Chicago’s first new Boys & Girls Club in a generation will be built on the campus of the police and fire training academy in West Garfield Park, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced Thursday, in a move denounced by critics as a “slap in the face” to Black youth.

“This is just sugar-coating a plan that is due to fail…This whole campus should be a youth center where young people can grow and thrive. Instead, it’s a police academy. The real investment is going to police,” said former mayoral challenger Ja’Mal Green.

The $95 million training academy being built in the 4400-block of W. Chicago Ave. has drawn opposition from Chance the Rapper, college students in Chicago and across the nation and local youth organized under the #NoCopAcademy.

It became a symbol of former Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s misplaced spending priorities. During countless protests, they argued that the money would be better spent on recreational and education programs for young people along with mental health.

On Thursday, Lightfoot and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago responded to those demands, but in a way that infuriated the #NoCopAcademy movement.

They announced that an 18,000 square-foot youth development center would be built on the 34-acre campus of the police and fire training academy on 20,000 square feet of land that the city will lease to the club for $1-a-year.

The 55-year lease–with the potential for a 20-year extension–will be introduced to the City Council this summer.

Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35^th) called the decision to co-locate the two projects a “bad move.” In fact, he accused the mayor of “playing political games.”

“This is absolutely an attempt to try and sell something that young Black youth have consistently said they don’t want to see built on the West Side,” said Ramirez-Rosa, dean of the City Council’s Socialist Caucus.

“The NoCopAcademy organizers were demanding a community center, a youth center. And this is just a slap in their face to say, `You’re gonna get the youth center, but guess what? It’s also gonna be right next to the swimming pool and shooting range for cops.’ “

As desperately as Chicago needs youth programming, Ramirez-Rosa predicted that many young people would shun the Boys & Girls Club located on the training campus.

“I worked with many Black youth from the West Side on the NoCopAcademy campaign. One of the things they consistently told me is, `We don’t feel safe around Chicago Police officers,’ ” Ramirez-Rosa said.

“We can look at the shooting of Adam Toledo to know that so many of our young people have reason to be afraid.”

Destiny Harris, a youth organizer for the #NoCopAcademy campaign, said a new Boys & Girls Club of Chicago is a “beautiful thing.” But not on the site of the police academy that young people fought so hard to stop.

“This is strictly a p.r. move. It’s the mayor trying to make this project more palatable so that, when youth of NoCopAcademy are like, `No, we don’t want this cop academy. This isn’t the best use of $95 million,’ that we actually look like the bad people,” Harris said.

“Police officers don’t make Black children feel safe…How can you expect Black and Brown children to come into this space and feel comfortable?”

In a news release announcing the project, Lightfoot was quoted as saying that Boys & Girls Clubs across the country “provide important opportunities for young people to develop their talents, connect with like-minded peers and begin to chart out their path toward success.”

“I look forward to seeing how it enriches the lives of our young people living on the West Side,” the mayor was quoted as saying.

In March 2018, then-Police Board President Lightfoot told the City Club of Chicago that CPD “desperately needs” a new training facility, but Emanuel’s plan to build the complex in West Garfield Park was “ill-conceived.”

“Putting this edifice to policing in this high-crime, impoverished neighborhood where relations between the police and the community are fraught, without a clear plan for community engagement, is a mistake,” Lightfoot said then.

“The allocation of any funds for a police academy is viewed by many as further affirmation that needs of the people will never be prioritized over those of the police.”

A month after taking office, Lightfoot dramatically changed her tune.

After touring the current police academy and seeing recruits apprehending mock suspects in a dark hallway, Lightfoot came away more convinced than ever a new academy is essential to improve training that the U.S. Justice Department found so sorely lacking.

But Lightfoot was not at all certain the two-building campus was “big enough” to house a training facility that will be “best-in-class” not just when it opens, but for decades afterward.

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“Let’s say I improvise,” Baez said. “I’m pretty good at tagging and not letting people tag me.”

PITTSBURGH — Javy Baez isn’t called “El Mago” for no reason and the Pirates learned the hard way in the Cubs’ 5-3 win.

Baez has been known to do some amazing things on a field, but leave it to him to turn what would normally be an easy out into an adventure for an opposing defense.

“I think you can see different stuff in baseball,” Baez said. “You never stop learning different things in baseball.”

After hitting a sharp ground ball to third base with two outs in the third inning, Baez began to run toward first base. But after the throw from third base was offline, Baez stopped in his tracks and started to retreat toward the plate.

“Let’s say I improvise,” he said. “I can react pretty fast to things like contact and stuff. … I’m pretty good at tagging and not letting people tag me.”

Pirates first baseman Will Craig had a mental lapse, forgetting he could have stepped on the bag to end the inning and proceeded to run after the Cubs’ shortstop.

Catcher Willson Contreras, who was on second base, advanced to third and started to race home as Baez got himself into a rundown. As Baez approached the batter’s box, Contreras slid in and scored, beating the throw home.

“I’ve never seen it,” starter Kyle Hendricks said. “I don’t think you’ll ever see it again.”

After celebrating Contreras scoring mid-play, Baez realized there was no one occupying first base and beat the nearest Pirates defender to first, even forcing a throwing error to reach second base. He would score on the next play on Ian Happ’s RBI single.

“Only Javy disappears on the basepaths more than any person I’ve seen,” manager David Ross said. “It really is a magic act. He just creates havoc, man.”

Hendricks keeps it rolling, wins third straight

It was only a matter of time before Hendricks returned to form and the Cubs right-hander kept his strong month of May going with another good start.

Hendricks tossed seven innings in the Cubs’ win over the Pirates, winning his third consecutive start and fourth in his last five.

During his recent run of success, he’s been able to get himself into a rhythm and stay there. On Thursday, Hendricks did that, allowing one hit through his first three innings.

Even after back-to-back homers by Bryan Reynolds and Gregory Polanco, Hendricks limited the damage and made it through seven innings, finishing the game with five strikeouts and no walks.

Hendricks is now 4-1 in May with a 2.67 ERA with three walks and 47 strikeouts.

“I just got to be a little bit better mentally,” Hendricks said. “Physically, I was making good pitches, just got a little bit lazy mentally. … Going forward, I just need to lock it in just a touch more, have better intent on the pitches I’m trying to throw pitch-to-pitch and go from there.”

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Samuel James Cassidy had a memo book that had notes on how he hated the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority. The memo also said he had books on terrorism but when he was asked whether he had issues with people at work he said no.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A gunman who killed nine people at a California rail yard appeared to target some of the victims, a sheriff told The Associated Press on Thursday, while a Biden administration official said he spoke of hating his workplace when customs officers detained him after a 2016 trip to the Philippines.

The shooter arrived at the light rail facility for the Valley Transportation Authority in San Jose around 6 a.m. Wednesday with a duffel bag filled with semi-automatic handguns and high-capacity magazines, Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith said in an interview.

“It appears to us at this point that he said to one of the people there: ‘I’m not going to shoot you,’” Smith said. “And then he shot other people. So I imagine there was some kind of thought on who he wanted to shoot.”

While there are no cameras inside the rail yard’s two buildings, Smith said footage captured him moving from one location to the next. It took deputies six minutes from the first 911 calls to find the gunman on the third floor of one of the buildings, Smith said.

He killed himself as deputies closed in on the facility serving the county of more than 1 million people in the heart of Silicon Valley. More than 100 people were there at the time, and authorities found five victims in one building and two in another, Smith said.

Authorities do not yet know whether the gunman had worked regularly with any of the victims. Investigators were serving search warrants for his home and cellphone, seeking to determine what prompted the bloodshed, the sheriff said.

“I’m not sure we’ll ever actually find the real motive, but we’ll piece it together as much as we can from witnesses,” she said.

The attacker was identified as 57-year-old Samuel Cassidy, according to two law enforcement officials who were not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Cassidy had a memo book with notes on how he hated the Valley Transportation Authority, according to a Biden administration official who described a Department of Homeland Security memo that laid out Cassidy’s statements. The official saw the memo and detailed its contents to The Associated Press but was not authorized to speak publicly about an ongoing investigation.

The memo said he had books about “terrorism and fear and manifestos” but when he was asked whether he had issues with people at work he said no.

The memo doesn’t say why he was stopped after his 2016 trip. It notes that Cassidy had a “minor criminal history” and cites a 1983 incident where he was arrested in San Jose and charged with “misdemeanor obstruction/resisting a peace officer.”

Cassidy’s ex-wife said he had talked about killing people at work more than a decade ago.

“I never believed him, and it never happened. Until now,” a tearful Cecilia Nelms told the AP on Wednesday.

She said he used to come home from work resentful and angry over what he perceived as unfair assignments.

“He could dwell on things,” she said. The two were married for about 10 years until a 2005 divorce filing, and she had not been in touch with Cassidy for about 13 years, Nelms said.

The three handguns he had appear to be legal, sheriff’s officials said. Authorities do not yet know how he obtained them.

He also had 11 high-capacity magazines, each with 12 rounds. In California, it is illegal to buy magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. However, if Cassidy had obtained them before Jan. 1, 2000, he would be allowed to have them unless he was otherwise prohibited from possessing firearms.

The sheriff said authorities found explosives at the gunman’s home, where investigators believe he had set a timer or slow-burn device so that a fire would occur at the same time as the shooting. Flames were reported minutes after the first 911 calls came in from the rail facility.

The attack was the 15th mass killing in the U.S. this year, all shootings that claimed at least four lives each for a total of 87 deaths, according to a database compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University.

President Joe Biden urged Congress to act on legislation to curb gun violence, saying, “Every life that is taken by a bullet pierces the soul of our nation. We can, and we must, do more.”

The shooting killed employees who had been bus and light rail operators, mechanics, linemen and an assistant superintendent over the course of their careers.

They were Alex Ward Fritch, 49; Paul Delacruz Megia, 42; Taptejdeep Singh, 36; Adrian Balleza, 29; Jose Dejesus Hernandez, 35; Timothy Michael Romo, 49; Michael Joseph Rudometkin, 40; Abdolvahab Alaghmandan, 63, and Lars Kepler Lane, 63.

Family and friends remembered Singh as a hero. He called another transit employee to warn him about Cassidy, saying he needed to get out or hide.

“He told me he was with Paul, another victim, at the time,” co-worker Sukhvir Singh, who is not related to Taptejdeep Singh, said in a statement. “From what I’ve heard, he spent the last moments of his life making sure that others — in the building and elsewhere — would be able to stay safe.”

Singh had worked as a light rail train driver for eight or nine years and had a wife and two small children, said his cousin, Bagga Singh.

“We heard that he chose the people to shoot, but I don’t know why they chose him because he has nothing to do with him,” Bagga Singh said.

A solemn and tearful moment of silence was held Thursday by transit authority officials, who read the names of the nine victims aloud and stood beside a giant poster board with their photos.

The reality of the loss was hard to accept, said Raul Peralez, a San Jose councilman and transit authority board member who was a lifelong friend of Rudometkin, one of the victims.

“I, unfortunately, get to know personally how these nine families have felt this past night, this morning with just a sense of disbelief, with a hope that your loved one is still going to come home and knowing that that’s just never going to happen again,” he said.

A vigil for the victims was planned Thursday evening in San Jose.

Meanwhile, there was nothing in public records to indicate Cassidy ever got in trouble with the law. He received a traffic ticket in 2019, and sheriff’s officials said they were still investigating his background.

But in court documents filed in 2009, an ex-girlfriend described him as volatile and violent, with major mood swings because of bipolar disorder that became worse when he drank heavily.

Several times while he was drunk, Cassidy forced himself on her sexually despite her refusals, pinning her arms with his body weight, the woman said in a sworn statement filed after Cassidy sought a restraining order against her. The documents were obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle.

The AP generally does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted.

Cassidy had worked for Valley Transportation Authority since at least 2012, according to the public payroll and pension database Transparent California, first as a mechanic from 2012 to 2014, then maintaining substations.

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Associated Press journalists Jocelyn Gecker in San Francisco, Martha Mendoza in Santa Cruz, John Antczak in Los Angeles, and Michael Balsamo and Colleen Long in Washington contributed to this report.

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Crews battled a blaze in the 5800 block of North Oriole Avenue, according to Chicago fire officials.

A couple in their 60s were hospitalized after a fire broke out Thursday afternoon in a Norwood Park home on the Northwest Side.

The blaze started after 3 p.m. in the 5800 block of North Oriole Avenue, according to Chicago fire officials.

Two adults suffered injuries brought on by smoke inhalation and were transported to area hospitals in serious-to-critical condition, fire officials said.

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SALEM, Ore. — Wearing soot-smudged, fire-resistant clothing and helmets, several wildland firefighters armed with hoes moved through a stand of ponderosa pines as flames tore through the underbrush.

The firefighters weren’t there to extinguish the fire. They had started it.

The prescribed burn, ignited this month near the scenic mountain town of Bend, is part of a massive effort in wildlands across the U.S. West to prepare for a fire season that’s expected to be even worse than last year?s record-shattering one.

The U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management have thinned by hand, machines and prescribed burns about 1.8 million acres of forest and brushland since last season, officials from the agencies told The Associated Press. They typically treat some 3 million acres every year.

All that activity, though, has barely scratched the surface. The federal government owns roughly 640 million acres in the U.S. All but 4% of it lies in the West, including Alaska, with some of it unsuitable for prescribed burning.

“All these steps are in the right direction, but the challenge is big and complex,” said John Bailey, professor of silviculture and fire management at Oregon State University. “And more needs to be done to even turn the corner.”

The efforts face a convergence of bleak forces.

Severe drought has turned forests and grasslands into dry fuels, ready to ignite from a careless camper or a lightning strike. More people are building in areas bordering wildlands, expanding the so-called wildland-urban interface, an area where wildfires impact people the most. Invasive, highly flammable vegetation is spreading uncontrolled across the West.

“I’m seeing probably the worst combination of conditions in my lifetime,” said Derrick DeGroot, a county commissioner in southern Oregon’s Klamath County. “We have an enormous fuel load in the forests, and we are looking at a drought unlike we’ve seen probably in the last 115 years.”

Asked how worried he is about the 2021 fire season, DeGroot said: “On a scale of 1 to 10, I’m a 12. Nothing looks good.”

In other prevention measures in the West, utility companies are removing vegetation around power lines and are ready to impose blackouts when those lines threaten to spark a fire.

Armies of firefighters are being beefed up. And communities are offering incentives for residents to make their own properties fire-resistant.

Still, much work remains to change the region’s trajectory with fire, particularly in two key areas, said Scott Stephens, professor of wildland fire science at the University of California, Berkeley.

“One is getting people better prepared for the inevitability of fire in areas like the wildland-urban interface. That includes new construction,” he said. “And the second is getting our ecosystems better prepared for climate change and fire impacts.”

On the local level, individuals and communities need to create defensible spaces and evacuation plans, he said. On the government level, more resources need to go toward managing forests.

“I think we’ve got one to two decades,” Stephens said. “If we don’t do this in earnest, we’re frankly just going to be watching the forest change right in front of our eyes from fire, climate change, drought, insects, things of that nature.”

Part of the issue is that increasing wildfire resilience often requires trade-offs, said Erica Fleishman, professor at Oregon State University’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences.

Cities or states could require defensible spaces around homes. Building codes could call for fire-resistant materials. That would drive up construction costs but also mean homes would be less likely to burn and need rebuilding, she said.

“The insurance industry and the building industry and communities and lawmakers are all going to need to have the will to create these changes,” she said.

Fleishman also believes more prescribed fires could be conducted in the wildland-urban interface, but said “society is risk averse.”

“Right now, there’s not, in many cases, a whole lot of will to do it,” she said.

Prescribed burns target vegetation that carries flames into forest canopies, where they can explode into massive wildfires.

Planning and preparing for them can take two to five years. And carrying them out is a never-ending task, said Jessica Gardetto, spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center, in Boise, Idaho.

While targeting one forest, other forests continue to grow, creating “this vast buildup across the landscape,” she said.

Besides overgrown forests, the West faces a newer threat: cheatgrass, which grows prolifically after a wildfire and becomes incredibly flammable.

Gardetto said trying to get rid of the invasive grass is like the endless toil of Sisyphus, the Greek mythological figure who was forced to roll a boulder up a hill, only for it to roll down as it neared the top, over and over again.

After a fire is put out, the first thing to come back is cheatgrass.

“It starts this horrible cycle that is really difficult to combat,” she said.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and U.S. Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen signed an agreement last August committing the state and the federal agency to scale up treatment of forest and wildlands to 1 million acres annually by 2025.

They have a long way to reach that goal. Cal Fire, a state agency responsible for protecting over 31 million acres of California’s privately owned wildlands, treated some 20,000 acres with prescribed fire and thinning from last summer through March.

Meanwhile, California increased the number of seasonal firefighters by almost 50%, according to Lynne Tolmachoff, spokeswoman for Cal Fire.

With the fire season getting longer each year, Colorado lawmakers last spring allocated about $3 million to increase staffing at the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control, said Mike Morgan, its director.

“Historically, wildland firefighters were college students. They’d get out of school on Memorial Day, they’d go fight fire, and they’d go back to school on Labor Day,” Morgan said. “Well, now we’re having fires every month of the year, and so we need firefighters year-round.”

The Bureau of Land Management is transforming its seasonal firefighting force to fulltime with a $13 million budget increase, Gardetto said.

Despite all these efforts, warnings are going out telling people to be ready for the worst.

The Oregon Office of Emergency Management advised residents on Monday to have a bag packed and have an evacuation plan.

“Abnormally dry conditions and pre-season fires on the landscape are causing concern for the 2021 wildfire season,” the agency said. “Now is the time for Oregonians to prepare themselves, their families and their homes for wildfire.”

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Associated Press writers Don Thompson in Sacramento, California; Thomas Peipert in Denver; and Daisy Nguyen in San Francisco contributed to this report.

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Follow Selsky on Twitter at https://twitter.com/andrewselsky

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A 7-year-old boy was grazed by a bullet and a man was shot Thursday in Calumet Heights on the South Side.

They were inside of a vehicle about 2:55 p.m. in the 1700 block of East 95th Street when another vehicle approached and someone inside opened fire, Chicago police said.

The boy was grazed in the ear, and the man was shot in the chin area, police said. They were both at Trinity Hospital in good condition.

Area Two detectives are investigating.

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Chicago Cubs shortstop Javier Baez made an awesome heads up play in Thursday’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates that led to a run.

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