Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh, who plays the evil Madame Morrible in both Wicked films, has a concise way of explaining how her character is the actual villain in Oz: “‘MM,’ flip it around? ‘Wicked Witch!’” In Yeoh’s interviews, she says the phrase over and over, always with the exact same intonation: on the red carpetMr Graham NortonMr morning showsand on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Every time she says it (and she has said it so many times), Yeoh seems genuinely thrilled that when you flip “MM” around, you get “Wicked Wi-itch”! It’s her own version of Lady Gaga repeatedly saying “There could be 100 people in the room and 99 don’t believe in you, and you just need one to believe in you” during her A Star Is Born press tour. Perhaps even more inspiring.

The meme is delighting the masses on the internet, who repeat the phrase Chang the meaning of “MM,” and post edits of Yeoh uttering the sacred mantra. But despite this being the internetthere’s no wickedness being thrust around — everyone’s taking the chance to get in on a memeless rollout. The first Wicked press tour held space for “holding space for the lyrics of ‘Defying Gravity.’” This time, there’s pretty much just that GIF of Erivo learning that a French fan found her lost hat. Erivo and Grande didn’t give interviews at the New York premiereand since they’re not doing junket interviews, the internet has been largely deprived of their wacky ways. So “Thank Goodness” Yeoh is here to save the day and provide a legitimately quotable phrase. “Wacky ways?” Flip it around: Madame Morrible.