By WILL WEISSERT and DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press

BALMEDIE, Scotland (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump opened a new golf course bearing his name in Scotland on Tuesday, capping a five-day foreign trip designed to promote his family’s luxury properties and play golf.

“Let’s go. 1-2-3,” Trump said before he used a golden pair of scissors to cut a red ribbon and fireworks popped to mark the ceremonial opening of the new Trump course in the village of Balmedie on Scotland’s northern coast.

“This has been an unbelievable development,” Trump said beforehand. He thanked his son Eric for his work on the project, saying it was “truly a labor of love for him.” Son Don Jr. also was present.

Eric Trump said the course was a “passion project” for his father.

Immediately after the opening, Trump, Eric Trump and two professional golfers teed off on the first hole. Trump rarely allows the news media to watch his golf game, though video journalists and photographers often find him along the course wherever he plays. Trump planned to play 18 holes before he arrives back in Washington on Tuesday night.

The overseas jaunt let Trump escape Washington’s sweaty summer heat and humidity while questions about the case of Jeffrey Epstein followed him across the Atlantic Ocean. But it added to a lengthy list of ways the Republican president has used the White House to promote his brand.

Billing itself as the “Greatest 36 Holes in Golf,” the Trump International Golf Links, Scotland, was designed by Eric Trump. The course is hosting a PGA Seniors Championship event later this week before it begins offering rounds to the public on Aug. 13. Signs promoting the event were seen all around the course on Tuesday, while temporary signage on the highway guided drivers onto the correct road.

Golfers hitting the course at dawn as part of that event had to put their clubs through metal detectors as part of the security procedures for Trump’s arrival.

The day combined two things close to Trump’s heart: golf and Scotland. His mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, was born on the Isle of Lewis and eventually went to New York. She died in 2000 at age 88.

“My mother loved Scotland,” Trump said Monday during a meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at another of his golf courses, Turnberry, on Scotland’s southern coast. “It’s different when your mother was born here.”

He appeared to be in such a good mood that he even praised the throng of journalist who had assembled to cover the event, saying there was no “fake news” on the course.

“I didn’t use the word ‘fake news’ one time, not one time,” Trump said.

Trump worked some official business into the trip by holding talks with Starmer and reaching a trade framework for tariffs between the U.S. and the European Union’s 27 member countries — though scores of key details remain to be settled. But the trip has featured a lot of golf, and the presidential visit is sure to raise the new course’s profile.

Trump’s assets are in a trust, and his sons are running the family business while he’s in the White House. Any business generated at the course will ultimately enrich the president when he leaves office, though.

Visible from around the new course are towering wind turbines lining the coast, part of a nearby windfarm Trump sued to try to block construction of in 2013.

He lost the case and was eventually ordered to pay legal costs for bringing it — and the issue still enrages him. During the meeting with Starmer, Trump called windmills “ugly monsters” and suggested they were part of “the most expensive form of energy.”

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“I restricted windmills in the United States because they also kill all your birds,” Trump said. “If you shoot a bald eagle in the United States, they put you in jail for five years. And windmills knock out hundreds of them. They don’t do anything. Explain that.”

Starmer said in the U.K, “we believe in a mix” of energy, including oil, gas and renewables.

The new golf course will be the third owned by the Trump Organization in Scotland. Trump bought Turnberry in 2014 and owns another course near Aberdeen that opened in 2012.

Trump golfed at Turnberry on Saturday, as protesters took to the streets, and on Sunday. He invited Starmer, who famously doesn’t golf, aboard Air Force One so the prime minister could get a private tour of his Aberdeen properties before Tuesday’s ceremonial opening.

“Even if you play badly, it’s still good,” Trump said of golfing on his course over the weekend. “If you had a bad day on the golf course, it’s OK. It’s better than other days.”

Superville reported from Washington.

The origin story behind the ice cream sundae comes swirled with mystery, history, as well as chocolate and even a cherry on top.

When Edward Berners died at 75 on July 1, 1939, the Chicago Daily Tribune published an obituary the next day headlined “Man Who Made First Ice Cream Sundae Is Dead.”

Ann Marie Borek and Michael Paulukonis enjoy sundaes at The Washington House Museum in the tiny Wisconsin town of Two Rivers on July 5, 2006. The store inside the museum is a replica of Berners’ Ice Cream Parlor, believed to be the birthplace of the ice cream sundae in 1881. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)

The paper wrote that Berners claimed he originated the sundae at his ice cream parlor in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, about 40 years before his death, when George Hallauer asked him to put chocolate soda flavoring directly on a dish of ice cream.

But according to the Two Rivers and Wisconsin historical societies, Berners made that first chocolate sundae at Berner’s Confectionery in 1881 — nearly 20 years earlier than his obituary estimated.

A number of places claim to be the birthplace of the ice cream sundae, including Evanston (William Garwood at Garwood’s drugstore in 1890) and Plainfield (Charles Sonntag at his pharmacy, circa 1893).

Then there’s Ithaca, New York, which says Chester Platt first served a “Cherry Sunday” at his Platt & Colt’s Pharmacy on April 3, 1892. That is, in fact, 11 years after Two Rivers’ chocolate sundae. Ithacans, however, cite a paper trail as their evidence.

If you were wondering, pharmacists, aka druggists, once made medicinal and recreational soda drinks, sometimes mixing flavorings and cocaine. Those soda fountains became family-friendly social hubs, eventually offering ice cream sodas, then soda-free ice cream sundaes, wherever it was invented.

One detail shared across the origin stories is that the name sundae came from Sunday. But theories vary as to why, from respect for the Christian day of worship or due to a decidedly secular trademark attempt.

Whatever the story, the ice cream sundae lives on, with old-fashioned chocolate and cherry, which you can find at Margie’s Candies with lots of whipped cream, of course, to more modern creations made by top chefs around Chicago.

— Louisa Kung Liu Chu

Chocolate fudge sundae at Betty’s Ice Cream

A hot fudge sundae with whipped cream and peanuts from Betty’s Ice Cream in the Gage Park neighborhood on July 16, 2025. (Lauryn Azu/Chicago Tribune)

Memories of summers past stand frozen in time at this Southwest Side ice cream window, where a vintage sign holds the sacred image of a banana split sundae and reads “good ice cream for good people.”

That’s the heart of Betty’s Ice Cream in Gage Park, where owners Juan and Beatriz Gonzalez for decades have served cold treats with warm smiles.

As a first-time visitor, I wasn’t sure which direction to take my sundae, but I did make sure to bring cash. Select chocolate, vanilla or strawberry ice cream for the base, and fudge, strawberry or pineapple sauce for the topping, plus adornments such as wafers and maraschino cherries. For me, a crispy waffle cup tied my fudge and peanut-covered scoop together — the perfect treat for an idyllic Chicago summer afternoon. — Lauryn Azu

$8. 5840 S. Kedzie Ave., 773-737-7634

Dubai chocolate sundae at Karak Café

The Dubai sundae at Karak Café in Lisle on July 17, 2025. The ice cream dessert features scoops of vanilla drizzled with chocolate and pistachio cream. (Zareen Syed/Chicago Tribune)

The now-everywhere Dubai chocolate trend can be traced back to a pricey bar of chocolate made by United Arab Emirates-based chocolatier, Fix, which dreamed up a milk chocolate bar filled with shredded phyllo pastry known as kataifi and a pistachio cream filling. The actual name of the bar is “Can’t Get Knafeh of It,” referencing the traditional Palestinian-Jordanian dessert, knafeh, or kunafe, which is made by layering kaitefi with cheese, pistachios and a dousing of rose water syrup. Since it took off on social media, it’s been reinvented into everything from pastries, cakes and doughnuts to lattes and cold coffee drinks.

At Karak Café in Lisle, Dubai chocolate has become an ice cream sundae. The easily shareable dessert has two scoops of classic vanilla ice cream on a bed of chewy, chocolatey brownie pieces and melted milk chocolate gracing both the brownies and the ice cream. It’s topped with a generous drizzle of green pistachio cream. Typically, it’s served with a sugar cone on the side or a wafer stick.

A solid sundae — indulgent, sweet, texturally pleasing and messier with each dig — but it would be even better with a sprinkle of chopped up pistachios. The unassuming Muslim-owned cafe also makes a halwa sundae, based on a Desi confection with a fudge-like texture. — Zareen Syed

$7.99. Karak Café, 2004 Ogden Ave., Lisle, 331-775-2077, karakcafes.com

Sundae Mondays sundae at Longman & Eagle

Sundae with gochujang caramel, rice vinegar macerated peaches, crushed Honey Butter Chips, sesame seeds and Maldon sea salt over vanilla ice cream by chef Won Kim of Kimski restaurant for Sundae Monday at Longman & Eagle in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago on July 14, 2025 (Louisa Kung Liu Chu/Chicago Tribune)

Award-winning pastry chef Dana Cree of Pretty Cool Ice Cream and then-executive chef Max Robbins at Longman & Eagle launched a charitable series that was a beacon in the dark of 2020. Sundae Mondays at L & E in Logan Square, featuring toppings from an extraordinary roster of chefs, restaurateurs and creators — benefiting a charity of their choice — still persists every summer. A recent sundae by chef Won Kim of Kimski offered subtly spicy gochujang caramel with aromatic rice vinegar macerated peaches, crushed Honey Butter Chips, Maldon sea salt and nutty sesame seeds over a soft scoop of vanilla ice cream. It benefited The Montessori School of Englewood (with 70 low-income children ages 3 to 5 years old, many who are unhoused and rely on the school for food, clothing, health care and more), which will have to shut down if it does not receive federal funding by December. — LKLC

$5. 2657 N. Kedzie Ave., 773-276-7110, longmanandeagle.com

Dark Chocolate Citrus Sundae at Monteverde Restaurant and Pastificio

Citrus and chocolate are a common Italian duo as well-suited as strawberry is to cream. Some experimental scoop shops blithely sprinkle orange peel or extract in chocolate, but it can feel hollow or overly clever. They might take notes from Monteverde’s citrus dark chocolate sundae, which is plated alongside a whirlpool of marmellata, mandarin olive oil and toasted pistachios swirling in an umber cocoa sea.

Citrus and chocolate both can dabble in varying intensities of sweet, sour, bitter and florality — here, the focus is textural congruity and balance, not tartness or sweetness. The citrus isn’t infused into the ice cream, but that flavor still ripples through every bite, sans acidity, thanks to the shapely and precise pieces of fruit and peel.

And the biggest achievement of all? It’s actually a dark chocolate sorbet sundae, completely smooth, creamy and devoid of any crystalline ice. The dish is quietly, confidently vegan and gluten-free.

The West Loop restaurant offers the dish year-round and has different iterations depending on the citrus season and availability. Some intriguing possibilities include Cara Cara oranges and kumquats. — Ahmed Ali Akbar

$14. 1020 W. Madison St., 312-888-3041, monteverdechicago.com

Sunda Sundae at Sunda New Asian

The Sunda Sundae, featuring shaved ice, ube ice cream and assorted toppings, at Sunda Fulton Market on July 5, 2025. (Kayla Samoy/Chicago Tribune)

OK, yes, this might be a bit of an unconventional pick. But what makes a sundae a sundae? For the Chicago Tribune food team, we settled on there needing to be some sort of ice cream base and, of course, lots of toppings. And Filipino halo-halo is all about the toppings, which can range from sweet beans and fruit to bits of ube jam or even sprinkles of cereal for crunch.

Sunda’s take — which they do label as a sundae — features plenty of crunchy shaved ice topped with scoops of ube ice cream, chewy pandan coconut gels, red mung beans, lychee and flan. The mixture is well-balanced, served just cold enough so it doesn’t all melt into an unsightly ice cream soup. It comes plated beautifully in a glass for the perfect photo opp, but the accompanying bowl allows you to mix everything together just right so you can build the ideal bite without getting too messy. — Kayla Samoy

$15. 110 W. Illinois St., 312-644-0500, and 333 N. Green St., 312-900-0033, sundanewasian.com

Seasonal sundae at Void

The seasonal sundae with salted vanilla gelato, blueberry sorbet, cornbread toffee and buttermilk caramel at Void in Avondale. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

Chefs Tyler Hudec and Dani Kaplan, along with co-owner and general manager Pat Ray, will always have a shot of house-made No-Lört waiting for you at their whimsical Italian American restaurant, but probably not the same dish of ice cream. The seasonal sundae at Void in Avondale changes constantly, utilizing creative techniques, but is always served in a silver coupe. One variation paired tangy-sweet blueberry sorbet with delicately salted vanilla gelato, topped with a crackling cornbread toffee and buttermilk caramel drizzled with the carefree abandon of summer. — LKLC

$12. 2937 N. Milwaukee Ave., 872-315-2199, voidchicago.com

By STEPHEN GROVES, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats are imploring President Donald Trump’s administration to step up its role in addressing suffering and starvation in Gaza, with 40 senators signing onto a letter Tuesday urging the resumption of ceasefire talks and sharply criticizing an Israeli-backed American organization that had been created to distribute food aid.

In a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Republican president’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, the senators said the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, created in February with backing from the Trump administration, has “failed to address the deepening humanitarian crisis and contributed to an unacceptable and mounting civilian death toll around the organization’s sites.”

Palestinians inspect the site struck by an Israeli bombardment in Muwasi, Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Monday, July 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Mariam Dagga)

It marked a mostly united plea from Senate Democrats — who are locked out of power in Washington — for the Trump administration to recalibrate its approach after the collapse of ceasefire talks last week. Trump on Monday expressed concern about the worsening humanitarian situation and broke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that people are not starving in the Gaza Strip. But it is unclear how Trump will proceed.

Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii said it was “not at all credible” to think the Israeli military — one of the most advanced in the world — is incapable of distributing food aid or performing crowd control.

“They made a choice to establish a new way of doing food distribution,” he said. “And it’s not working at all.”

The letter, obtained by The Associated Press, calls for a “large-scale expansion” of aid into Gaza channeled through organizations experienced working in the area. It also says efforts for a ceasefire agreement are “as critical and urgent as ever.”

The message was led by four Jewish members of the Democratic Caucus — Sens. Adam Schiff of California, Chuck Schumer of New York, Jacky Rosen of Nevada and Schatz — and calls for the return of the roughly 50 hostages, 20 still believed to be alive, held by Hamas since its Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

The signatures from most of the Senate Democratic Caucus on the letter show the extent to which Democrats have achieved some unity on a foreign policy issue that deeply divided them while they held the White House last year. They called for an end to the war that sees Hamas no longer in control of Gaza and a long-term goal of both an Israeli and a Palestinian state and opposed any permanent displacement of the Palestinian people.

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Meanwhile, Republicans are backing Trump’s handling of the situation and supporting Israel. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he was satisfied with Trump trying “to referee that, but the Israelis need to get their hostages back.”

Still, images of the worsening hunger crisis in Gaza seemed to be reaching some Republican members of Congress.

Over the weekend, far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who routinely calls for an end to foreign aid, said on social media “what has been happening to innocent people and children in Gaza is horrific. This war and humanitarian crisis must end!”

For Schatz, it was a sign many Americans do care about suffering in other parts of the world, even after Trump won the election with “America First” foreign policy goals and kickstarted his administration by demolishing U.S. aid programs.

“They are seeing images of chaos, images of suffering that are either caused by the United States or at least could have been prevented by the United States,” Schatz said. “And it is redounding negatively to the president.”

Robert Wolf, more commonly and affectionately known as Bob, is no longer a kid, and hasn’t been for some time. He has long had white hair and a white beard, and his eyesight isn’t what it used to be. But he is still filled with the coltish enthusiasm that fuels his desire to create what he calls an “autobiography of America.”

That has been his mission for decades now, ever since he ran away from home and began to travel the country, hitchhiking and riding freight trains, stopping here and there and eventually capturing the thoughts and dreams, the fears and joys, the words of people across this country.

They are what some call “ordinary people” and what Wolf calls “everyday people,” and here is what one of them has to say in a new edition of “Coyotes and Stars: Stories from the American Southwest.”

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This is from Clyde Shepherd, cowboy: “We might start work at two-thirty in the morning, dependin’ on how far we were goin’, what pasture we were workin.’ … Wintertime, you wouldn’t hardly ever take a bath … I think about seventeen days was the longest I ever went without a bath.”

Shepherd is just one of the dozens of voices in the book; he is also the person to whom the book is dedicated and about whom Wolf writes, “I will never again meet a man like Clyde Shepherd. His was an open and welcoming nature that invited strangers into his life … He was one of those country folk, now gone.”

For a man who has earned degrees from Columbia University and the University of Chicago, as has Wolf, he is able to communicate honestly with everybody. That seems a manifestation of his sincerity and curiosity, characteristics that he once employed when he did a bit of writing for the Chicago Tribune. And it was during those 1980s years that he met and fell in love with and married the great singer Bonnie Koloc, who is a talented visual artist and whose photographic skills are responsible for the accompanying portrait of her husband.

Wolf began conducting writing workshops for homeless people in Nashville, where he and Koloc lived for a couple of years, and then did the same with farm workers after they settled in northeastern Iowa in 1990.

“I have always believed that anyone who can tell a story can write one,” Wolf says. “And that has been proven over and over in every workshop.”

As the stories began to pile up, it was Koloc who suggested that they deserved to be in book form. So Wolf founded Free River Press, which has published nearly 30 titles, highlighted by the bound story results of workshops held in the Midwest, Mississippi Delta and soon those from New York and Chicago.

“Coyotes and Stars” is the latest, “the outcome of 12 years of effort by many people.” It is a delight, though shadowed by the realization that many of the stories concern aspects of life that are vanishing. Or are already gone.

Here is Beulah Brannan, who ran a cafe: “I grew up on a ranch. My dad bought a farm and they drilled oil wells on it. Magic City was a little town that sprouted oil wells, and we had a little money… (But) after we lost our money, we just kind of existed, like everybody else… I was married in 1939. My husband and I had a prenuptial agreement: you go to the ballet and theater with me and I’ll go hunting and fishing with you.”

You will meet Wolf in some of his writings in the book, such as, “When I decided to create an American self-portrait through writing workshops, America still seemed a quiltwork of cultures that could be maintained. But now decades later, the quiltwork has vanished and can live only in the imagination.”

I would argue that they are also alive in the pages of this book.

Pat Speuda, artist in New Mexico: “I have a home with major appliances, my own paintings on the walls, and handmade shelves filled with books. My husband’s experiments with weed-based mulch paid off — we now have more vegetables than we can eat. And we are happy patrons of the new espresso bar on Route 66. Our cats have a hangout under the old travel trailer, and I have my little pool in the backyard, under the trees… I can’t do anything about the weather.”

Free River Press publications have been featured on such programs as “CBS News Sunday Morning,” on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and “Morning Edition.” There was, for years, a weekly radio program, “American Mosaic with Robert Wolf,” with many stories from Free River Press books read by their authors.

Wolf and Koloc recently finished a book tour in New Mexico and Texas. “Bonnie does most of the driving. My eyes aren’t what they used to be,” Wolf told me. “She has been so supportive over these 35 years.”

He remembers the night they met. It was at the Green Mill and they were introduced by harmonica genius Howard Levy. At that point, Wolf had never heard Koloc sing but, he says, “Oh, we had a wonderful conversation.”

rkogan@chicagotribune.com