As a Public Benefit Corporation (P.B.C), Chicago House AC is committed to grassroots engagement across Chicagoland’s diverse landscape of vibrant communities. This includes working with appropriate amateur sports teams, non-profits, community organizations and international groups to develop relationships that will mutually benefit the club and its community partners.

Nike’s similar approach in their business and public stance on social justice, equality, and drive for sustainability makes them an excellent partner during the club’s developmental stages and beyond. The Beaverton, Oregon-headquartered corporation recently announced a $40 million commitment over the next four years to support the Black community in the U.S., on behalf of the Nike, Jordan and Converse brands collectively. Michael Jordan and Jordan Brand will also donate $100 million over the next 10 years to organizations dedicated to ensuring racial equality, social justice and greater access to education.

Chicago House AC aims to have a deeply positive impact on underserved neighborhoods through initiatives that provide opportunities for educational programming, mentorship and safe places to play soccer and futsal for children in the city. The club will also work inclusively with organizations to improve social justice, racial equality, diversity and community improvement. The club is committing 10% of annual corporate partnership revenue and Nike jersey revenue to be donated to non-profit and community-based organizations and fan directed initiatives.

To celebrate the partnership, Nike will collaborate with Chicago House AC on the creation of a limited edition, collectible kit design that will only be available during Chicago’s inaugural season this Fall. More information on the release of this kit is forthcoming.

As the club’s official equipment and merchandise provider, Nike will supply Chicago House AC with the latest high-performance on-field team wear, along with an impressive range of cutting-edge fanwear for the club’s growing base of fans. The initial Nike House merchandise launch is slated for later this month, when the 2021 line will become available on the Chicago House AC website at www.chicagohouseac.com.

“We’re excited to be partnering with the Nike brand and their world-renowned, top-notch product,” says Chicago House AC Head Coach & Technical Director, C.J. Brown, who became more familiar with the brand’s capabilities during his time with Nike Soccer partner, US Soccer. “I know our staff and team will be thrilled at the quality of the product and equipment Nike Soccer will be supplying. We can’t wait to get into the gear as we prepare our new squad for our debut season in NISA!”

In addition to the partnership with Nike, Chicago House AC has also partnered with industry-leading sports merchandise distributor, WeGotSoccer, and local Chicago distributor Soccer 2000, to ensure a continual line of unique House branded Nike products will be available for fans to purchase online and during House home matches at SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview in the Fall.

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About 12:25 a.m., officers on patrol saw a man shooting in an alley into a garage in the 8300 block of South Kerfoot Avenue.

A Chicago police officer fired at a man who had just shot two people early Wednesday in the Gresham neighborhood, but the man got away after barricading himself in a home, authorities said.

Officers on patrol had seen the man shooting from an alley into a garage in the 8300 block of South Kerfoot Avenue around 12:30 a.m., police said. One officer fired once at the man but it was not known if he was hit.

They discovered two men in the garage who had been shot by the suspect, police said. One man, 60, was struck in his thigh, and a man in his 50s was struck in the leg, police said. Both were taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where the 60-year-old was in good condition and the younger man in serious condition.

After running from the scene, the man barricaded himself inside a home, police said. A SWAT team responded and surrounded the home for about eight hours. Later Wednesday morning, police said the standoff was over but that no one was in custody.

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability said it was investigating the officer’s use of force.

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“This is ridiculous,” blared the subject line of the fresh email in my inbox Monday. “Will you join Trump’s new site? We’ve emailed you 13x. Fail to respond=Trump knows you’ve abandoned him.”

I guess the cat’s out of the bag — I have, indeed, abandoned Trump.

The fundraising email, which had the audacity to say it was “humbly asking 1 final time” for me to join former President Donald Trump’s new website — the one that just scrubbed his own blog — wasn’t from Trump or even one of his kooky surrogates. This one was from the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The stated purpose of the NRCC is uncomplicated and straightforward: it is “devoted to increasing the number of Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives.”

What does that have to do with joining a former president’s partly defunct vanity website? Back to that in a minute.

The NRCC email, which I indeed received multiple times, was hardly the first one like it. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, “solely devoted to strengthening the Republican Senate Majority and electing Republicans to the United States Senate,” also demanded I sign up for Trump’s new social media platform.

In fact, the NRCC and NRSC flooded my inbox in May with daily pleas and ultimatums, begging me to sign up for Trump’s new site. One claimed to be the “6th and final message.” Many of them warned, “You have 10 min to answer before we move on.”

Of course, they have not moved on. As I typed this, another email landed with a thud in my inbox.

The committees responsible for electing Republicans across the country are adopting the bizarrely aggressive, bordering-on-comical strategy that’s long been used by Trump and his surrogates to collect emails and raise money.

Throughout his presidency, leading up to his failed reelection efforts in 2020 and even after he was sent packing to Florida, Trump world sent weirdly harassing fundraising emails to his own supporters, demanding increasing pledges of loyalty — and dollars.

One scolding email from the Trump campaign in 2020 read, “I hate to be the one to tell you, but your Trump 100 Club offer has been RESCINDED.”

Another from Trump’s son Eric shamed its recipients: “You’ve received multiple emails from Team Trump, including my father, inviting you to join this brand new prestigious club, and you’ve ignored every single one of them.”

Others warned of a “list” Trump was keeping — “I want to know who stood with me when it mattered most,” one read, “so I’ve asked my team to send me a list of EVERY AMERICAN PATRIOT who donates to this email.”

Another signed by Vice President Mike Pence similarly threatened, “[Trump]’s requested a list of every Patriot who donates to this email in the NEXT HOUR. Will he see your name?”

The emails were so over-the-top, other malign actors tried to imitate them.

Democratic voters in Alaska and Florida received an email in 2020 with the following demand: “You will vote for Trump on Election Day or we will come after you. Change your party affiliation to Republican to let us know you received our message and will comply.”

At first the emails were believed to have been sent by the Proud Boys, a far-right white supremacist group, but eventually U.S. officials blamed the mailer on Iran. It’s not a great sign when one of the nation’s worst enemies assumes we’ll be duped by an email threatening the actual lives of voters.

Back to the NRCC and NRSC. The intimidation, shaming and harassing emails from Trump world indeed raised a ton of money for the president, but did not result in his reelection.

So it’s odd that the organizations charged with electing and reelecting Republicans to Congress are copying the failed strategy — not just in the tone of the emails, but tying them to Trump at all.

A former Republican congressional operative I spoke to was pointed: “What a load of bulls–t. We lost the House because of our fealty to Trump, and the committee whose sole job is to try to win back the majority in Congress is pushing further allegiance to the guy who not only cost us Congress in the first place, but sent a mob to attack Congress on Jan. 6. Have they no shame?”

The emails are worse than ironic, they’re downright embarrassing. Begging and shaming people, presumably their own voters, to sign up for the website of the deplatformed loser who cost Republicans everything is a sign congressional Republicans have given up on attracting new voters.

Instead they clearly believe they can win only by getting every last existing Trump voter to continue to part with their money — and even they apparently require intimidation tactics.

“This is ridiculous.” I wholeheartedly agree.

S.E. Cupp is the host of “S.E. Cupp Unfiltered” on CNN.

Send letters to [email protected].

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Chicago Bears: The top 10 most important players of 2021 by Ryan Heckman

The Chicago Cubs have enjoyed a successful start of the 2021 regular season as the team is near the top of the National League Central division. With the Cubs appearing to be contenders and trade rumors beginning to bubble to the surface, the team now appears to be buyers for the Major League Baseball trade deadline on July 30.

The Cubs’ success this season is in large part due to the efforts they have received from a bullpen that is anchored by Craig Kimbrel, Dan Winkler, and Ryan Tepera. On days in which the Cubs’ bullpen may have fallen short, the offense has provided timely hits in order to keep the team in games.

Where the Cubs have fallen short this off-season and what could prove to be their eventual downfall is their starting pitching. With the exception of the month of May where the Cubs’ starting rotation boasted the best ERA in the National League, the Cubs’ rotation has been plagued with inconsistency.

The inconsistency for the Cubs’ starting rotation has started with Kyle Hendricks. After the Cubs’ front office was forced to trade Yu Darvish this past off-season in a trade that was a pure salary dump, Hendricks was cemented as the legitimate ace of the Cubs’ rotation. The issue is that Hendricks has not performed like an ace this season.

The Chicago Cubs need to acquire a starting pitcher at the Major League Baseball trade deadline if their season is going to amount to any form of success.

Through 12 starts this season, Hendricks has posted a 4.59 ERA but his 5.47 FIP, 1.413 WHIP, and 2.2 HR/9 speak to the struggles that the starting pitcher has had this season. The reason why the Cubs can not afford to have Hendricks be inconsistent is because the Cubs’ rotation also includes an aging Jake Arrieta, inconsistency from Kyle Davies and Trevor Williams, and a developing Adbert Alzolay.

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The Cubs’ starting rotation does not have a stopper. For instance, the Cubs have lost four of their last five games. Hendricks was on the mound for the Cubs’ victory on Sunday but needed to be bailed out by the team’s offense. The Cubs are in need of a starting pitcher that they an plug into their rotation and view his starts as “Win day”.

“Win day” was the mindset that the Cubs had last season each time that Darvish took the mound for the team. Darvish is the exact pitcher that the Cubs but, unfortunately, there is no rewind button in Major League Baseball.

There have been whispers that the Washington Nationals may make Max Scherzer available and the Cubs certainly should exhaust every effort in an attempt to acquire Scherzer. Even if Scherzer is not the starting pitcher that is acquired by the Cubs, it goes without saying that acquiring a starting pitcher is a necessity for the Cubs at the trade deadline.

Related Story: Three trades that land the Chicago Cubs Max Scherzer

If the Cubs fail to acquire a legitimate starting pitcher by the Major League Baseball trade deadline on July 30, then this would be the first failure by Jed Hoyer as the president of baseball operations for the organization. Failure in the sense that the Cubs are not a World Series contender without the addition of a starting pitcher. Meaning, the efforts from the aforementioned Kimbrel and offensive stars Kris Bryant and Javier Baez would all be for naught. Thus, once again, placing the Chicago Cubs in baseball hell at the end of the season.

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Cubs: 5 players ranked among MLBTR’s top trade candidates by Vincent Parise

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Chicago Bears (Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports)

When talking about Super Bowl favorites for the 2021 season, the Chicago Bears are rarely brought up. In fact, when talking about playoff favorites for the coming year, the Bears are rarely brought up.

But, that’s understandable when they are coming off of a season that screamed mediocrity, yet again. Chicago snuck into the playoffs at the tail end of the season thanks to some help from a couple of other teams losing crucial games down the stretch, so it doesn’t exactly feel as though they’re coming off a successful season.

Many people may even forget that the Bears made the playoffs last year, especially because they were embarrassed by the Saints in the Wildcard round. It was mostly a forgettable year, but the team does look different going into the 2021 campaign.

Although the national media may not like to give the Bears any hope to be a contender this coming season, there are plenty of reasons to believe they could be.

The Chicago Bears have enough talent in key players to make a run in 2021.

This roster still has plenty of talent at several positions. In fact, there are a handful of players who could easily end up as All Pro candidates this coming year.

For the Bears to have a successful season and make a playoff run, some of these players are going to be heavily depended on. Head coach Matt Nagy knows he has a talented roster. Despite a rocky start to the offseason, general manager Ryan Pace did a wonderful job in the draft and helped this roster get into much better shape.

Now, as they prepare for what ended up being the NFL’s third-toughest schedule this coming season, the Bears are going to need big years out of some players in particular. The following guys represent the 10 most important players on this Bears roster for the 2021 season.

Next: 10. Cairo Santos

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Robert Ford and Trent Adkins shaped the bold, subversive, gossipy, funny, deeply engaged voice of Thing, which was felled by the AIDS pandemic in 1993.

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