Jay Españo brings international perspective as the new AD for PrideArts; plus Leaders for a New Chicago awards and a new fund in honor of the late Malcolm Ewen

In a year of upheaval, perhaps no Chicago theater company has seen more of it than the Company Formerly Known as Pride Films and Plays. Rocked by social media allegations that founder David Zak (a pioneer of LGBTQ+ theater in Chicago) had either engaged in patterns of abuse and harassment toward actors and staff or ignored such incidents from others involved in the company (as well as wide-ranging complaints about the general safety and hygiene of the rehearsal and performance spaces), Zak announced he was stepping away on July 3 of last year.…Read More

But the second-round draft pick — pegged to be a rookie starter — knows he has a lot to learn and a lot to prove once the Bears practice in pads. And he can’t wait.

The past year has been a blur for Bears rookie offensive tackle Teven Jenkins.

He started last season at left tackle for Oklahoma State against Tulsa, moved to right tackle the next week, opted out after seven games, starting preparing for the draft, lost weight, got drafted, gained weight, participated in rookie minicamp, then the Bears’ offseason program and finally veteran minicamp this week.

It’s time for a well-deserved break. But the kid is so pumped about playing in the NFL, he wants to keep going. If training camp started today, he’d be thrilled.

“It’s just work for me, and that’s exactly what I need,” the 6-6, 320-pound Jenkins said Thursday after minicamp concluded. “So I’d be happy with it, because I just want to keep perfecting my craft.”

In reality, Jenkins said he plans to head to Dallas, spend time with his girlfriend and her family and continue to work out in preparation for his first NFL training camp.

“I’m actually excited to put on pads,” said Jenkins, who has worked only in shorts so far with the Bears. “It’s been however many months for me. I’ve been missing that sound, missing that feeling. And I’m very excited to get back out there.”

Bears coach Matt Nagy and offensive line coach Juan Castillo share that excitement. Jenkins has been pegged as a Week 1 rookie starter at left tackle since the Bears cut veteran Charles Leno three days after they traded up to take Jenkins 39th overall in the second round of the draft. Jenkins played with the second team behind veteran Elijah Wilkinson in OTA practices. But he played with the starters at left tackle next to guard Cody Whitehair in minicamp when Wilkinson moved to right tackle to replace the injured Germain Ifedi.

If it hasn’t already happened, it’s expected to be only a matter of time before Jenkins is with the starters permanently — if not to start training camp, then soon after.

“I think for Tev, being able to line up with the ones and see what that’s like being on the left side and getting to go up against some of these experienced vets and getting some communication with Cody [is good],” Nagy said.

“It’s hard because there are no pads, so [we tell] the defense you have to take three hard steps and pull up. There is no bull-rushing. You can’t lower your head. So it’s not really real, but they can at least get the burst and we can work their feet. Teven is doing a really good job of trying to get down the fundamentals of what coach Juan [Castillo] teaches, and put it together.”

With so much to learn, Jenkins’ head figures to be spinning in the first few days of camp, especially once the Bears practice in full pads.

“Right now … I’m trying my best to understand the pace of the game as we’re going against the defense and understanding how fast the changes from college to NFL, of course,” Jenkins said. “It’s all about getting in there with coach Castillo and keep working on my sets, working on my left and keep working on that ’til I’m fluid and being more comfortable in my stance.”

Like most rookies, It’s a matter of how quickly the game can slow down for him. But for Jenkins, it seems like a matter of when and not if. Asked if there was a moment when he knew he belonged here, he said there were several.

“There’s a lot of moments for me,” Jenkins said, “because we’ve been going since OTAs — some veteran guys were at OTAs. And when everybody got here for minicamp, I felt like I belonged, where I knew I’m exactly where I need to be.”

Note: Defensive lineman Bilal Nichols did not practice for the second consecutive day because of a toe injury. “I feel like he’s going to be fine [for training camp],” Nagy said.

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State environmental officials are now testing water around the Chemtool plant fire to determine whether firefighting foam caused contamination. 

A private fire fighting company hired by the owner of a manufacturing plant that exploded near Rockford Monday initially sprayed the blaze with a harmful chemical foam that is now prompting water testing to check for contamination.

Following the explosion at the Chemtool plant in Rockton, the facility’s owner hired a private contractor to help more than 80 fire departments from Illinois and Wisconsin control the flames.

The problem, according to state and federal environmental officials, is that the private company, Louisiana-based US Fire Pump, sprayed a foam containing perfluorooctanoic acid, part of a class of chemicals known as PFAS. Nationally, there is a push to ban these chemicals for fear that they are harmful to humans, potentially causing organ damage and cancer. Nicknamed “forever chemicals,” they are believed to remain in the environment, animals and humans for long periods of time.

Now Illinois environmental officials are testing samples from the nearby Rock River and area groundwater to determine whether any “chemicals of concern” contaminated the sources. The area’s drinking water source is groundwater wells and the closest well to the fire is about 1.25 miles, state officials said.

US Fire Pump used PFAS-containing foam for about three hours on Tuesday, even though state and federal officials had warned against doing so, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Both state and federal environmental officials raised concerns to Chemtool on Monday about using the PFAS foam and asked that the company discuss it with the various state, local and federal officials who are on site near the disaster, EPA said.

On Tuesday, “upon realizing that pumping operations were beginning before that discussion had happened, the agencies requested that the operations be halted so containment controls could be reviewed,” the EPA said in a statement.

Rockton Fire Department Chief Kirk Wilson, who is leading the effort to put out the fire, ordered the foam spraying to be stopped while protections were put into place to try to prevent runoff of the chemical, the EPA said. Wilson couldn’t be reached for comment.

The company has since stopped using the foam with the PFAS, state and federal officials said.

The Illinois EPA, which is leading the water-testing effort, said it will share results as soon as they’re available.

While some states, such as California and New York, have been addressing PFAS concerns through restrictions or outright bans, national groups, such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, have pushed for federal laws to protect public health.

“It is very disturbing to hear that PFAS foam was used despite the warnings of both federal EPA and Illinois EPA,” said Daniel Rosenberg, an NRDC senior attorney and director of Federal Toxics Policy. “This is exactly why we need federal laws to prevent more incidents of PFAS contamination.”

In a statement, Lubrizol, the company that owns the Chemtool plant, said it provided “all requested information” to government officials overseeing the response to the fire.

“We followed all notifications protocols throughout the process,” Lubrizol said in a statement.

A representative of US Fire Pump declined to comment and deferred questions to the Rockton Fire Department.

Brett Chase’s reporting on the environment and public health is made possible by a grant from The Chicago Community Trust.

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The repeal was passed overwhelmingly, 268-161. Forty-nine Republicans voted for the bill. Only one Democrat, Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia, voted against it.

WASHINGTON — The Democratic-led House, with President Joe Biden’s backing, passed legislation Thursday to repeal the 2002 authorization for use of military force in Iraq, a step that supporters said was necessary for Congress to reassert its constitutional duty to weigh in on matters of war. Detractors worried it would embolden militias or terrorist groups.

The repeal was passed overwhelmingly, 268-161. Forty-nine Republicans voted for the bill. Only one Democrat, Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia, voted against it. In the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., intends to bring the measure to the floor this year.

Supporters said repeal would not affect U.S. military operations around the world, but could prevent a president from relying on the 2002 authorization to conduct unrelated military actions. The White House says there are no ongoing military activities reliant solely upon that authorization.

The authorization was directed against the government of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, authorizing the “necessary and appropriate” use of force to “defend U.S. national security against the continuing threat posed by Iraq” and to “enforce all relevant” U.N. Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.

“Repeal is crucial because the executive branch has a history of stretching” the authorization’s legal authority, said Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “It has already been used as justification for military actions against entities that had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist dictatorship simply because such entities were operating in Iraq.”

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said he agreed the authorization was outdated, but he argued that Congress should not repeal it without also approving a replacement.

“We should not encourage any president to go it alone without Article I congressional authorization,” McCaul said.

The action follows years of debate over whether Congress has ceded too much of its war-making authority to the White House. Many lawmakers, particularly Democrats, say passage of the 2002 authorization was a mistake, and some Republicans agree the authority should be taken off the books. Some lawmakers say the 2001 resolution to fight terrorism, passed after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, should be reexamined as well.

As a senator in 2002, Biden voted for the resolution that President George W. Bush used to invade Iraq the following year. Biden was not considered a leading critic of that 2003 military operation at the time, despite his claims as a presidential candidate in 2020.

Biden faced considerable criticism for the vote during the Democratic primary campaign. He and his aides, including now-Secretary of State Tony Blinken, initially defended the vote by saying the Bush administration wanted more leverage against Hussein and that Biden hadn’t intended his vote as a blank check. Biden eventually called the resolution a mistake.

Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee of California, the bill’s sponsor, said that 87% of the current members of the House were not in Congress in 2002 and that the authorization for military force passed at that time bears no correlation to the threats the nation faces today. She also was the lone vote against the 2001 auhtorization following Sept. 11.

“To this day, our endless war continues costing trillions of dollars and thousands of lives in a war that goes way beyond any scope that Congress conceived or intended,” Lee said.

Schumer had said on Wednesday that “the Iraq War has been over for nearly a decade” and that ”the authorization passed in 2002 is no longer necessary in 2021.”

The White House said Biden is committed to working with Congress to update the authorization with a “narrow and specific framework appropriate to ensure that we can continue to protect Americans from terrorist threats.”

Schumer said he wanted to be clear that legislation terminating the use of force in Iraq does not mean the U.S. is abandoning the country and the shared fight against the Islamic State group. He said the measure would eliminate the possibility of a future administration “reaching back into the legal dustbin to use it as a justification for military adventurism.”

He cited the Washington-directed drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani in January 2020 as an example.

The Trump administration said Soleimani was plotting a series of attacks that endangered many American troops and officials across the Middle East. The national security adviser at the time, Robert O’Brien, told reporters that President Donald Trump exercised America’s right to self-defense and that the strike was a fully authorized action under the 2002 authorization to use military force.

“There is no good reason to allow this legal authority to persist in case another reckless commander in chief tries the same trick in the future,” Schumer said.

In the Senate, key lawmakers are working on a bill that would repeal not only the 2002 authorization, but also the 1991 authorization for use of force in Iraq, which remains on the books. The 1991 authorization gave President George H.W. Bush the authority to use force against Iraq to enforce a series of Security Council resolutions passed in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

The Senate and House would have to work out any differences in their bills and vote on a final product before it can go to Biden’s desk to be signed into law.

In the end, legislation terminating the 2002 authorization will need 60 votes in an evenly divided Senate to overcome procedural hurdles. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he opposes the effort to terminate the authorization.

“We used it to get Soleimani and there might be another Soleimani out there,” Inhofe said.

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Associated Press writer Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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Chicago’s lawsuit seeking fencing, heavy-duty locks and security cameras stalled because the owner could not be reached.

More than a year ago, the city of Chicago filed a lawsuit against the owner of the Englewood home where eight people were shot this week, asking that he install fencing, heavy-duty locks and security cameras to make the property safer.

But the lawsuit stalled because officials could not reach the owner, who did not live in the home in the 6200 block of South Morgan Street. When gunfire filled the two-story house early Tuesday, killing four, the city had made no progress on any of the security measures.

Two days later, the city finally reached the owner, Enrique Badillo Sr., according to city Law Department spokeswoman Kristen Cabanban.

She couldn’t say why the city took over a year to serve Badillo with the lawsuit. Public records show he owns several properties in Chicago and resides in Logan Square.

The court will now have more jurisdiction over compliance with safety improvements, Cabanban said. City officials have seen no evidence that any of the measures have been taken by the owner, she said. A hearing is set for July 1.

The city filed the “public nuisance” suit in March of 2020, months after a man was shot during a large party inside the home, according to the lawsuit.

Police found the man bleeding in the kitchen from several gunshot wounds on Nov. 1, 2019, the suit states. He was taken to a hospital in serious condition. At least 50 people were in the home at the time, the suit claims, and there was drinking and a dice game.

It’s unclear if any of the victims from Tuesday’s mass shooting were living in the home back then. One of those shot and badly wounded was a barber who lived there and cut hair at the house.

Attempts to reach the property owner were unsuccessful Thursday.

Police have released few details about Tuesday’s shooting, and it’s unclear whether any of the measures sought by the city could have prevented it. Police have not said whether there’s any video of the attack, or how the gunman got into the house.

The city had filed the lawsuit to “take action to abate criminal activity” at the home, a two-story wood-frame house with a gray stone front. The lawsuit listed a series of actions the city could take to make the home safer: Evicting residents and ordering the owner to install security measures, including fencing, gate locks, outdoor lighting, security cameras and hiring a security guard.

The home was last inspected in January 2020, though the inspector was unable to enter the home, according to the suit. The inspector listed several code violations: broken windows, an unsafe staircase and porch, and construction work performed without a permit.

The city sought to fine the owner $10,000, plus $1,000 per day for each violation since the inspection.

Ald. Stephanie Coleman, whose 16th Ward includes the home on Morgan Street, did not respond to a request for comment.

Provided photos

The attack was one of three mass shootings in Chicago in little over a week.

Relatives said one of the victims, 34-year-old Blake Lee, lived in the home and did odd jobs in the neighborhood. He died in the attack. Another resident of the home, James Tolbert, ran a barbershop from the house. He was seriously wounded.

“That man is a barber, he cuts hair from here, this is his business and this is his home,” Robyn Eddmonds said during a Wednesday vigil for the victims. “It was his home that he opened up to [others] but it also was his business. He wasn’t a gangbanger… He didn’t do any of that.”

Also living in the home was Tolbert’s girlfriend and their 2-year-old daughter. The girlfriend remained in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the head. The girl was not shot but was taken to a hospital for observation.

The victims were gathered in the home for the 28th birthday of Ratanya Aryiel Rogers, who was shot and killed in the attack. Police said a gunman broke into the home before 5:40 a.m. and started shooting. All but one of the victims was shot in the head, police said.

The others who died were Denice Mathis, 32, a mother of four boys, and Shermetria Williams, 19, the mother of a 2-year-old girl.

Contributing: Madeline Kenney

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A 13-year-old boy was shot Thursday in West Pullman on the Far South Side.

He was riding his bicycle about 3:30 p.m. in the 12200 block of South Stewart Avenue when someone opened fire, striking him in the leg, Chicago police said.

The teen was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital in serious condition but was stabilized at the hospital, police and fire officials said.

Area Two detectives are investigating.

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The possibility of the Bears leaving Soldier Field for a new stadium in Arlington Heights became significantly more realistic once they put in a bid to buy the Arlington International Racecourse property.

The potential relocation had been little more than speculation until team president Ted Phillips announced the bid Thursday. Phillips couched it as the Bears exploring “every possible option” and allows them to “further evaluate the property and its potential” if their bid is accepted, and it’s obvious that means relocating is legitimately under consideration.

That being said, the Bears have made numerous relocation ploys over the years to gain leverage over the City of Chicago in negotiations over Soldier Field. Arlington Heights was a possibility in the 1970s, when Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley threatened to prevent the team from using Chicago in its name and mused about the lack of interest there would be in “the Arlington Heights Bears.”

Chairman George McCaskey, whose family has owned the team since its inception in 1920, declined comment through a spokesman.

Overall, the Bears want more control over their home stadium, which isn’t actually theirs. Because the Chicago Park District owns Soldier Field, the team is limited in what it can do as far as expanding the capacity beyond its current 62,000, selling sponsorships of certain areas of the stadium and building things like a year-round museum and gift shop.

There’d be nothing holding them back in Arlington Heights, where mayor Thomas Hayes has been openly campaigning to lure them. He called a potential Bears move a “best-case scenario” for his village Thursday.

“I’m very excited about the opportunity, but it’s certainly not a done deal,” Hayes said. “There’s a long way to go.”

Hayes said he had met with fewer than 10 potential bidders for the site. Churchill Downs, Inc. owns the property and said it plans to give an update on the sale “in the coming weeks.” A spokesperson declined comment on the Bears’ bid.

On the other end of this tug-of-war, Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot sharpened her tone from saying last month she wanted to help the Bears maximize what they’re getting out of Soldier Field and came out with a blazing statement Thursday saying the Bears “are locked into a lease,” and pointing out that “many organizations are doubling down on their commitment to Chicago,” while the Bears flirt with the suburbs.

“This is clearly a negotiation tactic that the Bears have used before,” Lightfoot said. “As a season-ticket holder and longtime Bears fan, I am committed to keeping the ‘Chicago’ name in our football team.”

Then she took the cruelest swipe of all.

“Like most Bears fans, we want the organization to focus on putting a winning team on the field, beating the Packers finally and being relevant past October,” she said. “Everything else is noise.”

That noise probably won’t quiet anytime soon.

The racetrack property covers 326 acres about six miles north of the Northwest Tollway. That’s far more space than they have at Soldier Field, it’s an advantageous location based on internal research that shows the majority of their fan base is in the north and northwest suburbs and it’s about half the trek from Halas Hall in Lake Forest.

The Arlington Heights property would be exclusively for a stadium. The team poured more than $100 million into renovating Halas Hall in 2019 and will hold training camp there for the foreseeable future.

The Bears have played at Soldier Field since 1971 and have a lease running through 2033. The organization doesn’t consider that lease to be a barrier, a source said, because it could negotiate a buyout and construction on a new facility would take years anyway.

Recently built NFL stadiums have been extravagant in design and enormous in price. The newly opened stadiums in Los Angeles and Las Vegas cost $5 billion-$6 billion and $1.9 billion, respectively. The others in the last seven years are for the Falcons ($1.6 billion), Vikings ($1.1 billion) and 49ers ($1.3 billion).

In terms of price and aesthetics, the Bears are likely to give U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis a long look as they imagine their new home. It has a 73,000-person capacity, a glass roof and glass on much of the stadium walls to allow as much daylight as possible.

That stadium opened in 2016 and has already hosted a Super Bowl, a Final Four and various other major concerts and events. Building that kind of venue would give the Bears similar opportunities that simply wouldn’t work at Soldier Field.

Staff writer Mitchell Armentrout contributed to this story.

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The alleged getaway driver in a deadly shooting on the Eisenhower Expressway has been charged with murder.

Dezhawn Seargent had been driving a borrowed SUV alongside a car a rival gang member was traveling in when two gunman inside Seargent’s SUV opened fire on the morning of Aug. 15, Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Kevin DeBoni said Thursday.

The rival gang member was not injured.

Instead, the gunmen struck 19-year-old Lakasia Gregory in the head and leg on the Interstate 290 near Central Avenue, DeBoni said. Gregory was also in the vehicle that was driven by the girlfriend of the man the uncharged gunmen were targeting. That woman was also struck in the arm but survived, DeBoni said.

Seargent, 26, had borrowed the SUV used in the shooting hours earlier and drove the gunmen to the block where the victims were hanging out to conduct surveillance, DeBoni said.

When Gregory and the others got into their car and drove away, Seargent followed them onto the expressway and then sped up alongside them, DeBoni said.

ShotSpotter gunshot detectors recorded a barrage of gunfire from two different guns. Sixteen shell casings were collected and the victims’ car was struck 10 times, DeBoni said.

After the shooting, Seargent dropped the SUV back to the individual he borrowed it from, DeBoni said.

That woman later found a shell casing on her driveway near the front door of her SUV. The shell casing, later recovered by Illinois State Police investigators, matched the caliber and make of the casings found at the crime scene, DeBoni said.

Seargent was identified through surveillance videos and phone records, which showed he and one of the gunmen had communicated before and after the shooting, DeBoni said. Geo-tracking features on Seargent’s cellphone phone also allegedly matched the movements of the SUV before the murder.

Seargent grew up in the west suburbs, where he still has family, and graduated from Lyons Township High School, an assistant public defender said. Seargent was laid off during the pandemic and is currently unemployed, the defense attorney added.

Judge Mary Marubio ordered Seargent held without bail.

He is expected back in court July 8.

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A 21-year-old man who was once featured in a Chicago Magazine profile when he was a teenager has been charged with murder for his alleged role in a deadly East Garfield Park shooting.

Jerryon Stevens faces a count of first-degree murder for the apparent gang-related attack that claimed the life of 20-year-old Jim Courtney-Clarks in December, Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Kevin DeBoni said Thursday.

On Dec. 22, Stevens allegedly drove a stolen Honda to the 700 block of North Ridgeway Avenue, where two members of the Traveling Vice Lords got out of the Honda and opened fire at Courtney-Clarks and another man as they walked on the sidewalk.

Courtney-Clarks was struck in the abdomen and later died at a hospital. The other man was able to escape.

Chicago police

Investigators used surveillance camera footage and cellphone records to track Stevens and the two gunmen, who have not been charged, DeBoni said.

Stevens’ face and distinctive clothing was recorded by a camera at a convenience store where Stevens met up with the gunmen before the shooting, DeBoni said.

Stevens was also identified by a Chicago police officer who viewed the surveillance footage and recognized him, DeBoni said.

He was arrested Monday.

Stevens was the subject of a lengthy 2016 profile story in Chicago Magazine that detailed his dreams and the hardships he faced growing up on the West Side.

He was working at a family business and for a moving company to support his young daughter before his arrest, an assistant public defender said Thursday.

Judge Mary Marubio ordered Stevens held without bail.

He is expected back in court July 8.

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There’s no more popular player in sports than the second-string quarterback.

To Bears fans, though, Justin Fields has taken it to another level. In the first month after he was drafted No. 11 overall, Fields’ had three jerseys among the NFL’s best-selling five. Last week, he received a standing ovation at Wrigley Field that lasted long enough to make him uncomfortable.

He’s, potentially, the franchise quarterback for a team that’s never had one.

Some fans are growing impatient already, despite — and also because of — coach Matt Nagy’s firm stance that Andy Dalton will start in Week 1.

Fields is no stranger to attention — he used to get stopped shopping at Target in Columbus, Ohio. He said there’s no reason not to embrace the love — “There’s a lot of people who would wanna be in my shoes right now,” he said — or the expectations.

“Of course I feel it,” he said, “But great things don’t happen all at once.”

After the last snap of the Bears’ mandatory minicamp Thursday, the Ohio State alum walked a fine line. He’ll bide his time as the backup, even as his competitiveness makes him want more. He said he believes in the Bears’ plan to let Dalton start as they develop the rookie, but he has to remind himself to be patient.

“I mean if I don’t believe in it, then it’s not going to work out,” said Fields, who went to dinner with Dalton and his wife recently. “My job is strictly to get better, be the best quarterback I can be and, you know, help my team win. That’s what I am going to do whether it’s starting, whether it’s sitting.”

It’s unclear if Bears fans can stay just as patient. Nagy, though, continued to detail just how far Fields has to come.

The Bears installed a new play Thursday morning that Fields ran in a red zone drill. He didn’t read the defense properly, though, and threw an interception at the goal line to leaping linebacker Christian Jones.

Nagy immediately asked Fields why he threw the ball there. Fields told him what he saw.

“We can correct him,” Nagy said. “And now the next time that play’s called, I’m gonna guarantee you that he won’t make the same mistake.”

A half-hour later, Fields made that very guarantee.

“Personally, I tend not to make a mistake more than one time,” he said. “So once I’ve made that mistake I learn from that mistake and I mean there’s a 99% chance that that same mistake won’t happen again.”

That confidence is part of what attracted the Bears to their new quarterback. It’s what will make training camp so compelling: how will Fields — who has only participated in three practices alongside the Bears’ defensive starters — handle failure? How quickly will he grow from it? Will Bears coaches be able to tell?

Fields and the rest of the rookie class will spend another week studying at Halas Hall. Fields plans to return to Chicago a few weeks before training camp in July, but not before taking a vacation with his family. He still plans to work out and study the Bears’ plays for 45 minutes per day. Then he has to take out his phone.

As part of Fields’ homework, he takes out his phone and records audio of himself reading off one of the Bears’ plays. Quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo wants Fields — who called plays in the huddle maybe 10 percent of the time in college — to master the right words, but also the intonation. He needs to call the play as though he’s speaking, not reading.

And then he needs to send the audio to DeFilippo.

“I like to do something every day,” Fields said. “Just to have that peace of mind knowing that I’m getting better each and every day.”

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