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Newly released video from a police shooting last month shows a tense, chaotic scene with officers yelling at each other to stay clear as they fired dozens of rounds at a suspect who allegedly was pointing a gun from a Jeep.

The suspect, facing more than a dozen counts of aggravated sexual assault, was killed during the July 9 confrontation in West Garfield Park.

No officers were injured, despite repeated concerns voiced in the video about getting caught in crossfire as they surrounded the Jeep.

The events unfolded as federal marshals and Cook County sheriff’s deputies confronted Klevontaye White, 34, around 9:40 a.m. in the 100 block of South Kilpatrick Avenue.

White had escaped electronic monitoring and the marshals and deputies had cut off his Jeep in the middle of the block and ordered him out.

He refused and, according to officers on the scene, repeatedly aimed a handgun at them from the backseat. None of the more than two dozen videos from body-worn cameras and in-car cameras clearly show the suspect in the Jeep.

The video, released by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability Tuesday afternoon, begins with a marshal and two police officers making plans to approach the Jeep with shields so they can break the back window.

As they get near the SUV, a single gunshot is heard. Some officers on the scene believe it came from inside the Jeep, but it isn’t clear from the video who fired that shot.

There immediately follow a barrage of gunfire in the West Garfield Park. Officers momentarily stop and approach the Jeep again.

Several shout “Stop moving!” over and over before firing more bullets into the SUV.

At this point, a federal marshal and a Chicago police supervisor yell at a pair of Chicago police officers for crossing into other officers’ line of fire.

“Don’t get in front of each other,” the supervisor yells.

“What the f— are you guys doing?” another officer yells at the two.

The two officers, one holding a shield and the other behind him, kept getting in the way of a federal marshal with a shield. When asked to step back, the cop holding the shield pressed forward anyway.

“Dude, calm the f— down,” the supervisor said, pushing the officer back.

“They need a shield, Sarg,” he responded.

“You can’t shield in front of another shield, calm it down!” the supervisor said before asking his partner to escort him from the scene.

His partner pulls him from the back and tries to calm the other officer, who repeatedly holsters his gun and pulls back out.

“He doesn’t listen to me, I’m so sorry,” the supervisor tells the partner later.

Officers struggled briefly to unlock the back door and found White lying across the seat. He had suffered a gunshot wound to the head, and officers pulled him out and began applying compressions to his chest.

A few minutes later an ambulance arrived. White was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

A handgun was recovered on the street near the Jeep, police said.

On the day of the shooting, Police Supt. David Brown said White was killed after he brandished a gun. At the time, Brown said it was unclear if White had fired at officers, though cops on the scene were heard on the police radio saying shots had been fired at them.

A Chicago police spokesman didn’t respond to questions about whether White had fired his gun, or whether the officer pulled from the scene by a supervisor was disciplined. He said COPA was still investigating.

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

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A 30-year-old man was fatally shot Tuesday afternoon in Gresham on the South Side.

The man was standing on a corner about 3:30 p.m. in the 7500 block of South Damen Avenue when a white-colored Kia approached and someone inside fired shots, Chicago police said.

He suffered a gunshot wound to the left side of the body and was transported to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn where he was pronounced dead, police said. He has not yet been identified.

There was no one in custody, according to police.

Read more on crime, and track the city’s homicides.

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Tanking and rebuilding has worked on both sides of town in Chicago, as it has to varying degrees in Houston, Atlanta, currently in San Diego and elsewhere in the major leagues.

Perhaps it’s sound business strategy even in a market the size of this one and even in an organization such as the Cubs, who reportedly have quadrupled in value during the decade-plus ownership of the Ricketts family.

We can argue that another time. In fact, I’m certain we will.

Meanwhile, we should all be able to agree that the Cubs are stretching the truth when they try to characterize their current state as retooling — while staying competitive — rather than rebuilding. The lineup we’re seeing post-Anthony Rizzo, Javy Baez and Kris Bryant is a hollow shell. The pitching staff is more of a dried husk. Wait, is there a difference?

It’s 2014 again, only with the prospects in the pipeline — particularly those who came last week in deadline trades for the Cubs’ three most popular players — younger and less-ballyhooed than they were when Baez, Bryant, Kyle Schwarber and others were getting close.

And speaking of empty rhetoric, we really shouldn’t let chairman Tom Ricketts just skate by after some of the language he used this week in a letter to season-ticket holders.

While referring to Cubs prospects who were traded for veterans since the 2016 World Series, he wrote: “We do not regret pouring everything we had into keeping this championship window open as long as possible.”

“Everything we had”? “As long as possible”? Way to crank up the ol’ Platitude-o-Meter.

Alas, there was lint in the Ricketts’ pockets and dust in the family piggy bank — how unbelievably tragic (emphasis on the “unbelievable”). Otherwise, Yu Darvish would still be here. The departure of Bryant, a 29-year-old former MVP who can be plopped most anywhere on the field, wouldn’t have dragged out for years as one of the saddest foregone conclusions Chicago sports has seen.

In reference to the Cubs’ previous rebuild, Ricketts also wrote: “You believed in our plan to win and trusted us to deliver on our commitment to play championship baseball in the greatest ballpark in America. We did, and I assure you, we will do it again soon.”

So he’s guaranteeing championships now? Here on Planet Earth, the proverbial five-year baseball rebuild comes with no actual guarantees. Ask former Phillies general manager Matt Klentak, just to name one. His rebuild didn’t take. Sometimes, you sign Jon Lester to legitimize your efforts and take you over the top. Other times, you sign Jake Arrieta. Guess which one the Phillies did.

The Phillies have moved on from Klentak and are still trying to win, but they’re a .500 team. What’s the best-case scenario for them? Getting to the postseason as the worst team in the playoff field? Oh, what fun.

Imagine if, four or five years hence, that’s where the Cubs — after trying afresh without Theo Epstein, without Joe Maddon, with all new player pieces — find themselves. I can think of at least 108 reasons why it could play out in that manner or worse. Ownership and management will be held to the fire like never before if this rebuild stalls, let alone if it fails.

Ricketts painted a picture for season-ticket holders that looks identical to one they’ve seen before, writing: “Highly anticipated call-ups. Wrigley Field debuts. Immediate big-league impact. It’s all part of what makes our game so special. We’re grateful for the chance to share in that joy and journey together again.”

That sure is taking a heck of a lot for granted. Maybe it’ll pan out like he says. Maybe it won’t. As an old boss of mine used to say: We’ll cross that bridge when it collapses.

JUST SAYIN’

Tuesday was the 42-year anniversary of Tony La Russa‘s debut as White Sox manager. That first game was so long ago, the scent of Disco Demolition Night — held three weeks prior — still hung in the Comiskey Park air. ESPN was still weeks away from launching. Somewhere off in the vast distance, a 2-year-old by the name of David Ross toddled around.

All of which is to say: Anyone who poked fun at La Russa over the weekend for his “sprint” from the dugout after Jose Abreu got hit in the head with a pitch totally missed the point. Sure, the memes were funny. But to still have that juice after all these years? At 76, the third-oldest manager ever?

That’s a gift.

o Lonzo Ball, DeMar DeRozan, Alex Caruso …

This is good, people. This is very good.

Unless the new-look Bulls don’t mesh together at all, in which case I’ll say I told you so.

o Seriously, there’s nothing not to like about Bulls big cheese Arturas Karnisovas adding playmaking ability, shooting and defense to the mix in large doses. Minutes will have to be earned more than they were before. The team will be tougher and have more answers. Games will be — I can hardly believe it — tolerable to watch.

But it’s hard to see where second-round pick Ayo Dosunmu fits into the picture. Illinois fans barked all last season that he was the best player in the country, even though he wasn’t. They barked that he should be in mock lotteries, even though it turned out he wasn’t close. Now they’re barking that he’s a first-round talent — the steal of the draft — but he’s swimming upstream with all this perimeter talent around him.

Dosunmu’s work ethic is truly exceptional, though, and he made enormous improvements to his body and his game in three years at Illinois. He’ll find a role eventually, in his hometown or not.

o Tampering rules?

Ball, Chris Paul, Kyle Lowry and others all jumped to new teams, like, 10 seconds after Monday’s opening of free agency.

What tampering rules?

It’s a wild-west NBA. At least Karnisovas has a horse and a pistol, unlike his predecessors.

o The Cowboys are doing HBO’s “Hard Knocks” again?

Sure, that’ll go well for all involved.

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From the Heathers to the Plastics, teenage girls and their cliques have proved to be a sturdy source of pop culture anthropology. And beauty pageants have also been fertile ground for satirical treatment, from Michael Ritchie’s 1975 film Smile to Little Miss Sunshine. (And let’s not forget Annoyance Theatre’s long-running 1990s hit, The Miss Vagina Pageant, created by Faith and Joey Soloway.)

But Jocelyn Bioh’s School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play isn’t going for low-hanging fruit of the “look-at-how-shallow-this-world-is” variety. Instead, it takes the basic plot of Mean Girls (new girl arrives and upends the social pecking order) and uses it as a springboard for examining postcolonialism and the whiteness of beauty standards.

Lili-Anne Brown’s staging for the Goodman was in previews in March 2020 when . . . well, you know. A recording of one of the preview performances was briefly available last year, but now it’s back in all its hilarious and heartbreaking live glory on the Goodman’s Albert stage. (Brown and Goodman artistic director Robert Falls both made brief comments outside the theater opening night before a symbolic relighting of the Goodman marquee.)

It’s 1986, and the girls of the Aburi Girls Senior High (a real place where Bioh’s mother was a student) are awaiting the arrival of a representative who will give one of them the chance to be Miss Ghana at the Miss Global Universe pageant. The odds-on favorite is Paulina (Ciera Dawn), who rules over her minions with icy-cold Regina George-esque force. But her dominance is challenged by the arrival of Ericka Boafo (Kyrie Courter), the Ohio-raised daughter of a local cocoa plantation owner. (Bioh’s story was inspired in part by 2009’s Miss Minnesota, Erica Nego, who also was elected Miss Universe Ghana in 2011.)

Ericka’s kinder to the other girls than Paulina (admittedly a low bar to clear). She also has access to American beauty products and knowledge of pop culture that sets her apart. But it’s her light skin that makes her the favorite of Eloise Amponsah (Lanise Antoine Shelley), an Aburi alum who was Miss Ghana 1966 and who is determined to mentor a girl who can win it all on the international stage. And if that means catering to colorism, so be it.

Bioh’s script and Brown’s staging both work in beautiful synch at unpeeling the complicated layers of these young women’s lives. And the older women’s, too–the conflict between Shelley’s self-conscious glamour-puss (she seems to be channeling Joan Collins’s Alexis Colby from Dynasty at some points) and the sturdy earnestness of her former classmate, Headmistress Francis (Tania Richard) suggests how long the stab wounds of adolescent battles take to heal.

Ghana only gained independence from Great Britain in 1957–less than ten years before Eloise won her title. In 1986, no Black African woman had won an international pageant, and wouldn’t until Mpule Kwelagobe won Miss Universe in 1999. (Vanessa Williams won the Miss America title in 1983, only to resign under pressure from the pageant and the media when Penthouse published nude photos of her without permission. Williams got an apology from the Miss America organization–in 2016.)

The idea that these women aren’t just representing their own dreams but those of a country struggling to emerge from the oppression of colonialism is threaded throughout the play, as is the question of how best to counter the standards and stereotypes placed upon them by others. Beat them at their own game, or realize that the game isn’t worth the candle? Bioh doesn’t provide simple answers. Instead, she provides a chance for young Black women to experience joy, friendship, and conflict, and finally express understanding for the burdens they’re all carrying that are too often unspoken.

Of course painful secrets are revealed and schemes are upended. Neither Paulina nor Ericka are exactly who they seem to be at the beginning. But Brown keeps a firm handle on the shifts between the ridiculous (a practice pageant where the girls sing “Greatest Love of All” is a comic highlight) and the poignant. The entire eight-actor ensemble is delightful, but Ashley Crowe as good-hearted Nana, whose penchant for snacking and access to the headmistress’s records is exploited by Paulina, is particularly striking. She fully embodies a young woman who just wants to fit into a world that generally seems intent on either ignoring her or constantly finding fault.

At a well-paced 80 minutes, School Girls fills the Goodman stage with a smart and sly assessment of the undue burdens placed on Black women just for existing in their own skin. (Our current vice president apparently can’t even laugh without it being used as a cudgel against her.) Bioh’s play makes its points within a familiar narrative framework, but fleshes them out with subtle yet sharp observational humor and great warmth and empathy for the girls at the heart of the story. v

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A law firm hired to investigate gender equity concerns at NCAA championship events released a blistering report Tuesday that recommended holding the men’s and women’s Final Fours at the same site and offering financial incentives to schools to improve their women’s basketball programs.

The review by Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP had been highly anticipated. The firm was hired in March after the NCAA failed to provide similar amenities to the teams in the men’s and women’s Division I basketball tournaments, a situation that blew up on social media amid player complaints and prompted apologies from NCAA executives including President Mark Emmert.

“With respect to women’s basketball, the NCAA has not lived up to its stated commitment to ‘diversity, inclusion and gender equity among its student-athletes, coaches and administrators,'” the 113-page report concludes.

The report noted disparities were not confined to just this year’s tournaments and that the bedrock financial deal for the NCAA and its member schools is partly to blame: Kaplan said NCAA’s structure and systems “are designed to maximize the value of and support to the Division I Men’s Basketball Championship as the primary source of funding for the NCAA and its membership.”

NCAA revenues surpassed $1 billion in the year before the pandemic and almost $900 million of that was tied to the media rights deal with CBS and Turner for the men’s basketball tournament.

The women’s tournament, meanwhile, is part of a package with more than two dozen other NCAA championships that ESPN owns and pays the NCAA about $34 million per year, according to the report. But according to an assessment done for Kaplan by a team of sports media and marketing experts, the women’s basketball tournament will be worth between $81 and $112 million annually beginning in 2025.

The report criticized the NCAA for failing to recognize or prepare for that growth in value and said revenue generated by the men’s tournament’s media deal leads to that event being prioritized “over everything else in ways that create, normalize and perpetuate gender inequities.”

Kaplan said running the Final Fours at the same site would allow for better cross-promotion of the events and for sponsors to be active for each tournament.

Most of the revenue generated by the CBS/Turner deal is distributed back to member schools by the NCAA, a large portion in “units” earned by conferences based on the tournament performance by individual schools. A similar distribution is not done for the women’s tournament, but Kaplan suggested it could prompt schools to improve their women’s programs.

The NCAA has struggled on the topic of equity for the two marquee tournaments for years and suggestions have been made before to make improvements.

What happened this year forced the issue to the fore all over again.

Among other things, female players, coaches and staff criticized the NCAA for not initially providing a full weight training area for the women’s teams in San Antonio, noting the men’s teams did not have the same problem in and around Indianapolis. Both tournaments were held in single sites because of the pandemic.

Kaplan found the problems with the weight room and other disparities between the two events, such as COVID-19 testing protocols, meals, signage and outdoor recreation, stemmed mainly from a lack of staffing of the women’s tournament and coordination between organizers of the two events.

“The women’s basketball staff member responsible for credentials, game operations and approximately 30 other tasks had approximately eight men’s basketball counterparts with whom she was in theory supposed to coordinate,” the report said.

Emmert and others apologized and ordered the investigation. Other complaints surfaced at the women’s volleyball tournament in Omaha, Nebraska, and the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City.

The review called for annual assessments by the NCAA for the next five years to track progress on gender equity.

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WASHINGTON — A Pentagon police officer died after being stabbed Tuesday during a burst of violence at a transit center outside the building, and a suspect was shot by law enforcement and died at the scene, officials said.

The Pentagon, the headquarters of the U.S. military, was temporarily placed on lockdown after someone attacked the officer on a bus platform shortly after 10:30 a.m. The ensuing violence, which included a volley of gunshots, resulted in “several casualties,” said Woodrow Kusse, the chief of the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, which is responsible for security in the facility.

The deaths of the officer and the suspect were confirmed by officials who were not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The Fairfax County Police Department also tweeted condolences about the officer’s death.

The circumstances remained unclear even hours after the violence had ended,. But the episode on a busy stretch of the Washington area’s transportation system jangled the nerves of a region already primed to be on high alert for violence and potential intruders outside federal government buildings, particularly following the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

At a Pentagon news conference, Kusse declined to confirm that the officer had been killed or provide even basic information about how the violence had unfolded or how many might be dead. He would only say that an officer had been attacked and that “gunfire was exchanged.”

Kusse and other officials declined to rule out terrorism or provide any other potential motive. But, Kusse said the Pentagon complex was secure and “we are not actively looking for another suspect at this time.” He said the FBI was leading the investigation.

“I can’t compromise the ongoing investigation,” Kusse said.

The FBI issued a similar statement, confirming only that it was investigating and that there was “no ongoing threat to the public” but declining to offer details or a possible motive.

Tuesday’s violence occurred on a Metro bus platform that is part of the Pentagon Transit Center, a hub for subway and bus lines. The station is steps from the Pentagon building, which is in Arlington County, Virginia, just across the Potomac River from Washington.

An Associated Press reporter near the building heard multiple gunshots, then a pause, then at least one additional shot. Another AP journalist heard police yelling “shooter.”

A Pentagon announcement said the facility was on lockdown, but that was lifted after noon, except for the area around the crime scene.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were at the White House meeting with President Joe Biden at the time of the shooting. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Austin returned to the building and went to the Pentagon police operations center to speak to the officers there.

It was not immediately clear whether any additional security measures might be instituted in the area.

In 2010, two officers with the Pentagon Force Protection Agency were wounded when a gunman approached them at a security screening area. The officers, who survived, returned fire, fatally wounding the gunman, identified as John Patrick Bedell.

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Associated Press writers Colleen Long in Washington and Matthew Barakat and Sagar Meghani in Arlington, Va., contributed to this report.

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When Billy Jennings was a young news photographer at WMAQ-TV, it hit him. He’d landed a big job in a big market with big on-air talent. He started to pace the newsroom floor.

Jennings remembers telling Jim Stricklin, a cameraman who’d covered everything from Chicago street gangs to prison riots, he was nervous.

“Let me tell you something,” he said Mr. Stricklin told him. “There are times you’re going to go out without a reporter — but they are never going to go out without you. You’re the tip of the spear. If you didn’t shoot it, it didn’t happen. Tell that story with your pictures, and you’ll be fine.”

After that, Jennings, who’s now WMAQ’s chief photographer, said, “I just kind of settled down.”

Mr. Stricklin, who was one of WMAQ’s first Black news photographers and won multiple Emmy awards during his 40-year career at the Chicago NBC station, died July 26 at Kindred Chicago Lakeshore Hospital of COVID-19, according to Marita Joyce Stricklin, his wife of 57 years. The Hyde Park resident, who was 88, became ill despite having been vaccinated against the coronavirus, she said.

Provided

“He had been just going along and enjoying retirement,” she said. “It’s so transmissible.”

WMAQ staffers said they’ll miss his humor and gift for getting good pictures. They said that, when news happened, it seemed he always had his camera rolling and ready to shoot.

They also said they’ll miss his support during labor disputes. Mr. Stricklin was a steward for the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, according to retired WMAQ anchor Art Norman.

“He represented the little guy,” Norman said. “He would fight for maternity leave, things like that. He would fight like crazy. He just looked out for everyone.”

“He wasn’t cowed or impressed by any star or any politician,” former WMAQ anchor Joan Esposito said.

If a fledgling reporter didn’t know the right questions, “He leaned over and told you what to ask,” WMAQ-TV political reporter Mary Ann Ahern said.

Mr. Stricklin grew up in Bronzeville. After graduating from DuSable High School, he served in the Army, assigned to work as a photographer in Paris, according to his wife.

He went on to get a design degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology but was “always aiming for filmmaking,” his wife said. He hung out at the South Side Community Art Center and met Gordon Parks, the first Black photographer for Life magazine and director of the film “Shaft.”

The Stricklins met at Jimmy’s Woodlawn Tap in Hyde Park. She was trying to look sophisticated by drinking Mogen David and ginger ale.

“It was really like pop,” she said. “He said, ‘I’m not going to order that. Nobody drinks that.’ “

But they hit it off, and he called her the next day.

In 1964, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. hired Mr. Stricklin to shoot footage on the rise of Chicago street gangs.

“The Blackstone Rangers gang, the gangs, were beginning to surface on the South Side of Chicago, and the CBC needed visual records of the gang activity,” his wife said.

His work brought him to the attention of WMAQ, which hired him.

In 1968, he was hospitalized for two days after being beaten by police while covering protests at the Democratic National Convention, according to a federal task force report. He’d been filming a police beating of another photographer when an officer struck him in the mouth with a nightstick, Mr. Stricklin said at the time: “The next thing I know, I was being hit on the head, and I think on the back, and I was just forced down on the ground.”

“They were in the middle of tear gas and violence several times,” said Brett Snodgrass, a son of the late WMAQ reporter Dick Kay, Mr. Stricklin’s close friend and sailing buddy.

Mr. Stricklin once covered an uprising at Stateville Correctional Center with WMAQ reporter Peter Nolan.

“This one inmate, all of a sudden, out of the blue, starts screaming,” Nolan said. “The only guy rolling [with his camera] was Stricklin, and we got the best stuff out of there. He had a feeling for when things were going to happen.”

“If we heard a fire engine in the middle of the night,” Mr. Stricklin’s wife said, “Jim would get out of bed and say, ‘I’ve got to call NBC.’ “

And during late election nights or long days waiting for a jury verdict, “He just was one of those guys who could make you laugh,” said Carol Marin, former WMAQ-TV political editor and a director of the DePaul University Center for Journalism Integrity & Excellence.

Mr. Stricklin also is survived by his son Nicholas Christophe Stricklin and two grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

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Employing Nikita Zadorov last season gave the Blackhawks one of the NHL’s most intimidating physical presences, but they weren’t that physical of a team overall.

The Hawks finished 21st in the league with 1,214 total hits. Zadorov individually ranked seventh with 190, but the next-heaviest-hitting Hawk — Connor Murphy with 102 — ranked 66th. And the forward corps contributed very little: Ryan Carpenter led that group with 78 hits, followed by the diminutive Alex DeBrincat with 70.

The Hawks hope unheralded free-agent signing Jujhar Khaira changes that dynamic next season.

“There’s a lot of high talent and skill [on this team],” Khaira said. “I can bring a hard-nosed game out there. That’s going to be an asset, for sure.”

Khaira, a native of British Columbia but only the third-ever NHL player of Punjabi descent, measures 6-4, 212 pounds and proved more than willing to use that hefty frame during the past four years with the Oilers.

He has been credited with 587 hits over his 258 career games, and his rate keeps increasing. He racked up 151 in just 40 games last season, good for 14th in the league overall and eighth among forwards.

“[Jujhar] brings another element of size and strength to our team,” general manager Stan Bowman said Monday. “He has some versatility. He was used both as a centerman and a winger. We like his approach to the game. He plays competitively. [He provides] an element we don’t have a lot of, so we’re trying to bring some of that in to blend with some of the highly skilled players we have up front.”

AP Photos

The Hawks were only able to sign Khaira because the Oilers didn’t give the soon-to-be 27-year-old a qualifying offer, letting him become unrestricted. That decision was part of an altogether strange offseason of incongruent decisions in Edmonton, although Khaira himself wasn’t surprised by how it played out.

“It was one of those things that I thought there was a chance [the Oilers wouldn’t qualify me], but it was out of my control at that point,” he said. “That’s stuff that happens in this game.”

It’s up for debate how valuable adding physicality — especially physical players who don’t contribute equivalent offense such as Khaira, who scored only three goals last season — is in modern hockey. Teams like the Avalanche, Hurricanes and Maple Leafs in recent seasons have committed wholeheartedly to speed and skill, largely eschewed grinders and achieved great regular season — albeit not as much postseason — success.

But that’s an argument for another day. The Hawks clearly believe investing in size and physicality can help them.

They certainly followed that mentality during the draft, selecting four young prospects who already exceed 6-4, 200 pounds — including beastly 6-7, 236-pound defenseman Taige Harding.

“You’re always looking to get size,” Hawks scouting director Mark Kelley said afterward. “When we watch the league [and] how it’s going now, the big defenders are having a lot of success — or, I should say, the teams that have the big defenders are having a lot of success… To answer your question, size was attractive to us.”

At the NHL level, Riley Stillman and Jake McCabe will compensate, hit-wise, for Zadorov’s departure among the defensemen.

And Khaira and Mike Hardman, who accumulated a ridiculous 38 hits in eight Hawks games late last season after signing out of Boston College, should together fill that niche among the forwards.

“[The Hawks] seemed very interested,” Khaira said. “[And I wanted the] opportunity I think that I have with the organization. That was the biggest thing, just getting an opportunity.”

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The Bears spent the offseason investing in their top two quarterbacks.

Now they have to protect them.

Coach Matt Nagy claims he’s not nervous, but he’s definitely concerned. Both the Bears’ projected starting tackles — rookie Teven Jenkins and veteran Germain Ifedi — have yet to play during training camp because of, respectively, a lingering sore back and a hip flexor injured during the team’s conditioning test. Tuesday, Elijah Wilkinson — signed this offseason to be the team’s swing tackle — was not on the field for practice. The team hasn’t said why.

That leaves rookie Lachavious Simmons, who has played zero NFL snaps, on the right side and rookie Larry Borom, a rookie fifth-round pick, on the left. With their first preseason game looming — they host the Dolphins on Aug. 14 — the clock is ticking to make sure Andy Dalton and Justin Fields don’t get blindsided and injured because of a rookie mistake.

“It doesn’t give me anxiety,” Nagy said when asked about his injured tackles. “But it’s definitely something we need to focus on and make sure we get right.”

There is, he admitted, a sense of urgency. The team practiced with pads for the first time Tuesday and there’s a real concern that the Bears’ edge rushers could dominate the backup tackles and make it hard to run team drills the right way.

Quarterback Andy Dalton said this week he was eager to see his linemen in pads.

“The competition is real,” he said. “I think things will get solidified once the pads come on and we start playing some real football.”

The Bears put a “halo” around quarterbacks during practice, meaning defenders can’t touch them. That won’t exist Aug.14. The Bears can gameplan around it, helping the tackles with chips from tight ends and pass-blocking help from running backs. But that’s no way to learn whether their tackles can block.

“It’s going to be evident and obvious,” Nagy said. “If they can’t, they won’t be there. That’s where you go to the next part and the next part, you got to go through those steps.”

The next part, Nagy conceded, would be general manager Ryan Pace scouring the league for veteran help. Starters aren’t available, though, unless they’re overpaid or otherwise problematic.

The Bears’ best hope is for speedy recoveries by Jenkins and Ifedi. Jenkins, whom the Bears traded up to draft in the second round, worked out with trainer Andre Tucker on Monday afternoon and is “getting a little bit better,” Nagy said. Still, there’s no timeline for his return.

“The sooner the better for sure,” Nagy said. “I just can’t predict days or weeks.”

Once he comes back, he’ll need to ramp up to play in a preseason game. Until then, the Bears are left to see what they have in Borom, a rookie from Missouri who spent the offseason program playing on the right side.

“I think he’s really light-footed for being such a big man,” Nagy said. “I don’t know if he can play left tackle. That’s why we’re trying to put him there, to see. It’s not easy when you go from the right side to the left side, but I think now is the time to see, really, what he can do.

“It would be pretty cool to see that you find out, you draft a guy in the fifth round and then you end up having a guy that can do some big things for us. So we’re going to test him out.”

That’s not the Bears’ first choice. Or their second or third. But that’s where they stand, a week into camp.

David Culley, the new Texans head coach, gave Nagy a mantra when the two worked together for the Eagles and Chiefs. When Nagy would worry, Culley would say that “it will all play itself out.”

Nagy repeated that Tuesday, trying to will it to be true.

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Good afternoon. Here’s the latest news you need to know in Chicago. It’s about a 5-minute read that will brief you on today’s biggest stories.

This afternoon will be mostly sunny with a high near 82 degrees. Tonight will be mostly clear with a low around 63. Tomorrow will be sunny with a high near 84.

Top story

Lightfoot: No regrets on Lollapalooza or concerns it will become super-spreader event

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said today she doesn’t fear a surge of coronavirus cases tied to Lollapalooza, in part because her public health commissioner “went incognito” to the music festival without valid proof of vaccination and was turned away.

During a live interview on WVON-AM (1690), Lightfoot said she is “well aware” of a video appearing to show young people being “waved through” the Lollapalooza gates by people who were supposed to be checking vaccination cards, but “weren’t even looking at” those credentials.

But the mayor offered a possible explanation. Once attendees were screened and showed credentials proving they’d been vaccinated, they were issued a wristband. So the video could have been people with wristbands being waved through, Lightfoot said.

Lightfoot said her confidence about the safety of Lollapalooza stems from the city’s vigilance in holding event organizers to their promised protocols and testing that system to make certain they did.

Attendees were required to either show their own vaccination card — and a valid ID proving they were the person whose name is on the card — or proof that they had tested negative for the coronavirus no more than 72 hours before the concert.

Lightfoot said she has “no regrets” about green-lighting the festival, a major money-maker for Chicago that filled hotels and restaurants.

Two days after it ended, the mayor remains confident Chicago’s premier music festival — the largest of its kind in the world this year — will not turn out to be a “super-spreader” event. She argued just the opposite.

Fran Spielman has more on where the mayor stands after Lolla here.

More news you need

1. Scoot over, Vautravers Building! A 127-year-old Lake View structure is on the move, literally, to get out of the way of a CTA track rebuilding project. The move 30 feet west and four feet south — as part of the CTA’s Red and Purple modernization — is set to wrap up today.
2. To cut down on long lines and long waits at Chicago-area driver services centers, the Secretary of State’s office will require appointments for many locations beginning in September. The state will also expand its remote renewal program for eligible drivers.
3. The Blackhawks finally committed yesterday to publicly releasing the findings of an ongoing sexual assault investigation. The probe stems from lawsuits claiming the Hawks grossly mishandled an alleged May 2010 sexual assault of an ex-player by a former coach.
4. The CDC’s latest guidance says people who are fully vaccinated should get tested three to five days after a potential exposure even if they don’t have symptoms. The guidance comes amid concerns of the contagious Delta variant, which now accounts for most coronavirus infections.
5. The Metro echoed those concerns in its announcement today that concert goers will need to show proof of vaccination in order to enter the Wrigleyville concert hall. Additionally, masks will be recommended for all fans.
6. Employees at the Art Institute are organizing a union and asking managers not to interfere with their campaign, potentially opening a new frontier in local labor activism. Organizers said they hope to unionize about 330 museum employees, some of whom were affected by furloughs and temporary pay cuts during the pandemic.

A bright one

For Rookie, Lollapalooza was a homecoming — and a dream come true

For the members of Chicago rock band Rookie, stepping on to the stage at Lollapalooza Friday felt like a dream, years in the making.

The five piece looked out onto the early afternoon crowd and swiftly jammed through their first few songs, letting their brand of 1970s-inspired roots rock blast through the festival grounds, enticing sleepy concertgoers to stop by.

For years Max Loebman (guitar/vocals), (guitar/vocals), Christopher Devlin (bass/vocals), Joe Bordenaro (drums/vocals) and Justin Bell (keys/vocals) each cut their teeth playing in the Chicago D.I.Y. scene. But after filling in for members in each other’s respective bands, the group decided to form Rookie in 2017.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

As a new unit, the band began making a name for itself throughout the following years, rising with the likes of fellow Chicago scenemates Twin Peaks and Beach Bunny.

But by the time they released their debut self titled album — a gritty, catchy album with soraing guitars and smart melodies — in 2020, all momentum had stalled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Tour dates were canceled — including a stint at Lollapalooza 2020 — venues shut down, and the band was tasked with figuring out what to do next.

So they did what they’ve always done — they got together and jammed.

More from my conversation with Loebman and Panoutsos at Lollapalooza here.

From the press box

Your daily question ?

NYC announced today it will require vaccination proof for indoor dining and gyms. Should Chicago do the same? Tell us why or why not.

Yesterday we asked you: Neil Steinberg says an S. Rosen’s bun is the true star of a Chicago-style hot dog. What’s your favorite part of a Chicago dog? Here’s some of what you said…

“I have to agree with him on the Rosen’s hot dog bun. However, the true star of a Chi-town dog is the hot dawg itself. It has to be a Vienna Beef hot dog. Plus, the bright green relish, diced onions, mustard, tomatoes, sports peppers and celery salt compliment the hot dog. There is no substitute.” — Vicki Trinidad

“Sport peppers cannot be substituted by anything.” — Jim Pabst

“All of it, but the neon relish is my jam.” — Nesha Williams

“The Vienna beef dog.” – Donald Lehner

“I relish to say, the mustard!” — Victoria Smith Farley

“Chicago relish and sport peppers.” — Jackie Ingram

“Relish, peppers and celery salt.” — Sanford Madnick

“It starts with a Vienna, Kosher-style hot dog.” – Lori Ellen

“My favorite thing is just visiting Chicago to have one.” — Jay Thrash

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