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2023 has been quite a year. Join the Tribune Editorial Board and opinion team as we reflect on the events and debates that shaped the year. Each piece rounds up the year’s most insightful editorials and commentary. After reading, test your knowledge of the year’s current events with our 2023 news quiz.
Editorial: 2023 was not a banner year for taking responsibility
As 2023 draws to a close, here’s a suggestion for an early resolution for our leaders. Let’s make 2024 the year of shouldering responsibility. One official we hope is listening is Brandon Johnson, who’s been anything but a “buck stops here” kind of mayor in 2023.
Life in and around Chicago, as told through Tribune editorials
It was a year in which the city elected its 57th mayor, struggled to welcome thousands of migrants, opened its first (legal) gambling casino and hosted its first NASCAR race in a place few would have associated with auto racing — the heart of the downtown lakefront.
Life in the US as told through Tribune editorials
This was a year in which America agonized over the age of its leaders and watched the GOP flail and Donald Trump fight with prosecutors and judges in courtrooms. Baseball changed its rules, Sam Bankman-Fried went down hard, ChatGPT caused mass anxiety, and our republic survived another year.
World events as told through Tribune editorials
The Titan submersible saw a sad end. Ukraine stood tall a year after the Russian invasion of its territory. One again, war had erupted in one of the world’s most tumultuous regions. Here is a look back at what the Tribune Editorial Board had to say about world events in 2023.
A look at immigration and the city’s migrant crisis through Tribune op-eds
Our section has published several op-eds and columns this year that offer perspectives on what can be done to ease the immigration crisis in Chicago and the U.S. and provide basic needs for those arriving to our city after making arduous journeys from their home countries.
A look at the Israel-Hamas war through Tribune op-eds
Since the Oct. 7 attacks, our op-ed contributors have spoken with passion and intellectual rigor about the war and related issues. Here, in excerpts, is a look back at some of the best of them.
A look back at the CTA and public transportation through Tribune op-eds
Mass transit remains an essential service that keeps Chicago and the suburbs on the move, and the CTA’s lack of reliability, for one, has left many Chicagoans frustrated and uttering, “I got ghosted by the CTA.” Our op-ed contributors and columnist Laura Washington this year have called on the Chicago agency to step up its game.
Part 1: Our most personal op-eds: ‘A place of incredible resilience, rebuilding, and growing’
We are fortunate to have so many op-ed contributors write with awakened authority about issues that can resonate with us in a deep way. Here, in excerpts, is a look back at the some of the best of them.
Part 2: Our most personal op-eds: ‘Every street was a memory’
Chicago Tribune Opinion
Earlier, we published excerpts of some of the best personal op-eds that have appeared in our section. Here, in more excerpts, is the conclusion of our look back.
The year in Scott Stantis cartoons
Tribune cartoonist Scott Stantis did not want for material in 2023: a bitter mayoral election and an ever-growing migrant crisis in Chicago; the coronation of King Charles III in London. As 2023 breathes its last, here’s a look back at the last 12 months through a cartoonist’s eyes.
>>> See all of the cartoons here
The Great 2023 Chicago Tribune holiday news quiz
Get your loved ones together, open a bottle of something you all like and test your current events knowledge on what happened this year in Chicago and far beyond. Googling and other forms of digitized cheating are strictly prohibited.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.