The tense story is compelling, and the Montana scenery is breathtaking.

One of the things I love about Taylor Sheridan’s exhilarating neo-Western “Those Who Wish Me Dead” is how the movie spends a minimum amount of time explaining the launching point for a violent and breathtakingly suspenseful chain of events — and then plunges us into one of the best thrillers in recent memory.

Here’s what we learn early on. There’s a Big Sweeping Scandal brewing and it will take down a cauldron of law enforcement and high-ranking political officials — so hits have been ordered on a Florida district attorney and the forensic accountant. After the D.A. and his family are wiped out, the aforementioned accountant, a widower named Mr. Casserly (Jake Weber), hits the road with his 12-year-old son Connor (Finn Little) in the hopes of making it to Montana, where his brother-in-law Ethan (Jon Bernthal) is a sheriff.

Mr. Casserly knows he can trust Ethan. He’s not so sure about the rest of the world. That’s all we really learn about that Big Sweeping Scandal, and we just go with it.

By the time the father-and-son assassin duo of Jack and Patrick Blackwell (Aiden Gillen and Nicholas Hoult, respectively) ambush the Casserlys in Montana, leaving Connor on his own, in shock and running for his life in the woods, we’ve already been introduced to Angelina Jolie’s Hannah, a smokejumper who is in the throes of PTSD a year after she failed to save three boys who were trapped in a raging forest fire. Assigned to the relatively safe duty of monitoring the land from a one-person lookout tower, Hannah comes across the panicked Connor, hears his story — and becomes his guide and protector as they try to stay one step ahead of the Blackwells against the backdrop of an electrical storm that has cut off all power and has caused a raging forest fire that threatens to engulf everything in its path. Oh, and Hannah has just been struck by lightning, so she’s bruised and battered and seems a little weird, though she claims she was a little weird before she was zapped.

So, yes: there’s a lot going on in “Those Who Wish Me Dead,” and we’re just getting started. Director Sheridan and his co-writers Charles Leavitt and Michael Koryta (whose novel is the source material) have fashioned a thoroughly engrossing tale filled with memorable characters, dryly funny dialogue and show-stopping, often brutal confrontations in which the weapon of choice varies from semi-automatic firearms to a deer rifle to a fire extinguisher to handguns to an axe to bare fists, depending on the circumstances. To be sure, there are moments when we think, “Couldn’t they just …” or “Why doesn’t somebody …,” but we quickly dismiss those questions because we’re so caught up in this gripping story that plays a little like a Big Sky version of “The Client,” with a hard-bitten, world-weary woman suddenly finding herself in fiercely protective mother mode when a boy who has witnessed an unspeakable tragedy drops into her care.

Bernthal is his usual likable self as the hard-shelled, soft-hearted sheriff, but it’s Medina Senghore who steals the show as Ethan’s six-months-pregnant wife, Allison, who runs a wilderness survivalist camp and is thus quite well-equipped to deal with those menacing Blackwells when they came banging on the door of the Sawyers’ cabin in search of young Connor. Not everyone is going to survive this ordeal, but when Allison climbs aboard a trusty steed and they gallop into the blackness, it’s the polar opposite of going gently into any good night. She is such a badass.

New Line Cinema

Cinematographer Ben Richardson and the special effects team deliver one visually arresting set piece after another; one of my favorite moments is when a team of smokejumpers with deep red parachutes swoop down on a patch of land so strafed by wildfire it looks like the surface of the moon. “Those Who Wish Me Dead” has great old-fashioned storytelling set against a breathtakingly beautiful backdrop, and there’s never a wasted moment or throwaway line of dialogue in this expertly constructed story. Angelina Jolie returns to peak movie-star form with her powerful and resonant performance, and young Finn Little is a natural who breaks our heart as he tries his best to keep it together even as he weeps for his father.

As the writer and/or director of such works as “Sicario,” “Hell or High Water,” “Wind River” and the TV series “Yellowstone,” Taylor Sheridan has compiled an astonishingly strong library of stories about men and women who drive pickup trucks and ride horses, who know their way around guns and knives, who wake up every morning knowing they’ll be covered in sweat and grime, and maybe blood, by the end of the day. He has created numerous memorable antiheroes who rise to the occasion when the occasion threatens to end their world, and “Those Who Wish Me Dead” ranks among his very best work.

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A Chicago real estate agent who lost her job with @properties because of her ties to the U.S. Capitol breach in January is suing over an MSNBC report in which she claims the network wrongly told viewers she had been criminally charged, court records show.

The Jan. 6 Capitol riot interrupted the Electoral College vote count and has led to criminal charges in federal court against hundreds of people, including at least six Illinoisans. Libby McCarten Andrews is not among them, according to court records.

Still, the real estate group @properties announced on Jan. 7 that Andrews had been fired, saying it received “a tremendous amount of outreach” following social media posts in which Andrews appeared to acknowledge being in Washington, D.C., for the event.

Andrews allegedly posted a photo of herself standing on the Capitol steps with supporters of then-President Donald Trump along with the caption, “History! It’s not done yet!” In another post, she allegedly wrote, “After storming the capital a good glass of champagne is needed!”

Now, in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Chicago against NBC Universal Media LLC, Andrews alleges that her name and photograph wrongly appeared in a graphic broadcast Jan. 10 on “Weekends with Alex Witt” that was titled, “Charged In Connection With Riot.”

An NBCUniversal representative could not immediately be reached for comment. Nor could a lawyer for Andrews.

In the complaint, Andrews’ lawyers wrote that she left Chicago the morning of Jan. 6, flew to Washington and arrived in the early afternoon. By 1:30 p.m., she was part of a crowd present on the east side of the Capitol, it said.

“Unbeknownst to Libby, while she was present on the east side of the United States Capitol Building, a group of individuals apparently forcibly entered the United States Capitol Building without authority by breaching the doors on the west side of the building and then and there engaged in offensive and vile criminal acts within the United States Capitol Building,” her lawyers wrote.

They also insist in the complaint that Andrews did not instigate any confrontation, enter the Capitol, participate in any damage or destruction, threaten anyone or trespass on public property. It said she left the Capitol around 3:15 p.m. and walked to a hotel where she had made reservations that evening.

The lawsuit claims that, prior to the Jan. 10 broadcast of “Weekends with Alex Witt,” Andrews “had no notoriety of any kind in the community at large,” though her name appeared in multiple news reports after @properties announced her firing Jan. 7.

Andrews’ lawyers wrote that NBCUniversal published “its false and defamatory accusations against [Andrews] in order to advance its own political agenda that anyone present outside the Capitol on January 6, 2021 was there to engage in violence and cause criminal damage.”

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Bears general manager Ryan Pace artfully addressed a need for an upgrade at offensive tackle when he traded up to take Oklahoma State’s Teven Jenkins in the second round (39th overall) of the draft. Until then, the only other tackle Pace had drafted in six seasons as GM was Texas Christian’s Tayo Fabuluje in the sixth round of the 2015 draft.

Jenkins was rated a first-round talent by most draft analysts and was projected to go to the Bears with the 20th overall pick in some mock drafts — a plug-and-play replacement, presumably, for the departed right tackle Bobby Massie. For Pace to get Jenkins at No. 39 seemed like a masterstroke that was a little overshadowed by Pace’s trade up to get Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields at No. 11. When you’re hot, you’re hot.

But the next major move at tackle seemed to neutralize the upgrade. Two days later, the Bears’ cut veteran left tackle Charles Leno, who had started 95 consecutive games since replacing Jermon Bushrod in 2015.

Leno, who signed a one-year contract with the Washington Football Team on Wednesday, was the ultimate good-but-not-great NFL offensive tackle. He was an overachiever as a seventh-round draft pick who made the Pro Bowl as an alternate in 2018, and missed just 16 snaps out of 6,229 in six seasons. But he wasn’t the stud you need at left tackle on a team that’s as shaky at quarterback — among other offensive positions — as the Bears have been. Leno didn’t make as many mistakes as his detractors think. But on the Bears, it seemed like every penalty and the occasional whiff turned into a glaring disaster that stunted the offense.

Still, it doesn’t seem like the Bears’ offensive line will be better without Leno than it was with him. Jenkins can’t replace two players at once. Even if he’s an upgrade over Leno at left tackle, that still leaves a hole at Massie’s old spot, which Germain Ifedi filled in the final seven games last season (including the playoffs) after Massie suffered a knee injury.

Bears offensive line coach Juan Castillo thinks Ifedi can solve that problem. A former first-round draft pick (31st overall in 2016), Ifedi underachieved as a starting tackle with the Seahawks, who let him go when his rookie contract expired after the 2019 season. In fact, when the Bears signed him last year, they played him at guard, which was his more natural position.

But Ifedi ended up moving to tackle after Massie was injured, and he played well enough to convince the Bears he could solve their offensive line quandary.

“[He] improved tremendously from where he came from Seattle,” Castillo said. “You can just look at the stats — how many pressures [allowed]; how many sacks he gave up when he was playing right tackle.

“Germain Ifedi is blessed with god-given talent. He was a first-round draft pick. My job is to get that out of him. I know he hadn’t been playing like that at Seattle. But I think he improved. He cut his penalties over half from what he had at Seattle [four last season after 13 in 2019]. And I think everybody would say that if you watched the tape, he played square, which was his problem at Seattle. I think he’s just gonna get better.”

Castillo said Ifedi would have competition for the job, but it was his to lose. In fact, the more Castillo talked about Ifedi, the more effusive he became.

“You need to talk to Germain one day,” Castillo said. “This is a big 36-and-a-half-inch arm, 345-pound guy. As we talk, he’s busting his ass in Texas in 100-degree weather. Works as hard as any guy I’ve been around. I don’t want to make predictions, but I would not be surprised if this kid made the Pro Bowl next year. Why not, right? Everything is possible.”

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Blackhawks forward Dylan Strome made his frustrations about his nightmarish 2021 season clear at his exit interview Tuesday.

“When you get scratched or you don’t expect to be scratched…it sucks,” he said. “It pissed me off a lot.”

Strome, 24, missed a month with a concussion and saw his production decline precipitously, finishing with only 17 points in 40 games. The scratches, though, were the biggest source of contention — particularly April 21 against the Predators.

At 6:30 that night, Strome took warmups on a third line with Dominik Kubalik and Philipp Kurashev. But 30 minutes later, he was listed as a healthy extra.

Coach Jeremy Colliton explained Wednesday that defenseman Wyatt Kalynuk had been a game-time decision. If Kalynuk felt good enough to play (which he ultimately did), he would. But if Kalynuk didn’t, Strome would’ve played instead.

“In that situation, the wrong thing to do is…in the morning say [to Strome], ‘Hey, you’re going to be a healthy scratch tonight, but if Kalynuk can’t go, you’ll play, so get ready to play.’ You never like letting a guy know late like that, but I feel like that was best.”

The lack of transparency upset Strome, however.

“I took warmups and didn’t know I was going to be scratched, and then I got scratched,” he said. “That’s never fun. I had no idea that day.”

That memorable night was one of four occasions Strome was scratched in the Hawks’ last 10 games, underlining how far he plummeted down the organizational depth chart. As a result, he enters this highly uncertain offseason low on confidence.

“It’s been a crazy year and I don’t want to say I’m thankful it’s over, but…” he said.

He has one contract year left with a $3 million cap hit, but it’s unclear if he’ll spend it with the Hawks. He might be exposed to the Kraken in the expansion draft. He could also be floated on the trade market or included in an acquisition package.

“I’ve been a really good NHL [player], a good point producer and someone that can be relied upon,” Strome said. “Hopefully I can get back to that and they see me as a valuable asset.

“I love [Chicago]. I’ve had my best NHL success here. [I have] great friends here. But at the same time, you don’t really know what’s going to happen, especially with Seattle. I’m prepared for anything.”

If Strome is the biggest question mark this summer among the Hawks’ forward group, though, then Nikita Zadorov is an equally big question mark among the defensemen.

AP Photos

Zadorov, 26, will be a restricted free agent with a sizable price tag ($3.2 million at minimum, probably more like $4-4.5 million). His contrast of stout defense but poor puck management makes him polarizing, and the Hawks considered offers for him at the trade deadline.

Yet the hulking Russian enters this uncertain offseason with a far more positive, confident mentality than Strome.

“I was actually thinking last night, it was probably the most solid season of my career,” Zadorov said Tuesday. “I was really solid defensively. I improved in that area a lot. Playing against top lines every night…averaging around 20 minutes, it’s hard to do in this league, and I did a pretty good job.”

Bowman’s comments Wednesday seemed to support Zadorov’s confidence. Bowman said he has started the contract negotiation process with Zadorov and “a few other guys,” shortly after insisting Zadorov was — after Connor Murphy — “in that top group of two or three” defensemen on the team.

Zadorov disclosed his wrist wasn’t 100% healthy at the start of this season, and he’s anticipating a summer of “getting healed” from the bumps and bruises caused by his physical play all spring.

Like Strome, the healed version of Zadorov might be back at Fifth Third Arena come September — or might be somewhere else in North America.

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The American Medical Association, the nation’s largest association of and lobby group for doctors, says it’s taking on racial disparities in health care with a plan to dismantle structural racism in its own ranks and across the U.S. medical establishment.

Leaders of the AMA, whose headquarters is on North Wabash Avenue in River North, say they’re aiming to “pivot from ambivalence to urgent action” on health inequities.

Though the new, 83-page report has been in the works for more than a year, the group says the coronavirus pandemic, high-profile police brutality cases and recent race-based crimes have given the effort a sense of urgency.

Provided

”We’re working very hard at AMA to increase not just diversity in the health care work force but in understanding of health inequities,” said Dr. Gerald Harmon, a family medicine specialist in South Carolina who begins his term as AMA president next month.

The AMA report — in the works for more than a year — says: “Our bold and necessary path forward seeks to pivot from ambivalence to urgent action; from euphemisms to explicit conversations about power, racism, gender and class oppression, forms of discrimination and exclusion; from passive to specific action supported by resource redistribution and infrastructure change; from rationalization and good intentions to a comprehensive analysis of structures, systems, policies and practices leading to real improvement and impact; and from lack of accountability to an active embrace of equity as a core mission and strategy.”

U.S. physicians are overwhelmingly white. AMA membership reflects that. Most of the group’s 21 trustees are white. With roughly 270,000 members, the group represents little more than a quarter of U.S. doctors.

The AMA plan in part calls fir diversifying its own staff and adding members who are from Black, Hispanic, Indigenous and LGBTQ communities as well as embedding anti-racist activities and education at every level of the organization.

LinkedIn

The influential advocacy group also plans to use its clout to push for health equity government policies and to create and deliver anti-racist training for medical students, doctors and health systems.

In recent years, the 174-year-old AMA has acknowledged its own racist past — which has included efforts to bar Black physicians from joining and fighting against desegregating hospitals. Last November, it declared racism a public health threat.

But it also has come under fire just this year over a Journal of the American Medical Association podcast. The podcast’s host, who is white, questioned whether structural racism exists, and a promotional tweet said, “No physician is racist.”

A deputy editor at JAMA, one of the nation’s leading medical journals, ended up resigning. And the journal’s chief editor was suspended. An oversight committee’s review is ongoing.

Rich Hein / Sun-Times file

Still, Dr. David Ansell, a senior vice president for community health equity at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, called the 83-page plan ”a landmark document” for the usually conservative AMA and a road map for others to follow.

”It really should be taught widely across medicine because it’s language that has not been central to the organization or the practice of medicine in the United States and needs to be,” said Ansell, who is a primary-care physician.

University of Illinois at Chicago

Dr. Brittani James, an anti-racism activist and family practitioner at the University of Illinois Hospital at Chicago, called the AMA plan ”a great first step” and said its goals are impressive.

Dr. Raymond Givens, a New York physician who has been a critic of the AMA, said the group’s slow response to the mishandled February podcast doesn’t offer much hope for its broader plans.

”People are dying on a daily basis from the same structural racism that they are now acknowledging,” Givens said. ”Given that, there’s a need to act as quickly as is responsible.”

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Chicago Bears Schedule Release: NFC North rivals set for prime time in December by Jordan Campbell

The 2021 NFL Regular Season schedule leaks are proving one thing and that is that the Chicago Bears will be primetime darlings during the regular season.

On Wednesday morning, it had already leaked that the Bears were going to have to at least four primetime games for the 2021 NFL Regular Season. Those games were: Week 1 at Los Angeles Rams for Sunday Night Football; Thanksgiving day at Detroit Lions; December 12 at Green Bay Packers for Sunday Night Football; and December 20 hosting the Minnesota Vikings for Monday Night Football.

The Bears now have a fifth primetime game on tap for the 2021 regular season. Danny Parkins of 670 The Score reported that the Bears will be on Monday Night Football for their Week 9 matchup on the road against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The NFL is clearly showcasing the Bears for the 2021 regular season given the 5 primetime games that are currently on the schedule. Perhaps more interesting than the five primetime games in themselves is that four of the games will occur during the second half of the 2021 NFL Regular season.

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• 2021 NFL Schedule Leak: Chicago Bears rumored Week 15 MNF

After selecting Justin Fields in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft, Bears’ head coach Matt Nagy and general manager Ryan Pace have insisted that the plan has not changed and that veteran Andy Dalton is expected to be the Week 1 starting quarterback.

That certainly may be the case but leaks of the Bears’ 2021 NFL Regular Season schedule would seem to indicate that the NFL believes that Fields will be the team’s starting quarterback sooner rather than later.

For the Bears’ Week 9 game against the Steelers, it is their second matchup during the 2021 regular season where they will be playing against a quarterback they potentially had interest in earlier this off-season. Prior to Steelers’ quarterback Ben Roethlisberger signing a new contact to remain in Pittsburgh in February, the Bears reportedly had internal conversations about making a run at the veteran quarterback according to Jason La Canfora:

Chicago needs a major upgrade, and the options are limited. League sources said the Bears were in fact pretty serious about Carson Wentz, and had internal discussions about Big Ben as well and were primed to be perhaps the only landing spot for him had he not agreed to take a significant pay cut to stay in Pittsburgh.

Fortunately for the Bears, the narrative has changed since then. The Chicago Bears now have a quarterback in Justin Fields that has the potential to be their franchise quarterback for at least the next seasons as opposed to an aging veteran in Roethlisberger with diminishing skills.

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Can we save his most important Chicago building?

We didn’t need the death of architect Helmut Jahn to bring the plight of the James R. Thompson Center to our attention. The state’s May 3 request for proposals to buy the iconic structure—minus any stipulation that it not be torn down—had already drawn widespread notice.…Read More

The rest of the “Chicago Med” major cast member lineup, including S. Epatha Merkerson, Oliver Platt, Nick Gehlfuss, Brian Tee  and Marlyne Barrett, are expected to return for Season 7

Hot on the heels of confirming her relationship with Cubs manager David Ross, “Chicago Med” actress Torrey DeVitto is making news headlines of a less happy nature for fans of “Chicago Med.”

According to a report on Deadline.com, DeVitto (who stars as Dr. Natalie Manning), and co-star Yaya DeCosta (who stars as nurse April Sexton) are exiting the hugely popular NBC series after Season 6 for new gigs. DaCosta, according to the report, is headed to a starring role on the Fox series “Our Kid of People,” while DeVitto is now among the cast of the indie feature film “Skelly.”

Getty Images

The rest of the “Chicago Med” major cast member lineup, including S. Epatha Merkerson, Oliver Platt, Nick Gehlfuss, Brian Tee and Marlyne Barrett, are expected to return for Season 7 of the “One Chicago Wednesday” family of Dick Wolf, Chicagocentric series later this year. The show airs at 7 p.m. locally.

DeVitto on Sunday confirmed the news of her relationship with Ross via Instagram, posting a Ross-taken smooch selfie, kissing his cheek in the black-and-white photo.

“Love him madly,” she wrote with a red heart emoji. Ross, 44, liked the photo via his Instagram account.

Contributing: USA Today

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By the end of the day on Wednesday, the Chicago Bears will know their full 18-week schedule for the 2021 NFL Regular Season. Leaks of the Bears scheduled have already surfaced and the latest is  a pair of primetime games against NFC North rivals in December. Danny Parkins of 670 The Score is reporting that […]

Chicago Bears Schedule Release: NFC North rivals set for prime time in December – Da Windy City – Da Windy City – A Chicago Sports Site – Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, Fighting Illini & More

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