What’s New

Chicago police work the scene where multiple people were shot near the Grand Avenue, Halsted Street, and Milwaukee Avenue intersection, in the West Town neighborhood, Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2021. | Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

It was the evening rush hour, and Milwaukee Avenue was crowded with people running errands, leaving work, walking their dogs.

In the shadow of half a dozen gleaming downtown high rises lies a stretch of Milwaukee Avenue that needs but shuns attention.

A square of plywood covers a window in the door at Richard’s Bar. Inside, a middle-aged man with a lighted cigarette in his hand asks to be left alone.

To get service at the messenger business two doors down requires a stroll down a reeking alley to a scuffed metal door with no sign on it.

The two blocks of Milwaukee between Grand and Hubbard may appear neglected, but for many it’s their way into and out of downtown. A short stroll away, at Grand and Halsted, new condo buildings and hipster bars crowd the intersection.

Wednesday evening, the street was jammed with people running errands, leaving work or walking their dogs when gunmen hanging out of car windows wildly fired at another car.

“There were people diving and there was gunpowder in the air,” said Steven Caruso, the man behind the door at Advanced Messenger Service.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Crime scene tape wrapped on some fence near N Milwaukee and W Hubbard in the Fulton River District Thursday, Sept. 30, 2021.

Five people were hit. One was riding a bicycle, another was in the backseat of a ride-share. One man was shot in the back and taken to the hospital in critical condition.

One West Town resident said he was driving with his wife down Milwaukee Avenue — just minutes from their home — when the gunfire started.

“There’s a park right there. It was such a beautiful day. I can’t tell you how many people were in the street,” he said. “The Starbucks patio was packed, there were literally 20 people crossing the street there at Jewel.”

He was near the Metra tracks when he heard a popping noise and turned to see a person with a gun hanging out the window of a car speeding toward him.

“I said to my wife, “Get down, get down,'” said the resident, who didn’t want to be named. “I needed my wife to survive to raise our daughter. That was the only thing that popped in my head.”

He heard the car pass and then saw someone open fire on a car stopped in the intersection. “He was just firing into the car endlessly — 20, 30 bullets — I could see the metal flying off. The only place I’d ever seen that — in a movie.”

The two cars sped off. The resident saw a biker who had been shot and called 9-1-1. Another pedestrian ran over and took off his shirt to apply as a tourniquet.

“I realized we were in a war zone for that two and a half blocks and very lucky to be alive,” he said.

Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times
Chicago police work the scene where multiple people were shot near the Grand Avenue, Halsted Street, and Milwaukee Avenue intersection, in the West Town neighborhood, Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2021.

The resident and other people who frequent this stretch of Milwaukee said they rarely hear gunfire, and that the shooting was a shock.

People get a little rambunctious outside Emmit’s Bar on St. Patrick’s Day. And a few years ago, a man danced naked outside a nearby Italian restaurant.

But police data shows shootings have been spiking around there this year.

There have been at least nine people shot this year in the police beat that covers where the shooting happened. There was just one shooting victim there all of last year, a fatality, one shooting victim in 2019, none in 2018, one in 2017 and two in 2016.

There were two shootings reported in the beat last week: A woman shot while sitting in a car, and a man who showed up at his girlfriend’s home with gunshot wounds to the chest and back.

On Thursday, scraps of knotted police tape still fluttered on rusting lampposts along Milwaukee. On the sidewalk under Metra tracks, a discarded latex glove lay a few feet from what appeared to be a pool of dried blood.

At Richards, the handful of patrons in the bar either didn’t see the shootout or preferred not to discuss it.

Then one customer, playing a video game, turned and barked: “Call the mayor! Ask her what happened. She’s got all the answers.”

Read More

Neil Bluhm, chairman of Rivers Casino, pictured in 2019. Bluhm and partners at Churchill Downs withdrew their proposal for a Waukegan casino shortly after the company announced the sale of Arlington Park to the Bears. | Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

The move could suggest billionaire Neil Bluhm is focusing efforts on landing the long-sought Chicago casino.

One of the state’s most influential gambling companies withdrew its bid to win the right to open a new casino in Waukegan just hours after it announced it would sell Arlington International Racecourse to the Chicago Bears, officials said Thursday.

Churchill Downs Inc. confirmed the flashy $197.2 million agreement with the Bears Wednesday morning, a deal that — if finalized — ensures no rival casino developer breaks ground on the northwest suburban oval that’s only a short drive away from the company’s premier Illinois cash cow: Rivers Casino in Des Plaines.

By Wednesday afternoon, Churchill Downs notified Illinois gambling regulators it was withdrawing its Waukegan casino license application that was submitted nearly two years ago as a joint venture with billionaire Rivers chairman Neil Bluhm’s Rush Street Gaming.

The turning of the cards could suggest Bluhm and company are going all in with a proposal for the newly authorized Chicago mega-casino, though he’s kept a poker face on that possibility so far.

Illinois Gaming Board Administrator Marcus Fruchter revealed the Churchill Downs-Rush Street group had pulled out of the running for the Waukegan casino just before a random drawing Thursday to select the order of public presentations for two remaining groups still competing for the license.

“We thank the City of Waukegan, Illinois Gaming Board, and others who had reviewed our application and appreciated the opportunity to be considered. We wish the city and remaining bidders well,” a spokesman for Bluhm’s group said in an email.

Rush Street spokesman Dennis Culloton said it was only a coincidence they withdrew the same day Churchill Downs announced the sale of Arlington. Rush Street does not have a stake in the 326-acre parcel that could be the destination for the Bears — but it does have a sponsorship deal with the team.

“Quite simply, a lot has changed since 2019,” Culloton said.

The bid was pulled after regulators spent nearly two years vetting it along with a wave of other hopefuls looking for a piece of the pie in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s 2019 gambling expansion that added six new casinos. A Gaming Board spokesman declined to comment on the drain of resources at the perennially overworked and understaffed agency.

Churchill Downs previously drew the wrath of the Illinois horse racing industry for passing up on the opportunity to open a “racino” at Arlington, which likely ran its final races last weekend. Critics have argued the company’s true intention was to shield Rivers Casino from competition, though Churchill Downs CEO Bill Carstanjen has insisted they want to open a thoroughbred racetrack somewhere else in the state.

Photo courtesy Arlington International Racecourse
The Arlington Million in 2015).

Carstanjen has been noncommittal so far about the prospect of applying for the Chicago casino, which has drawn a tepid response from other major national gaming developers concerned with high taxes. So has Bluhm, who has close ties to Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

It’s not clear if either — or both in tandem — have applied to run the 4,000-position Chicago casino, but they’d be instant front-runners. With interest flagging at the city’s August application deadline, Lightfoot pushed it back to Oct. 29.

Bluhm’s Rush Street Gaming was among the companies that responded to the city’s initial request for information seeking ideas last summer for the long-sought mega-casino. Culloton said making a formal pitch for it is still “under consideration.”

The two remaining Waukegan casino applicants — Las Vegas developer Full House Resorts and Lakeside Casino LLC, a company led by former Grayslake state Sen. Michael Bond — will make their final public cases for the north suburban license Oct. 13.

Four development groups competing for one license in the south suburbs will also make their final pitches: Calumet City, Lynwood, Matteson and a site that straddles Homewood and East Hazel Crest.

Read More

Post ContentRead More

Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

It’s time to wear those rainbow colors again, students and faculty. Because lacrosse coach Amanda Kammes is right where she belongs.

About those rainbow colors. They are not confusing.

Not in a day when same-sex marriage is legal in all 50 states, when the biggest city in the culturally moderate Midwest elects a gay woman as mayor, and when a teen pop star, JoJo Siwa, dances with her same-sex partner on “Dancing With the Stars.”

We knew exactly what students and teachers at Benet Academy in Lisle were saying earlier this month when they wore rainbow colors on campus, even if Head of School Stephen Marth claimed to find it a little “confusing.”

They were standing up for tolerance, acceptance, love and — they stressed — their Christian values by protesting the school administration’s decision to rescind a job offer to a respected girls lacrosse coach, Amanda Kammes, solely because she was married to another woman.

And if any more clarity was necessary, they spelled it out in an online petition demanding that the school reverse course and hire Kammes:

“By rejecting a talented potential staff member on the basis of whom she loves, you have utterly failed to uphold the principles of dignity and charity that you purport to practice as a Christian institution,” they wrote. “We are ashamed of your narrow interpretation of Christian morality.”

“The right candidate”

Well, things all worked out. If only for the moment.

After a Benet Academy board of directors meeting on Sept. 20, the administration decided to hire Kammes after all, saying her “background and experience” made her “the right candidate for the position.” The school’s board and administration actually had listened to the arguments of the students and teachers, and many of us dared to hope this might mark a new attitude by Catholic schools with respect to hiring LGBTQ people.

Well, again. Not so fast.

On Tuesday, the school’s chancellor, Abbot Austin Murphy of St. Procopius Abbey, said he was “deeply troubled by the school’s decision which calls into question its adherence to the doctrines of the Catholic faith.”

It’s unclear whether Murphy has the authority to override the decision to hire Kammes, but the school was founded by the abbey, and Murphy serves on the board of directors. He’s in a position, at the very least, to throw this hiring decision up for grabs.

It’s time to wear those rainbow colors again, students. It’s time to remind Murphy that gay rights are human rights, that nobody’s going back into the closet, and that when any religious group is deeply divided on a question of right and wrong — as American Catholics are on this one — it is always better to lean toward greater compassion and acceptance.

Plus, great instructors like Kammes, a Benet alum herself, don’t come along every day.

“Ministerial exceptions” must be true exceptions

As a legal matter, it is an open question whether Benet Academy, or any faith-based school, is on firm ground in refusing to hire a teacher or coach because of their sexual orientation.

Last year, a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of Bostock v. Clayton County, ruled that an employer who fires a person for being homosexual or transgender is violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race color, religion, sex or national origin.

But the court also has allowed for a “ministerial exception” to this prohibition when it comes to religious institutions choosing their clergy and others who work in ministry.

The question then becomes whether teachers and coaches — such as a girls lacrosse coach at Benet Academy — credibly can be claimed, in a secular American court, to be working in ministry.

To our thinking, that’s an absurd stretch, not unlike claiming a ministerial exception to hiring an African American teacher or coach. In a nation that holds civil rights to be precious, ministerial exceptions should be truly exceptions.

And yet, more than 100 Catholic church workers in the last decade, including teachers, have lost their jobs in LGBTQ-related employment disputes that went public, according to New Way Ministry, an organization that advocates for LGBTQ Catholics.

The administration of Benet Academy listened to its better angels, as channeled by the school’s students and faculty, in reversing course and hiring Kammes. May it never stop listening or standing up for what’s right.

Send letters to [email protected].

Read More

Bernard Stratton sits on a neighbor’s front porch and cradles his puppy with burn injuries after the dog was rescued from his burning home early Thursday in the 4900 block of South Princeton Avenue in Fuller Park on the South Side. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

Firefighters responded early Thursday to the 4900 block of South Princeton Avenue.

Coy Freeman was sleeping soundly in his Fuller Park home early Thursday when his service dog Rello began making a lot of noise.

“He was barking outrageously and scratching on the door,” said Freeman. Then he noticed that fire and smoke was filling the coach house where he and his uncle lived.

“We grabbed as many dogs as we could before the smoke got so bad the firefighters wouldn’t let us in there,” said Freeman, 43.

They saved three dogs and five puppies, all of which were American Bullys. Three animals didn’t make it, a mother, daughter — both of which were also service dogs — and granddaughter.

“I’m heartbroken,” Freeman said. “I spent every moment of my life taking care of these dogs. I’m visually impaired and I love the dogs.”

He credited 6-year-old Rello for alerting him to the blaze.

“The dog woke us up… He’s the hero.”

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Chicago Fire Department firefighters work to extinguish hot spots Thursday morning after an overnight fire broke out in a vacant building and spread to six other buildings, including two coach houses, in the 4900 block of South Princeton Avenue in Fuller Park on the South Side.

The fire broke out in a vacant building around 3:30 a.m. and spread to six other buildings, including two coach houses, in the 4900 block of South Princeton Avenue, according to the Chicago Fire Department.

Eight people were displaced and none were injured, fire officials said. During a search, firefighters rescued the four puppies and paramedics provided oxygen to them.

Freeman said he lived on the block for five years and suspects the fire may have been set on purpose.

“This is the work of a professional arsonist,” he said. “Just like what’s been through the rest of this neighborhood. Houses don’t catch on fire like that over here. We’ve been in this neighborhood forever. This type of s— don’t happen. But in this last year or so, in the wee hours of the night, abandoned houses are catching on fire, burning up surrounding houses.”

The fire department said the cause of the blaze was under investigation.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Three dogs and five puppies were rescued from a burning home after a fire broke out in a vacant building early Thursday and spread to six other buildings in the 4900 block of South Princeton Avenue in Fuller Park on the South Side.

Freeman’s uncle sat on a neighbor’s porch cradling a 3-month-old yet-to-be named puppy with burns on his back.

“I was telling [the firefighters] I got more dogs in there to get out,” Bernard Stratton said softly. One puppy that wasn’t breathing well was given oxygen and taken to an emergency vet, he said.

Stratton, 57, said this was the second tragedy to strike him in two months. His 29-year-old son, who went by the same name, was shot and killed on the Dan Ryan Expressway near 33rd Street on Aug. 6, he said.

Stratton said his son’s ashes were still in the home but he hasn’t been allowed back in to retrieve them. “I hope they’re OK and that I can get them,” he said.

Freeman said the loss of his dogs was painful because he had invested a lot of time and effort raising them.

“I love these dogs. I’m hurt so much right now,” Freeman said. “I’m trying to figure it out right now. I can’t tell you what my next move is. I’m trying to wrap my head around it.”

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Coy Freeman, left, and his uncle Bernard Stratton look at their dogs, some of whom have burn injuries, after their home was destroyed in a fire early Thursday in the 4900 block of South Princeton Avenue in Fuller Park on the South Side.Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Chicago Fire Department firefighters work to extinguish hot spots after a fire broke out early Thursday in a vacant building and spread to six other buildings, including two coach houses, in the 4900 block of South Princeton Avenue in Fuller Park on the South Side.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Chicago Fire Department firefighters work to extinguish hot spots Thursday morning after an overnight fire broke out in a vacant building and spread to six other buildings, including two coach houses, in the 4900 block of South Princeton Avenue in Fuller Park on the South Side.Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Chicago Fire Department firefighters work to extinguish hot spots Thursday morning after an overnight fire broke out in a vacant building and spread to six other buildings, including two coach houses, in the 4900 block of South Princeton Avenue in Fuller Park on the South Side.

Read More

Acquired this offseason, Jones talked about the idea of two former Slam Dunk Contest winners going at it in the ultimate dunk-off, and unfortunately completely downplayed it actually happening with himself and LaVine.

There’s always a hope for a “Rocky III” ending.

Much like Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed did at the end of that movie, maybe, just maybe, Derrick Jones Jr. and Zach LaVine will meet in some dimly lit gym with no judges, no teammates, and no fans. Just a ball and a rim. The 2020 Slam Dunk Champion in Jones against the two-time champion in LaVine. Air-defying dunk vs. air-defying dunk.

In the end, no one but Jones and LaVine would know who’s actually better.

Unfortunately, it’s going to have to stay a Hollywood script.

“That ain’t happen, I ain’t gonna lie,” Jones said on Thursday, when asked if he and LaVine had engaged in any sort of dunk-off talk. “Zach got it. He won two championships. I mean if it happens, it happens. But that’s my guy.”

According to Jones, not even his new Bulls teammates have been trying to stir that showdown up.

“Nah. Nah, we not really paying attention to dunks,” he said. “Throughout the course of practice or a workout, if we get an open lane, we dunk it. I seen him dunk one time since I been here. So I don’t think we’re going to have a dunk-off anytime soon.”

The way Jones sees it he has bigger goals to focus on. Acquired from Portland in the three-way deal that sent Lauri Markkanen to Cleveland, Jones is in the mix for a key role off the bench in the frontcourt, and until Patrick Williams is back from a left ankle injury, a shot in the starting lineup in Williams’ vacancy.

And while he has no idea how either will play out, he does know that he’s in the right place for the first time in a few years.

Jones confirmed a Sun-Times story from back in April of 2020, when it was reported that the old Bull regime was looking at the then-Miami Heat forward as a free-agent addition.

“Yeah, a few years ago, I did know,” Jones said. “Right before I signed with Portland, I knew that Chicago was heavy on me. This has always been my favorite NBA team. I haven’t told anybody in the NBA that. I’ve always been a big DRose [Derrick Rose] fan and a big [Michael] Jordan fan. Me being in this position now, I’m just so grateful. Every moment I’m out there on the floor I’m going to play it like it’s my last.”

Labrum blues

Coby White admittedly had a classic reaction when he was first told about his shoulder injury this offseason, telling reporters that the first thing he asked the doctor was, “Uh, what is a labrum?”

After laughing through his account of the story with the media, the guard said the team doctor, “did a good job of explaining to me what it was and what the process was gonna be like … at that point there’s not too much you can do about it. I just kinda took it in stride and continued to just attack rehab.”

Not the only thing White attacked this offseason.

Limited in what he could do for the past few months, White said the key for him has been taking mental reps. Which means diving into film and talking the game through with coaches.

“Me growing mentally and watching a lot of film, that’s all I really could do,” White said. “Now I just started getting back on the court. I’ve never been out this long for basketball so for me right now it’s focusing on getting my shoulder strong and just finding a rhythm on the basketball court.”

Read More

Several TV shows are produced at Cinespace Chicago Film Studios, 2621 W. 15th Pl. | Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

Retiring Cultural Affairs and Special Events Commissioner Mark Kelly said filmmaking is “significantly up” in Chicago, with a record 15 TV productions in the city right now, at an estimated economic value this year of about $750 million.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s roadmap to recovery from the pandemic called for Chicago capture a far greater share of the nation’s film and television production.

Mission accomplished, aldermen were told Thursday. Chicago has strengthened its reputation as the Hollywood of the Midwest.

Retiring Cultural Affairs and Special Events Commissioner Mark Kelly said filmmaking is “significantly up” in Chicago, with 15 television productions in the city right now — a record.

“We estimate the economic value of that for this year will be about $750 million. It’s now over 20,000 jobs. … And, because Illinois’ tax credit is the only tax credit that has a minority hiring clause with additional benefits, over 50% of crews” in Illinois are either minority or female, Kelly said.

“Is it enough? No. But compared to any other city, we’re off the charts.”

Kelly noted Chicago-based Cinespace — where NBC’s “Chicago Fire,” “Chicago P.D.” and “Chicago Med” are filmed — is now the “largest studio in North America.”

Sun-Times file
A crew is shown in 2013 shooting a scene for “Chicago Fire,” along the Chicago River off Lower Wacker Drive. It’s one of several NBC TV shows that are filmed in the city.

That local inventory of production space is expected to expand when Chicago-born rapper Common and producer Derek Dudley break ground — “any time now,” Kelly said — on their $60 million film studio in South Shore.

That project, on seven acres at 7731 S. Chicago Ave., calls for six studios for both film and television production, Kelly said.

Dudley has said the project could anchor a South Side entertainment district that would include the nearby Avalon Regal Theater.

Thursday, on the hot seat at City Council budget hearings for the final time, Kelly said the importance of “this emerging film scene” cannot be overstated.

“Not just economically. Think of it as sort of like the Michael Jordan impact. Think of how this one individual sort of remade Chicago’s image in the world. Well, filming does that, too,” Kelly said.

“We see L.A. and New York through the films that come from there. We, in Chicago, should emerge as one of the top film-producing locations in this country.”

The embarrassment of Hollywood riches has not been without growing pains.

At the budget hearing, aldermen complained to Kelly about the inconveniences their constituents have endured — too often without warning or compensation — to make way for TV and film production.

“Sometimes they knock on doors. Sometimes they don’t. … If you’re a resident and you’re coming home, you’re not given enough time to know that your block is going to be commandeered … for that week or for the number of days they’re gonna be out there. You’ve got to park around the corner,” said Ald. Michael Scott (24th), whose West Side ward includes Cinespace.

“I want to make sure that every show on every block does exactly what they need to do to make sure this happens.”

Associated Press
The movie “Transformers 3” filming on Michigan Avenue in July 2010.

Kelly noted the film office requires 48 hours notice to impacted communities and 72 hours notice in neighborhoods “where there’s too much filmmaking.”

“They have to meet that. If they don’t, we hold them accountable,” he said.

“And where filming becomes excessive, we will introduce a moratorium for 30 or 60 days because they need to go somewhere else. We did it three times this year.”

As for the uneven reimbursement for production inconvenience, Kelly said $60,000 was recently spent to compensate residents and business owners on 61st Street alone.

“That should be standardized. Everyone she expect the same as that goes forward. Where you hear that’s not the case talk to the film office,” he said.

Near West Side Ald. Walter Burnett (27th) was among a parade of aldermen more concerned about the plethora of neighborhood festivals that either blindside aldermen, drain police resources or both.

“There’s getting ready to be a gang fight right down the block. I’m like, ‘Commander, they’re getting ready to shoot guys. They just called and told me what’s going on.’ And she’s like, ‘Alderman, I don’t have no people.’ They’re at all these festivals,'” Burnett said.

Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) said the festivals that flock to his downtown ward are a “great thing” and a “wonderful way to show off the city.”

But, he added: “It’s difficult to field those angry phone calls when we’re not brought into the process on the front end.”

Read More

Alex Nylander hasn’t played in a Blackhawks game since August 2020. | AP Photo/Bill Kostroun

Nylander, after missing all of last season recovering from knee surgery, is just now “getting his conditioning back to the level it needs to be.”

Alex Nylander, despite his inconsistency, took an undeniable step forward in 2019-20. He became a full-time NHL player for the first time in his tumultuous young career, tallying a respectable 26 points in 65 games.

He expected to take another such step in 2021. But injury luck had other plans: he tore a meniscus in his knee, forcing him to undergo surgery in December and miss the entire season.

“I was really ready for my second year [with the Hawks],” Nylander said. “I got injured there like a week before training camp. It was tough to hear…[and] really frustrating. You learn a lot of things from the rehab process.”

The initial recovery time estimate was four-to-six months, but “because of the way it was torn,” the actual recovery exceeded that. Even this summer he was inhibited from working much on other aspects of his game.

His knee finally feels 100% healthy now, but the past year has left his fitness lagging behind the curve.

He has sometimes trailed behind during end-of-practice laps during training camp the past week. And in the preseason opener Wednesday, he struggled during his 14:33 of ice time, during which the Red Wings outshot the Hawks 6-1. His most notable moment was strangely breaking up a breakout attempt by his own teammate, Nicolas Beaudin.

“He’s just getting back up to speed again, getting his conditioning back to the level it needs to be,” coach Jeremy Colliton said. “It’s just [about] getting back to that NHL speed [because] he hasn’t skated much.”

Much has been deservedly made of Jonathan Toews’ effort to get back to playing at an NHL level, but Toews isn’t the only Hawk working during camp to scrape off not just a summer’s worth but basically a year’s worth of rust.

Nylander, obviously, is another. So are Kirby Dach and Jake McCabe.

Dach missed 38 of the Hawks’ 56 games last season recovering from wrist surgery and never truly found his groove. McCabe missed the Sabres’ final 42 games recovering from his own knee surgery. Both of them returned to 100% health this summer, but must make up a lot of ground fitness-wise this fall.

“[This is] the benefit of a longer camp — it sure helps them,” Colliton said. “If all those guys were in a situation where we had seven days and then it’s time to play (like last season), it’d be a lot more difficult.”

Stacy Revere/Getty Images
Kirby Dach played more than 21 minutes in Wednesday’s preseason game.

Dach’s early results are encouraging. On Wednesday he played 21:25, during which the Hawks outshot the Wings 12-3. His defensive instincts have been excellent since his rookie year, and his offensive aggressiveness should increase this year.

“Last year, stepping in during the playoff race, it’s a higher tempo, and you don’t really have that leeway where — if you do make a mistake — guys aren’t as sharp,” Dach said. “It’s good to have this buffer area to get out all the kinks and get ready to go.

“[I want to] prove to myself, teammates, management and the league, honestly, that I’m a good player. I can be a dominant player each and every night. I know I’ve got a lot of work to do in that aspect, but I’m excited for the challenge.”

McCabe has also felt “really good” throughout camp and should make his preseason debut Friday. He seems the farthest along of the four guys coming off major absences.

Nylander, meanwhile, seems the most unprepared of the four to play opening night. His sluggishness, combined with the Hawks’ surplus of quality forwards, may foreshadow an October in Rockford for the former eighth overall pick.

But the organization certainly hasn’t yet given up on him, and neither has he in himself.

“I’m really happy and excited getting back [out] there,” Nylander said. “Being in the dressing room with the guys, getting to do normal things, is also good. It’s been a long time.”

Read More

Kendrick Lamar (from left), Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Dr, Dre are scheduled to perform for the first time together on stage at the 2022 Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show. | AP Photos

The Feb. 13 show Inglewood, California, will be the artists’ first time on stage together.

LOS ANGELES — Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar will perform for the first time on stage together at the 2022 Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show.

The NFL, Pepsi and Roc Nation announced Thursday that the five music icons will perform on Feb. 13 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Lamar are Southern California natives.

“The opportunity to perform at the Super Bowl Halftime show, and to do it in my own backyard, will be one of the biggest thrills of my career,” Dr. Dre said in a statement. The seven-time Grammy winner added that their halftime performance will an “unforgettable cultural moment.”

The Super Bowl returns to the Los Angeles area since 1993. It’s the third year of collaboration between the NFL, Pepsi and Roc Nation.

Roc Nation and Emmy-nominated producer Jesse Collins will serve as co-producers of the halftime show. The game and halftime show will air live on NBC.

The five music artists have a combined 44 Grammys. Eminem has the most with 15.

Roc Nation founder Jay-Z said in a statement that their show will be “history in the making.”

Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Blige and Lamar join a list of celebrated musicians who have played during Super Bowl halftime shows, including Beyonce, Madonna, Coldplay, Katy Perry, U2, Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, Shakira and last year’s performer The Weeknd.

Read More

Rick Majewski/For the Sun-Times

Putting Republican state legislatures in charge of certifying elections is an ominous development.

The big question isn’t whether Donald Trump plans to run for president come 2024. Assuming that he’s alive, relatively healthy and not under criminal indictment, of course he will. He pretty much has to.

Never mind that at age 75, Trump looks like a stroke or coronary event waiting to happen. The show must go on. He needs all the cash he can raise. Otherwise, his lifelong grift could come to an ignominious, if not farcical, end. Tax fraud convictions and spiraling bankruptcies would be the least of it.

And if he runs, Republicans will surely nominate him.

What’s left of the party he’s torn apart won’t be able to help themselves. Formerly apostles of “small government” conservatism, the GOP has morphed into a quasi-authoritarian cult of personality.

Despite the staggering incompetence and low comedy that marked his 2020 “Stop the Steal” campaign, it’s worth remembering that people laughed at Mussolini, too. Charlie Chaplin’s merciless satire of Hitler in “The Great Dictator” didn’t appear until October 1940, a full year into World War II.

So it’s definitely worthwhile heeding thoughtful warnings that next time, an electoral coup might work. Although there’s almost no chance that Trump could come anywhere close to winning a majority of American voters, GOP skullduggery could put him back in the White House … assuming that a complacent majority allowed it to happen.

Longtime neoconservative author Robert Kagan has recently published a thought-provoking Washington Post essay arguing that a constitutional crisis is already upon us. Kagan, who left the GOP in 2016, warns that “(m)ost Americans — and all but a handful of politicians — have refused to take this possibility seriously enough to try to prevent it. As has so often been the case in other countries where fascist leaders arise, their would-be opponents are paralyzed in confusion and amazement at this charismatic authoritarian.”

Certainly, Republicans are doing all they can to game the 2024 presidential election. Should they retake Congress in 2022, they’ll do even more. So while it’s possible that efforts to prevent minorities from voting could backfire — discouraging older white voters while energizing African Americans — putting Republican state legislatures in charge of certifying elections is an ominous development.

Had that been so in 2020, Trump’s comic opera coup attempt might have succeeded. Bob Woodward and Robert Costa’s book “Peril” detailed a six-part plan dreamed up by right-wing law professor John Eastman, who harangued the crowd along with Trump and Rudy Giuliani on Jan. 6. The scheme required Vice President Mike Pence to invalidate electoral votes won by Joe Biden on the grounds that seven states had sent rival sets of electors to Congress.

“If Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election,” Trump told the mob before promising to march with them to the Capitol and “fight like hell” to save the country.

“You can either go down in history as a patriot,” Trump reportedly told Pence, “or you can go down in history as a pussy.”

Meow!

Never mind the constitutional absurdity — how can the vice president decide an election in which he’s himself a candidate? — Eastman’s scam failed for the simplest of reasons: No states sent rival delegations to the Electoral College.

Indeed, had they done so, the likeliest outcome would have been that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would have dissolved the joint session of Congress, leading to her temporarily assuming the presidency as the next in succession.

Oops!

As usual, Trump had neglected to read the fine print. (The fact is, he probably can’t. But that’s another issue altogether.)

Kagan’s point is that, next time, Trumpist legislatures will definitely send those rival delegations. Or worse. Some Republican-dominated bodies are even considering overriding their state’s popular vote, if necessary, to reinstall Trump.

Purged of dissenters like Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, today’s Republicans have become what Kagan calls a “zombie party” in thrall to a poseur. “They view Trump as strong and defiant,” he writes, “willing to take on the establishment, Democrats, RINOs, liberal media, antifa, the Squad, Big Tech and the ‘Mitch McConnell Republicans.”‘

In other words, basically a list of cartoon enemies. If my own hostile reader emails are any guide, this is certainly true. To Trumpists, their rivals are fundamentally illegitimate. It’s basically a pro-wrestling audience, excited by spectacle. To them, Trump’s egomania is a feature, not a bug. He’ll give no quarter to his enemies — and theirs.

“A Trump victory,” Kagan concludes, “is likely to mean at least the temporary suspension of American democracy as we have known it.”

Which is exactly why it’s not going to happen. Kagan is a learned and intelligent fellow, but he has a melodramatic imagination of his own. As a co-founder of the Project for a New American Century, he pushed hard for remaking the world by invading Iraq.

His warnings are well-taken, but Kagan badly underestimates the determination of the democratic majority.

Send letters to [email protected].

Read More