Good morning, Chicago.
In your heart you knew it had to happen this way.
The Chicago White Sox were not going to do the easy thing and break the modern-day record for losses at home, where thousands of fans showed up the last three days to be eyewitnesses to history.
They were not going to give any White Sox fan the satisfaction of celebrating another loss or let the national media parachute onto the beat and file an easy story of the final days of the worst team in history.
They were not going to go with the flow and let anyone else write their script. “Let’s screw it up for everybody else,” was the mantra Garrett Crochet used in mid-August.
And screw it up they did — for fans, media and others hoping to see them break the record at Sox Park.
The Sox woke up this week, a little too late to matter, and swept the Los Angeles Angels with a 7-0 win Thursday to delay the record most still believe is inevitable.
Did all the negative attention inspire the Sox?
The Tribune’s Paul Sullivan posed that question and more to players.
Here are the top stories you need to know to start your day.
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What obstacles stand in the way of an Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire?
Israel and Hezbollah each have strong incentives to heed international calls for a cease-fire that could avert all-out war — but that doesn’t mean they will.
Chicago Board of Education unanimously votes to halt school closures until 2027
In a unanimous vote, the seven-member Chicago Board of Education voted Thursday to prohibit school closings until 2027.
The vote concluded – at least for now – an increasingly fractious month in which the district faced accusations of clandestinely plotting to close schools and the fate of Chief Executive Officer Pedro Martinez’s job was in constant question.
After an eventful year as Chicago police superintendent, Larry Snelling makes it clear it’s not about him
A year has now passed since Larry Snelling, 55, and raised in Englewood, was unanimously approved as the CPD superintendent, a tenure that lasts, historically, about three to four years. With a busy year under his belt and the long-awaited DNC and the security concerns that came with it in the rearview mirror, he keeps looking forward.
Gangster Disciples founder Larry Hoover challenged by judge weighing his release
Infamous Gangster Disciples founder Larry Hoover’s first court appearance in decades may have been via video link from a prison more than a thousand miles from Chicago, but the judge’s question still hit like a cold bucket of water.
“How many other murders is he responsible for?” U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey asked Hoover’s defense attorney point-blank Thursday, near the end of an hourlong hearing over Hoover’s long-shot bid to reverse his life sentence.
Aldermen weigh lawsuit, push for replacement after ShotSpotter
The City Council is signaling once more its commitment to keeping acoustic gunshot detection technology in Chicago, even if that effort continues to pit aldermen against Mayor Brandon Johnson.
Aldermen who back the ShotSpotter technology Johnson decommissioned this week showed keen interest in the mayor’s plan to add a replacement tool for first responders during a City Council hearing Thursday. They are urging Johnson to quickly install new technology and even gearing up to try to force his hand if he does not.
A sign on Washington Street near Royce Road welcomes visitors to Naperville. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
Naperville’s tentative 2025 budget calls for electric, water rate hike and $183M in capital improvement work
Naperville’s preliminary 2025 budget earmarks $183 million for capital improvement and infrastructure projects — a 26% jump over what the city allocated this year — and calls for water and electricity rate increases in the coming new year.
State agency lacks data to back $6 million in unemployment claims, audit finds
The state agency charged with distributing unemployment benefits continued to fall short in administering claims filed during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving auditors unable to determine if more than $6 million wound up in the proper hands, according to a report released yesterday.
Chicago Sky fire coach Teresa Weatherspoon after only 1 season on the job
Throughout the first season of their rebuild, the Chicago Sky preached patience.
But the team went against that advice, firing coach Teresa Weatherspoon after one year on the job, sources confirmed to the Tribune late Thursday.
Column: Chicago Bears players have offered feedback to Shane Waldron after the offense’s rocky start. Is it just more talk?
The overall picture for the offense has been murky — to put it nicely. Shane Waldron’s unit has struggled to form any kind of identity. The offense has been particularly bad in a handful of areas and hasn’t scored enough. It’s a familiar movie and without improvements will offer a familiar ending, writes Brad Biggs.
As the offseason nears, Chicago Cubs slugger Cody Bellinger remains undecided on his future with a player option
Cody Bellinger understands what this offseason could entail.
The Chicago Cubs slugger initially got a taste of free agency when the Los Angeles Dodgers nontendered him after 2022 leading to a one-year pillow contract that brought him to the North Side. But last year represented a different opportunity — his free-agency process featured the type of multiyear financial security that came from a bounce-back season after he declined his end of a mutual option with the Cubs and before ultimately signing a three-year, $80 million contract to return to the team.
Now another decision awaits Bellinger.
The American Toby Jug Museum in Evanston is closing. What does one do with 8,500 Toby jugs?
About 19 years ago, Stephen Mullins established the American Toby Jug Museum on Chicago Avenue in Evanston as a nonprofit foundation, with free admission for all. It’s still open, just five hours a week, at the very inconvenient time of Tuesday afternoons. The elaborateness of this gesture is so oddball to so many passersby that the museum became a routine mention in any roundup of Weird Midwestern stops. “To be frank, the place has become a roadside attraction of sorts,” said his daughter Beth Mullins Scales.
Come March, the museum will close.
‘A Different Man’ review: A new face and a new life in a comedy that’s more than skin-deep
The Demi Moore film “The Substance,” currently in theaters, has a doppelganger in its midst: a dark comedy likewise about an actor undergoing a radical exterior transformation while overlooking some nagging problems under the skin, writes Tribune film critic Michael Phillips.
It’s called “A Different Man,” starring Sebastian Stan, and writer-director Aaron Schimberg explores ego, self-esteem, envy and desire in different and craftier ways than anything in “The Substance.” With a crucial performance from Adam Pearson to complement Stan’s fine work, the film is well worth seeing. It is, in fact, a serious joke about the act of seeing.
What to do in Chicago: Charli XCX, Hyde Park Jazz Fest and Simone Biles in a gymnastics tour
Also around the area this weekend, Warm Love Cool Dreams at Salt Shed and Yorktoberfest in the western suburbs.
