Annette Nance-Holt | Illinois Fire Chiefs Association
If Annette Nance-Holt’s nomination by Mayor Lori Lightfoot is approved by the City Council, she would be the first woman to serve as fire commissioner in the department’s 162-year history.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot nominated Annette Nance-Holt — a Black woman — to lead the Chicago Fire Department.
If Nance-Holt’s nomination is approved by the City Council, she will be the first woman to serve as fire commissioner in the department’s 162-year history.
The 30-year CFD veteran was named acting fire commissioner after former Commissioner Richard Ford II retired in April.
“…In a time where more work remains in order to eliminate discrimination, racism and sexism from the firefighter profession, Commissioner Holt’s history-making appointment as the first woman and Black woman to lead as Fire Commissioner couldn’t have come at a better moment,” Lightfoot said in a statement.
Nance-Holt was named first deputy commissioner by Ford in 2018, making her the first woman to hold the department’s number two spot.
Nance-Holt, in a statement, said the department “must have membership and leadership that mirrors the communities it serves every day.”
“As a child, I never laid eyes on either a female firefighter or a firefighter of color,” Nance-Holt’s statement reads in part. “There were no role models who looked like me, and so I never thought that becoming a firefighter, which was my dream, would be a possibility for me. As Fire Commissioner, I intend to show the next generation of young black women that they too can achieve any and everything they set their minds and hearts to.”
Along with her long career in the CFD, Nance-Holt is also the founder of two nonprofits, Purpose Over Pain and the Blair Holt Scholarship Foundation, which focus on gun violence.
The second nonprofit is named for her son, a 16-year-old honor student at Julian High School, who was shot to death on his way home from school by a reputed gang member in 2007.
Once Nance-Holt formally takes helm of the CFD, she will have a host of matters to address.
Last month, an audit by the city’s inspector general revealed that 73 out of 285 male and female CFD members reported they experienced sexual harassment “at least once.”
Even more troubling is the rate of sexual harassment among women in the department. Of the 45 women who answered survey questions, 28 of them — or 62% — reported they were sexually harassed on the job.
Mary Beth Fisher stars as Bella and John Drea portrays Christopher in Adam Rapp’s “The Sound Inside” directed by Robert Falls at Goodman Theatre. | Cody Nieset
What holds “The Sound Inside” together is the urgency that the live feed gives it. Throughout, it rests on the undercurrent of tension that invariably accompanies live shows playing live and in real time.
There are some things the Goodman Theatre gets right with playwright Adam Rapp’s “The Sound Inside,” the first of three, streamed-live-from-the-theater productions planned for the aptly named “Live” series. But there are more things Rapp gets so wrong, that the drama starts to seem like a satire about emo English major undergrads and idiosyncratic professors who involve their students in their own dire health issues.
On the plus side: directed by Robert Falls, “The Sound Inside” is the closest I’ve come since the lockdown to feeling like I’m in a real theater with actual flesh-and-blood (as opposed to Zoomed) actors. That’s due, in part, to video director Christiana Tye. She gives the production a cinematic flair without compromising the sense of immediacy that’s embedded in live theater. In the close-ups, the vulnerability of tenured Yale English professor Bella (Mary Beth Fisher) and her troubled, enigmatic student Christopher (John Drea) is raw and unmistakable.
The wide shots create the sensation of that insular academic world swallowed within the vastness of a much murkier, larger one, both beautifully rendered by designers Jason Lynch (lighting), Richard Woodbury (original music and sound) and Paul Deziel (projection design).
Set designer Arnel Sancianco has reconfigured the Goodman’s smaller Owen theater to accommodate the minimalist but immersive set where Fisher and Drea deliver performances strong enough to render Rapp’s florid dialogue tolerable. “The Sound Inside” aspires toward elegiac, literary meditation on mortality but delivers mostly pretentious banalities.
Fisher’s Bella lights up like a sparkler when she’s discussing literature and dims when her world steps outside the boundaries of great novels. Fisher is a master at playing sardonic women with a brutally honest sense-of-self; When Bella describes herself as “four or five degrees beyond mediocre,” it’s with brutally pragmatic awareness.
Drea’s take on Christopher effectively veers from winsome and abashed to volatile and obsessed within the space of a few breaths. The intensity of the latter makes the character compelling, but the plot highly unlikely.
After his first emotional outburst, it’s difficult unto impossible to imagine any professor meeting with Christopher alone in their office. He shows up without an appointment and his vicious, largely unprovoked, outbursts (Twitter and baristas incur particular wrath) seem to skirt sociopathy, especially when he spits on the floor. His insistence that he doesn’t use email seems about as probable as a new Sylvia Plath novel rising from tomb of Honoré de Balzac. This is 21st century Yale, not some off-grid sect.
At one point, Christopher goes briefly catatonic. His eyes glaze over. He stops responding. Bella waves her hand in front of his face to no avail. Does she seek medical attention? No. She doesn’t seem particularly alarmed about being alone in her office with a student who spits, yells, talks about an uncle who had sex with a taxidermied pheasant, and goes abruptly, completely non-verbal.
Rapp’s attempt at having Bella and Christopher discuss literature wouldn’t be out of place in an English 101 survey course covering the likes of Dostoyevsky, James Salter, J.D. Salinger and Theodore Dreiser. But when Bella talks to Christopher about Sunday mornings defined by naked intertwined limbs, it feels one step removed from a Sidney Sheldon novel.
What holds “The Sound Inside” together is the urgency that the live feed gives it. Throughout, it rests on the undercurrent of tension that invariably accompanies live shows playing live and in real time.
Would that the material were on a par with the medium and the performances.
After taking the year off for obvious and heartbreaking reasons, Lollapalooza has been approved to return to Grant Park this summer, according to an exclusive report by Variety.
The music festival, which attracts roughly 100,000 suburban high schoolers in basketball jerseys, has been earmarked for the weekend of July 29th to August 1st and rumors have it that the festival will be allowed to come back at “near-to or full capacity.” Two weeks ago I couldn’t sit at Fireplace Inn with more than six people and now we’re ready to bring back the biggest music fest in the midwest in less than three months? I’m not mad about it, but OK.
The Lollapalooza announcement comes on the heels of a few other Chicago summer staples also launching plans to return in Summer 2021. Chicago favorites such as Old Town Art Fair, Pride in the Park, Windy City Smokeout, The Chicago Auto Show, Hyde Park Jazz Fest, Printers Row Lit Fest, Market Days, Chinatown Summer Fair, and Southport Art Fair have all announced return dates, including capacity limits and augmentations to the festival experience.
Pitchfork Music Festival, which is regularly held in Union Park, is tentatively planned to come back September 10th through the 12th, per the Tribune. In addition, per Block Club Chicago, The Chicago Park District has placed and administrative reservation on Grant Park from July 14th through August 6th, aligning that with rumored festival dates and the two weeks needed to set up the festival.
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The city has slowly started opening up. It seems that week by week we inch closer and closer to full normalcy. Just this week the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox announced they would be opening home games up to 60 percent capacity and the Cubs would experiment with a program that allowed fully vaccinated individuals to sit in the centerfield bleachers with no distancing limitations.
Of course now that the festival itself has been approved, a lineup is needed. And with that, speculation and rumor loves to run rampant. Organizers have hinted that a lineup could drop by the end of the month, but what fun is waiting. We at UrbanMatter are beyond excited to see Drake coincide his much anticipated release of Certified Lover Boy with Lollapalooza. Too much? Probably. But hey, that’s the game we’re in.
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For more information, releases, and rumors, check back to this article for updates as they come through.
Festivals are beginning to announce their future plans for 2021. | Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times
Improving coronavirus numbers have made more summer events possible. Here’s the latest updates on this year’s changing entertainment landscape.
With coronavirus case numbers and positivity rates on the decline, the summer festival season in Chicago is in much better shape than last year.
The city has given the green light for festivals and “general admission outdoor spectator events” to welcome 15 people for every 1,000 square feet.
The city has debated various ways bolster vaccination rates among young people most likely to attend outdoor music events like Lollapalooza and Riot Fest. Mayor Lori Lightfoot said a proposal to create a coronavirus vaccine passport for Chicago events is “very much a work in progress” but that preferred seating at those events could be one way to urge vaccination.
Some festivals have already announced their return and concerts are starting to be rescheduled.
We’re tracking the status of the city’s festival and major events throughout the area as new cancellations and postponements are announced. Check back for more updates.
May
Navy Pier Fireworks: The Pier is hosting a 10-minute fireworks show every Saturday in May at 9:00 p.m.
Manifest Urban Arts Festival: Columbia College Chicago’s student driven event that showcases graduating student work. May 10-14.
For the Love of Chocolate: Long Grove, demonstrations, classes, presentations, experiences, vendors, chocolatiers, entertainment and so much more. Advanced online registration is required, May 14-16.
Hot Stove Cool Music virtual music festival, benefits the Foundation To Be Named Later, which was co-founded by former Cubs president Theo Epstein. Eddie Vedder headlines. May 18.
Mayfest: Armitage Ave. at Sheffield Ave. in Lincoln Park, May 21 – 23.
Pivot Arts Festival: Reimagining Utopia – A Performance Tour: Live, a multi-arts experience featuring world premieres in theatre, dance, video, music and puppetry. May 21 – June 5.
Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts at Symphony Center, beginning May 27. Tickets will go on sale 10 a.m. May 11, at cso.org. Performances will take place over three consecutive weekends at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 1:30 p.m. Fridays, 7:30 p.m. Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays.
June
“Tuesdays on the Terrace,” Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, starting June 1 and every Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. through Aug. 31.
Pride in the Park, Grant Park, Headlining will be Chaka Khan, the legendary Queen of Funk; Gryffin, the self-taught prodigal producer; and Tiësto, who has been dubbed “the world’s greatest DJ.” June 26- 27.
July
The Ravinia Festival announced it will reopen in July 1 for 64 concerts through Sept. 26 with a slate of outdoor concerts including a six-week residency by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Also slated to appear are: Cynthia Erivo, Kurt Elling, Brian McKnight, Ides of March, Madeleine Peyroux, Midori, Joshua Bell, Pinchas Zukerman, the Chicago Sinfonietta and the Joffrey Ballet.
Grant Park Music Festival, Millennium Park. All concerts are free with reserved seats for all concertgoers and will take place Wednesday, Fridays and Saturdays at 6:30 p.m. Run time will be 90 minutes, without intermission. July 2-Aug. 21.
Summerfest: Milwaukee. The festival will take place over three weekends, Sept. 2-4, 9-11 and 16-18. More than 100 artists are slated to perform including Chance the Rapper, Miley Cyrus, Luke Bryan, Pixies, Rise Against, Wilco, Diplo, and Fitz and the Tantrums.
Henrik Borgstrom will compete for an NHL spot with the Blackhawks. | Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images
Borgstrom, a 23-year-old Finnish forward, and Soderblom, a 21-year-old Swedish goaltender, both signed two-year contracts with the Hawks this week.
Henrik Borgstrom’s connections to the Blackhawks, despite being Panthers property his whole career until last month, are strangely plentiful.
He attended the same Finnish high school as Kevin Lankinen. He played at the University of Denver alongside Ian Mitchell. Their Denver team won the 2017 Frozen Four at the United Center.
And now fittingly as a Hawk at last, Borgstrom is motivated to make the 2021-22 season the year his NHL career gets back on track.
“Of course that gives me energy,” he said Thursday. “Just having the thought that the team wanted me is really, really nice. [I’ll] try to work towards the beginning of the season. It’s going to be fun.”
Hawks general manager Stan Bowman wasted little time after the season ended Monday, signing two new players — Borgstrom and Swedish goalie Arvid Soderblom — to two-year contracts.
The Hawks have compiled a massive hoard of NHL-caliber players to compete for roster spots next season, even if very few of them are sure-fire stars. Borgstrom, 23, and Soderblom, 21, add to that mixture while bolstering the Hawks’ prospect pipeline.
Borgstrom is coming off a decent season with the Finnish club HIFK Helsinki, ranking eighth on the team with 21 points in 30 games, but playing overseas was not where he expected to be at this point in his career. He regrets how his Florida stints in 2018 and 2019 panned out.
“There were games there that I could have been better,” he said. “Of course, it’s always coaches and management’s decision… I was hoping to get a little more time, but I don’t like to think about it now. There’s going to be a new opportunity for me next season and I’m going to be focused on that.”
He has also been hampered by injuries, including an ankle issue last offseason.
“[At the] beginning of this season…I didn’t feel like I was really in shape,” he said. “With the whole pandemic situation going on, I thought it would be better for me to stay in Finland and play in a familiar place. Just trying to get back in the rhythm and find my game again.”
Known as an immensely talented offensive creator who has yet to overcome inconsistency and defensive flaws, the Hawks are betting Borgstrom will finally put it all together over the next two years.
“It’s going to be important for him to be a solid two-way player so we can tap into the skill he has,” Bowman said. “We’re looking for him to come in and have a strong training camp and jumpstart his career.”
Soderblom, conversely, has never before been on the NHL radar but earned his shot through impressive play.
In 2019-20, Soderblom ranked second in the Allsvenskan — Sweden’s second-tier league — with a .924 save percentage in 32 games with Tingsryds. This season, he again ranked second — this time in Sweden’s top league — with a .922 save percentage in 24 games with Skelleftea. The Hawks were in talks with him the past several months, a source said.
Soderblom will likely be Rockford-bound next season and work his way up from there. For now, he’s the only goalie the Hawks have under contract next year outside of the NHL trio of Lankinen, Malcolm Subban and Collin Delia.
Borgstrom is more likely to immediately stick in the NHL, but he’ll have far more competition to beat out first. The Hawks could have upwards of 20 forwards in camp with realistic chances to make the roster.
Alex Nylander, who fits a similar profile to Borgstrom — a former top pick with great offensive ability yet questionable defensive commitment who fizzled out with his original organization — is expected to be one of them. Bowman said Nylander is “really progressing nicely on his rehab” from knee surgery and should be “ready to go” by September.
Afghan journalist take photos and film inside a mosque after a bomb explosion in Shakar Dara district of Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, May 14, 2021. A bomb ripped through a mosque in northern Kabul during Friday prayers killing 12 worshippers, Afghan police said. | AP
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, the latest in a surge in violence as U.S. and NATO troops have begun their final withdrawal from the country, after 20 years of war.
KABUL, Afghanistan — A bomb ripped through a mosque in northern Kabul during Friday prayers, killing 12 worshippers, and wounding 15, Afghan police said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, the latest in a surge in violence as U.S. and NATO troops have begun their final withdrawal from the country, after 20 years of war.
According to Afghan police spokesman, Ferdaws Faramarz, the bomb exploded as prayers had begun. The mosque’s imam, Mofti Noman, was among the dead, the spokesman said and added that the initial police investigation suggests the imam may have been the target.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied any insurgent connection to the mosque attack, condemning it and accusing Afghanistan’s intelligence agency of being behind the explosion.
Both the Taliban and government routinely blame each other for attacks. The attackers are rarely identified, and the public is seldom informed of the results of investigations into the many attacks in the capital.
One worshipper, Muhibullah Sahebzada, said he had just stepped into the building when the explosion went off. Stunned, he heard the sound of screams, including those of children, as smoke filled the mosque.
Sahebzada said he saw several bodies on the floor, and at least one child was among the wounded. It appeared the explosive device had been hidden inside the pulpit at the front of the mosque, he added.
“I was afraid of a second explosion so I came immediately to my home” he said.
An image circulating on social media shows three bodies lying on the floor of the mosque.
The explosion comes on the second day of a three-day cease-fire announced by the Taliban for the Muslim holiday this week of Eid al-Fitr, which follows the fasting month of Ramadan. The Afghan government has also said it would abide by a truce during the holiday.
So far, many of the attacks in Kabul have been claimed by the Islamic State group’s local affiliate, though the Taliban and government routinely trade blame.
Last week, a powerful car bombing attack in Kabul killed over 90 people, many of them students leaving a girls’ school. The Taliban denied involvement and condemned the attack.
Earlier this week, U.S. troops left southern Kandahar Air Base, where some NATO forces still remain. At the war’s peak, more than 30,000 U.S. troops were stationed in Kandahar, the Taliban heartland. The base in Kandahar was the second largest U.S. base in Afghanistan, after Bagram north of Kabul.
In this Monday, April 12, 2021 file photo, a woman takes a photo on her phone of her drink in Soho, London, as some of England’s coronavirus lockdown restrictions were eased by the government. Thanks to an efficient vaccine roll out program and high uptake rates, Britain is finally saying goodbye to months of tough lockdown restrictions. From Monday May 17, 2021, all restaurants and bars can fully reopen, as can hotels, cinemas, theaters and museums, and for the first time since March 2020, Britons can hug friends and family and meet up inside other people’s houses. | AP
“The end is in sight,” one newspaper front page claimed recently. “Free at last!” read another.
LONDON — When London’s Science Museum reopens next week, it will have some new artifacts: empty vaccine vials, testing kits and other items collected during the pandemic, to be featured in a new COVID-19 display.
Britain isn’t quite ready to consign the coronavirus to a museum — the outbreak is far from over here. But there is a definite feeling that the U.K. has turned a corner, and the mood in the country is jubilant. “The end is in sight,” one newspaper front page claimed recently. “Free at last!” read another.
Thanks to an efficient vaccine rollout program, Britain is finally saying goodbye to months of tough lockdown restrictions.
Starting Monday, all restaurants and bars in England can reopen with some precautions in place, as can hotels, theaters and museums. And Britons will be able to hug friends and family again, with the easing of social distancing rules that have been in place since the pandemic began.
It’s the biggest step yet to reopen the country following an easing of the crisis blamed for nearly 128,000 deaths, the highest reported COVID-19 toll in Europe.
Deaths in Britain have come down to single digits in recent days. It’s a far cry from January, when deaths topped 1,800 in a single day amid a brutal second wave driven by a more infectious variant first found in Kent, in southeastern England.
New cases have plummeted to an average of around 2,000 a day, compared with nearly 70,000 a day during the winter.
There are still worries. British authorities have expressed anxiety about a rise in cases of a coronavirus variant first identified in India. Government officials are poised to order further action, including door-to-door testing in the worst-affected areas. One response being considered is moving up the date for a second dose of vaccine for eligible groups to increase protection.
British health officials have raced to get ahead of the virus by vaccinating hundreds of thousands of people a day at hospitals, soccer pitches, churches and a racecourse. As of this week, almost 38 million people — approximately 68% of the adult population — have received their first dose. Almost 19 million have had both doses.
It’s an impressive feat, and many credit Britain’s universal public health system for much of the success.
Experts say the National Health Service, one of the country’s most revered institutions, is able to target the whole population and easily identify those most at risk because almost everyone is registered with a local general practitioner.
That infrastructure, combined with the government’s early start in securing vaccine doses, was key. British authorities began ordering millions of doses from multiple manufacturers late last spring, striking deals months ahead of the European Union and securing more than enough vaccine to inoculate the entire population.
“I don’t think it’s surprising that the two countries in the world with probably the strongest primary care systems, which are us and Israel, are doing the best with vaccine rollout,” said Beccy Baird, a policy researcher at the King’s Fund, a charity for improving health care.
“We have the medical records. We can understand where our patients are. We’re not trying to negotiate with loads of different insurance companies. … It’s the same standard right through the country,” she added. “Whereas in the States, it’s going to be harder to really think about how do you reach underserved communities, how do you get out there and provide the same access to everybody to this vaccine?”
David Salisbury, a former director of the government’s immunization program and a fellow at London’s Chatham House think tank, added that Britain also has the edge because of its track record in successfully rolling out other vaccines, such as the seasonal flu shot.
Many around the world were skeptical about Britain’s decision to delay the second dose by up to 12 weeks to free up vaccine for more people, but that strategy also paid huge dividends. The two shots of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were intended to be given three and four weeks apart.
Anthony Harnden, an Oxford academic and a top government vaccination adviser, said “there were lots of questions asked” and “we were up against many countries” who disagreed with spacing out the two doses, but officials stuck to the plan.
“You have to remember, looking back at that time, there were a thousand or more people dying every day in the U.K. So there was a huge imperative to get our vulnerable people vaccinated,” he said. “It was an innovative strategy, a bold strategy, but it was based on our experience of previous vaccines.”
The vaccine program’s success has been a much-needed boost for Britain.
Many of those who accuse the government of poorly managing the outbreak last year say the U.K. is finally doing something right.
“We didn’t hand (the vaccine rollout) over to an outsourcing company. That would have been a major failure. And we also didn’t delay the way we did in the first wave. We moved quickly,” said Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “So it was almost like the mirror image of the mistakes we made in the first wave.”
Still, McKee said he is worried that too many people may throw caution to the wind too soon.
Young people, who run a much lower risk of serious illness but can still spread the virus, are not included in the vaccination program. Official figures also show significant gaps in vaccine uptake among minorities and poor people.
McKee and many others are also concerned about the variants that are turning up. That risk is especially worrying as the U.K. slowly reopens to foreign tourists this summer.
“We’ve seen very discouraging evidence from Chile and from the Seychelles, both of which have high proportions of people who have been vaccinated and where many restrictions were lifted, and they’ve had upsurges,” McKee said.
Harnden is more optimistic. If the U.K. can roll out a booster vaccine program later this year and if people remain cautious, he said, “we can get ourselves out of this” and get close to normal by the summer of 2022.
“We’re not completely out of this yet,” he said, “but we’re in a much, much better place than in the last few months.”
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Associated Press writer Mike Fuller contributed to this report.
Trent Reznor, of Nine Inch Nails, performs on day one of Riot Fest in Douglas Park, Sept. 15, 2017. The band returns to headline the festival this year. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
In an unprecedented move, festival organizers also announced a ticket on-sale for the 2022 edition of the festival.
Headliners for the 2021 edition of Riot Fest were announced Friday.
Among the bands scheduled for the three-day, live music fest Sept. 17-19 at Douglass Park, are Rock and Roll Hall of Famers and Oscar winners Nine Inch Nails, the Smashing Pumpkins, Devo, Faith No More, Run the Jewels, Vic Mensa and Pixies. Three-day passes are now on sale at riotfest.org. Single-day passes will go on sale next week.
In an unprecedented move, festival organizers also announced a ticket on-sale for the 2022 edition of the festival (slated for Sept. 16-18, 2022) revealing My Chemical Romance is already scheduled to perform. The band had been booked for the 2020 festival, which was canceled due to the COVID pandemic. Tickets for the 2022 festival are also on sale at riotfest.org. Additional 2022 bands will be revealed next week.
Marisol Nichols of “Riverdale” plays a police captain in “Spiral: From the Book of Saw.” | Lionsgate
The Chicago-born actor’s first scary movie is the ninth installment of the series. And she spends some ‘terrifying’ time in one of the franchise’s trademark death traps.
Marisol Nichols’ manager sent her the description of a role of a police captain in the latest “Saw” film and told her, “I think I’m gonna get you this role.”
The role of Capt. Angie Garza was written for a man but eventually went to Nichols, a native of Rogers Park.
Best known for her roles on Fox’s “24” as Nadia Yassir and The CW’s “Riverdale” as Hermione Lodge, the longtime fan of scary movies now is part of an enduring and notorious horror franchise.
In “Spiral: From the Book of Saw” — which is finally in theaters after being delayed for a year due to the coronavirus pandemic — Jigsaw’s bloody legacy is revived by a copycat killer seeking revenge on the dirtiest cops in the South Metro Police Department.
Living in the shadows of his father, the veteran police chief (Samuel L. Jackson), Detective Zeke Banks (Chris Rock) finds himself in the middle of a gruesome series of killings that reminds the duo of what it was like taking down John Kramer, a.k.a. Jigsaw. Garza puts the Bankses on the case as cops are beginning to turn up dead at the hands of the mysterious killer.
Thanks to Rock, who pitched the idea for the film to the Lionsgate studio, the movie is sprinkled with one-liners and plenty of Jackson cussing out his castmates. The comedian has called the movie “the bloodiest ‘Law and Order’ you’ve ever seen.”
The copycat killer known as Spiral uses plenty of death traps in scenes that might remind “Saw” fans of the ways Jigsaw’s past victims have died. Nichols’ character eventually finds herself in one of the traps.
“It’s terrifying,” Nichols said of filming that scene. “It’s a really scary thing.
“I wanted to stay true to the character and how she would react to being in this trap, and I knew she’d be pretty pissed off. She wouldn’t be scared. She would be pissed off. That combination of pain and anger that this is happening, and this a—— has caught her. I wanted that. I wanted to do it from a point of strength, not just another female victim. Haven’t we seen enough of that?”
Nichols graduated from Hinsdale Central High School and went on to study at the College of DuPage before moving to Los Angeles in 1995 to pursue acting. Her first acting gig was in a play at the College of DuPage. She tried out on a whim and wound up receiving one of the lead roles and falling in love with acting.
The CWSince 2017, Marisol Nichols (left) has played the mother of Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes) on “Riverdale.”
She said her roles on “24” and “Law and Order: SVU” helped prepare her to play the police captain in “Spiral,” but nothing prepared her more than her real-life undercover work exposing real-life sexual predators. After learning about child sex trafficking in 2012, Nichols began working with law enforcement agencies to impersonate people on the Internet and stop predators from buying sex with children.
“Whether I’m playing a mom selling her kids on the Internet or if I’m playing a little kid … it’s something that I a.) believe in passionately and b.) I’ve considered quitting acting just to do that full time because that’s what I care about,” she said.
Nichols said she’s talking with Sony about a TV series that would focus on her undercover work.
She’s also set to star in a remake of the 2006 French comedy “The Valet” with Eugenio Derbez.
Lionsgate decided not to release “Spiral” online, as many other movies have been during the pandemic, instead holding off until people returned to theaters.
Nichols said she planned to sneak into a theater this weekend to watch the movie with an audience.
“There’s certain films that should be seen in a theater and not on a computer or a small screen,” she said. “And this is one of them.”
Lionel Messi and La Liga broadcasts are moving to ESPN in the United States. | Alberto Saiz/AP
ESPN will take over English- and Spanish-language rights. La Liga, which features Barcelona and Lionel Messi, has been televised by BeIN Sport since the 2012-13 season.
Spain’s La Liga is hoping that their deal with ESPN finally puts them on the same footing in the United States as their English and German soccer counterparts.
ESPN will take over English- and Spanish-language rights to La Liga when the next season begins in August as part of an eight-year agreement announced on Thursday. La Liga, which features Barcelona and Lionel Messi, has been televised by BeIN Sport since the 2012-13 season.
La Liga established a North American office in 2018 in a joint venture with Relevent Sports and has been trying to gain more of a foothold in America. But being on a network with a limited reach has been a hindrance.
“The U.S. is the most important market for the league outside of Spain. It has been a priority for La Liga to get our product closer to our fans here,” La Liga North America CEO Boris Gartner said. “It was clear to get to that next step we needed to find another partner. And honestly, when we started thinking about this, we always knew that we wanted to be in this project with ESPN.”
BeIN was in the first season of a four-year deal before La Liga bought back the final three seasons. ESPN executive vice president of programming Burke Magnus said he wasn’t expecting rights to be available until he was approached by La Liga.
“It helps us both achieve our objectives,” he said. “For us, it’s exclusive, comprehensive and long term.”
BeIN Sports has limited distribution in the U.S. with fewer than 15 million subscribers, narrowing the visibility of Messi, Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid. ESPN announced on Thursday that there are 13.8 million subscribers to the ESPN+ streaming service, which just had its third anniversary.
ESPN+ has experienced steady growth through the acquisition of soccer rights, including Germany’s Bundesliga, England’s FA Cup, League Cup and second-tier League Championship, and Spain’s Copa del Rey.
ESPN+ will stream all 380 La Liga matches next season, and some will be televised on ESPN’s networks. The twice-a-season El Clásicos between Barcelona and Real Madrid are the most-viewed domestic league games worldwide and are likely to be on ABC.
Gartner said the league would work with ESPN to find an optimal match time if El Clásico were to end up on broadcast television. For most if the year, Spain is six hours ahead of New York, meaning a 9 p.m. start in Spain would be 3 p.m. Eastern and noon Pacific.
“For us the passionate fans that go to a stadium every week in Spain are as important as those that wake up early in the morning in America to watch their team play. We want to make it as accessible to all of them as possible,” he said.
With two matches remaining this season, Atlético Madrid, which is seeking its first title since 2004, is two points ahead of Real Madrid.
Gartner said La Liga is still exploring the possibility of playing a regular-season match in the United States the next couple seasons. Barcelona and Real Madrid met in Miami in 2017 during the preseason International Champions Cup tournament.
Some LaLiga programming will start appearing on ESPN+ on Saturday. The deal runs through the 2028-29 season and also includes select second-division games as well as the promotion playoffs.
ESPN does have a previous history with La Liga. Some select matches aired on ESPN 2 as well as ESPN Deportes from 2009-12.
One aspect of La Liga that might not be making the move to ESPN is Ray Hudson. The BeIN Sport commentator, who is known for his liberal use of outlandish metaphors, has been a key part of the league’s growing popularity.
La Liga’s move also benefits soccer fans, who have many options for viewing their favorite league. Next season four networks will carry Europe’s top five leagues and competitions.
NBC and Peacock have England’s Premier League, the highest-rated domestic league on U.S. television. NBC’s six-year contract expires after the 2021-22 season, and the rights are expected to come up for bid this summer.
CBS and Paramount+ started its rights to the Europe’s Champions League and Europa leagues last year and takes over Italy’s Serie A from ESPN next season. BeIN will still air games from France’s Ligue 1.
Fox has rights to the 2022 and 2026 FIFA World Cup and the 2023 Women’s World Cup. Fox and ESPN also share the rights to Major League Soccer with that contract set to expire after the 2022 season.
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