Retiring U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky is expected to soon endorse Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss as her successor representing the North Side and north suburban 9th Congressional District, according to a person familiar with the decision.

The endorsement could be the most coveted stamp of approval in the crowded Democratic primary, as Schakowsky has represented the district for two-and-a-half decades and announced her retirement last year. 

It would also mark a departure from Schakowsky’s previous plan, according to a source at the time, to avoid weighing in on the more than a dozen-candidate field in favor of an open primary.

In a response to a request to comment on the expected endorsement, Schakowsky’s office said: “Stay tuned.”

Biss’ campaign declined to comment.

The expected endorsement was first reported by Evanston Now.

With the March 17 primary a little more than two months away, Biss appears to be among the top fundraisers in the race, along with progressive commentator Kat Abughazaleh and state Sen. Laura Fine. Updated fundraising reports from all candidates are due later this month.

Whoever succeeds Schakowsky, 81, will mark a generational change, as she took over the post in 1999 from U.S. Rep. Sidney Yates, who held it for almost 50 years.

Abughazaleh entered the race before Schakowsky announced she planned to retire, essentially making her a challenger to the longtime congresswoman at a point early in the campaign. Abughazaleh has risen to the upper echelons of fundraisers, in part due to a massive social media audience.

Fine issued a statement late Tuesday, before any announcement from Schakowsky, criticizing the congresswoman’s expected decision. 

“I respect Congresswoman Schakowsky’s service, but this race is about the future of our community, not the past,” Fine said. “She’s wrong about Daniel Biss and my record shows that I’ll fight the hardest to protect residents in the 9th Congressional district from the billionaires and insurance companies that Donald Trump is determined to let screw us over.”

Fine has recently drawn scrutiny for seemingly receiving the tacit backing of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which has pressured another Jewish candidate, Bruce Leon, to leave the race, according to Leon.

Fine has also received dozens of endorsements from local elected officials.

Biss, who was elected to a second term as Evanston’s mayor last year, quickly vaulted to a competitive fundraising position when he announced his congressional campaign. He previously served eight years in the General Assembly and unsuccessfully campaigned for governor in 2018. 

Other candidates in the Democratic primary include state Sen. Mike Simmons, state Rep. Hoan Huynh, Skokie School District 73.5 board member Bushra Amiwala, retired FBI special agent Phil Andrew and former federal prosecutor and former Microsoft strategist Nick Pyati.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/06/schakowsky-biss-endorsement/ 

The high-profile prosecution of six people charged in connection with their protests outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview claimed its first political victim as one of the six — a candidate for Cook County Board — has dropped out of her race for office.

Catherine “Cat” Sharp, one of the so-called Broadview Six, announced late Monday she was no longer running for the County Board seat because she needed to “focus on winning the legal battle against the Trump administration.”

“Navigating this unimaginable legal process and all the costs — emotional and financial — that come with it, have made running for office much more difficult,” Sharp wrote in a post on X. “When I launched this campaign for the Cook County Board back in the summer, I said I was running because we need principled, bold leadership at the local level at a time when our communities are under attack from the federal government. I had no idea how true that statement would prove to be over the last several months.”

A U.S. Coast Guard plane carrying more than 50 federal agents arrived at the DuPage Regional Airport on Jan. 6, 2026, in West Chicago. (Stacy St. Clair/Chicago Tribune)

Sharp’s political decision came hours before more than 50 Border Patrol agents arrived Tuesday afternoon. A U.S. Coast Guard plane carrying the agents arrived at DuPage Regional Airport. After a quick meeting inside the terminal, they headed to a suburban hotel in a 15-vehicle caravan that included cargo vans with U.S. Department of Homeland Security license plates and several SUVs with out-of-state tags.

The charges against Sharp and the five others by Republican President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice have been highly controversial, as the defendants and some legal observers have called the prosecution a politically motivated effort to punish opponents who pushed back against the administration’s deportation actions in the Chicago region as part of its Operation Midway Blitz.

The others charged were Democrats Katherine “Kat” Abughazaleh, 26, who is running for the 9th Congressional District seat, 45th Ward Democratic committeeman Michael Rabbitt, 62, Oak Park Trustee Brian Straw, 38, and Andre Martin, 27, originally of Providence, Rhode Island, who is Abughazaleh’s deputy campaign manager. Joselyn Walsh, 31, of Chicago, was the sixth person charged. She has no personal connection to her five co-defendants.

All six pleaded not guilty in November to charges stemming from one in a string of protests outside ICE facility in Broadview where federal immigration agents processed hundreds of people as part of the operation. Prosecutors accused the six of conspiring to forcibly impede an ICE agent while he was driving into the two-story ICE facility in the west suburb in September.

The 11-page indictment alleged the group “banged aggressively” on the side and back windows, hood, and other parts of the agent’s vehicle, then “crowded together in the front and side of the Government Vehicle and pushed against the vehicle to hinder and impede its movement.” The protesters also scratched the body of the vehicle and etched the word “PIG” into it, broke one of the vehicle’s side mirrors and broke a rear windshield wiper, according to the indictment.

“I know that we will prevail against these unjust, ridiculous charges, which were designed to force people like us to sit down and shut up,” Sharp wrote in her statement, before adding she would continue to work as chief of staff for Chicago Ald. Andre Vasquez, 40th, the position she held and used as a partial launching pad for her County Board run.

“When I launched my campaign, it was to run it to win,” Sharp said Tuesday in an interview with the Tribune. But she said the case has refocused attention on “keeping her neighbors safe.”

Sharp is getting help from family but is otherwise paying for her own legal representation and launching a legal defense fund. In cases like these, the government does not reimburse defendants for legal costs, even if they win.

“I can attest to how difficult it’s been for me and my family, but it’s been a reminder too that there are folks who are really experiencing far more severe situations with ICE and (Department of Homeland Security) and Border Patrol,” she said. “We have a responsibility to look out for each other in this moment.”

Sharp was campaigning in the March 17 Democratic primary for the board seat representing Cook County’s 12th District, which includes the Chicago neighborhoods of West Town, East Garfield Park, Humboldt Park, and the Near West Side. It is currently represented by Bridget Degnen, who is not running for reelection and endorsed Sharp as her successor.

Sharp’s exit will likely reshuffle support in the race. In addition to being endorsed by Vasquez, Rabbitt and Degnen, Sharp was also backed by Aldermen Scott Waguespack, 32nd, Brian Hopkins, 2nd, and Timmy Knudsen, 43rd, and other North Side political organizations.

The Democratic primary race is still crowded: Liz Granato, Jose ‘Che-Che’ Turrubiartez Wilson, and Isaiah White remain in the race. Granato is head of the county’s Bureau of Asset Management and married to state Rep. Ram Villivalam. Wilson helps run civic engagement at the LGBTQ+ organization Equality Illinois, and White is a CPS teacher. Sharp said she did not know yet whether she would endorse someone else.

In a release, Wilson said Sharp was being punished for standing up for her values.

“What Cat is experiencing should alarm all of us. The emotional and financial toll she has been forced to shoulder is not incidental. It is meant to exhaust people, silence voices, and deter others from speaking out in defense of human rights. That is unequivocally wrong.”

In a separate County Board race, Democratic incumbent Maggie Trevor is running uncontested in the March primary for the 9th District seat after fellow Democrat Kevin Robert Murphy was removed from the ballot. Murphy failed to secure enough valid signatures to qualify. The district includes Arlington Heights, Mount Prospect, Park Ridge and Norridge.

2nd District Commissioner Michael Scott will now face Andre Smith in a head-to-head race in the March Democratic primary after the third hopeful, Eddie Johnson III, withdrew. The district stretches across both the city’s South and West sides, through the Loop, and includes Austin, Englewood, East and West Garfield Park, North Lawndale, Little Italy, Noble Square, and the West and South Loop.

In the countywide race for assessor, where two-term incumbent Fritz Kaegi is facing off against Lyons Township Assessor Patrick Hynes, unions continued to back Hynes’ campaign following the endorsement of the Chicago Federation of Labor. Those donations have allowed Hynes to nearly double the roughly $368,000 he had in the bank at the end of September. The influx includes $100,000 from the Chicago Laborers District Council PAC, $50,000 from Electrical Workers Local 134’s PAC and $25,000 from Carpentry Advancement PAC.

Support from trade unions that thrive during building booms is not surprising, but Hynes has also won backing from SEIU’s Illinois State Council, whose membership skews more progressive. They endorsed Hynes in November ahead of the CFL and gave him $30,000 from SEIU Council PAC. The council did not endorse in the assessor’s race in the 2022 primary. Its member organizations include SEIU Healthcare and Locals 1 and 73, representing workers across various industries, including janitors, child care workers, and private security officers and doormen.

Fundraising will be key for Hynes against Kaegi, who fronted his campaign $1 million since November of 2024. Kaegi ended September with $1.3 million in the bank and reported about $60,000 in other large contributions since then.

Further down the ballot, Board of Review intrigue continues. Incumbent Samantha Steele had her attorney issue a cease-and-desist letter to her Democratic opponent, Liz Nicholson, after Nicholson filed an official complaint with the county’s inspector general against Steele.

Steele is defending her seat on the three-member Board of Review, which hears property tax appeals.

The cease-and-desist letter, provided to the Tribune by Nicholson’s campaign, was written by a lawyer from the firm Ford & Britton, where Cook County Board Commissioner Scott Britton is a partner. Britton is a friend of Steele’s and was one of her first calls at the scene of a car crash and alleged DUI. He is not representing her in that case and did not write the cease-and-desist letter. He declined to comment, but did contribute to Steele’s campaign last quarter.

Nicholson’s complaint said two people reached out to her suggesting Steele would give Nicholson a job if she dropped out. Steele’s cease-and-desist said that it was both “false” and “published with actual malice,” and demanded a retraction within a week.

Nicholson has not done so and instead wrote to the county’s inspector general again, asking that the completed investigation be referred to the Cook County state’s attorney’s office “when practicable,” noting both intermediaries were willing to speak to investigators.

Steele reported raising just $5,500 in the last quarter that ended in December and has about $80,000 on hand, according to state records. She lent her campaign $50,000 in the fall. Nicholson has not yet submitted her quarterly report, but reported $28,000 in large donations between October and the end of December, according to campaign finance records.

The race for another Board of Review seat will be a head-to-head match rather than uncontested after county officials ruled incumbent Commissioner George Cardenas was safe on the ballot. His Democratic opponent in the primary, Juanita Irizarry, almost knocked him off with a challenge to his petitions but fell just short.

Chicago Tribune’s Stacy St. Clair contributed.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/06/cat-sharp-withdraws-broadview-six-county/ 

Luxury Ritz-Carlton Condos Aren’t Selling In “Liberal Cesspool” Portland

Tyler Durden
Tue, 01/06/2026 – 19:40

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/luxury-ritz-carlton-condos-arent-selling-liberal-cesspool-portland 

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday on his social media site that “Interim Authorities” in Venezuela would be providing 30 million to 50 million barrels of “High Quality” oil to the U.S. at its market price, an announcement that came after officials in Caracas announced that at least 24 Venezuelan security officers were killed in the dead-of-night U.S. military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro and spirit him to the United States to face drug charges.

Trump posted on Truth Social that the oil “will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States.” He said the money would be controlled by him as president but it would be used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States.

Separately, the White House is organizing an Oval Office meeting Friday with oil company executives regarding Venezuela, with representatives of Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips expected to attend, according to a person familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss the plans.

Earlier Tuesday, Venezuelan officials announced the death count in the Maduro raid as the country’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, pushed back on Trump, who earlier this week warned she’d face an outcome worse than Maduro’s if she does not “do what’s right” and overhaul Venezuela into a country that aligns with U.S. interests. Trump has said his administration will now “run” Venezuela policy and is pressing the country’s leaders to open its vast oil reserves to American energy companies.

Rodriguez, delivering an address Tuesday before government agricultural and industrial sector officials, said, “Personally, to those who threaten me: My destiny is not determined by them, but by God.”

Venezuela’s Attorney General Tarek William Saab said overall “dozens” of officers and civilians were killed in the weekend strike in Caracas and said prosecutors would investigate the deaths in what he described as a “war crime.” He didn’t specify if the estimate was specifically referring to Venezuelans.

In addition to the Venezuelan security officials, Cuba’s government had previously confirmed that 32 Cuban military and police officers working in Venezuela were killed in the raid. The Cuban government says the personnel killed belonged to the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, the country’s two main security agencies.

Seven U.S. service members were also injured in the raid, according to the Pentagon. Five have already returned to duty, while two are still recovering from their injuries. The injuries included gunshot wounds and shrapnel injuries, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment on the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

A video tribute to the slain Venezuelan security officials posted to the military’s Instagram account features faces of the fallen over black-and-white videos of soldiers, American aircraft flying over Caracas and armored vehicles destroyed by the blasts. Meanwhile, the streets of Caracas, deserted for days following Maduro’s capture, briefly filled with masses of people waving Venezuelan flags and bouncing to patriotic music at a state-organized display of support for the government.

“Their spilled blood does not cry out for vengeance, but for justice and strength,” the military wrote in an Instagram post. “It reaffirms our unwavering oath not to rest until we rescue our legitimate President, completely dismantle the terrorist groups operating from abroad, and ensure that events such as these never again sully our sovereign soil.”

Trump grumbles about how Democrats reacted to the raid

Trump on Tuesday pushed back against Democratic criticism of this weekend’s military operation, noting that his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden had also called for the arrest of the Venezuelan leader on drug trafficking charges.

Trump in remarks before a House Republican retreat in Washington grumbled that Democrats were not giving him credit for a successful military operation, even though there was bipartisan agreement that Maduro was not the rightful president of Venezuela.

In 2020, Maduro was indicted in the United States, accused in a decades-long narco-terrorism and international cocaine trafficking conspiracy. White House officials have noted that Biden’s administration in his final days in office last year raised the award for information leading to Maduro’s arrest after he assumed a third term in office despite evidence suggesting that he lost Venezuela’s most recent election. The Trump administration doubled the award to $50 million in August.

“You know, at some point, they should say, ‘You know, you did a great job. Thank you. Congratulations.’ Wouldn’t it be good?” Trump said. “I would say that if they did a good job, their philosophies are so different. But if they did a good job, I’d be happy for the country. They’ve been after this guy for years and years and years.”

With oil trading at roughly $56 a barrel, the transaction Trump announced late Tuesday could be worth as much as $2.8 billion. The U.S. goes through an average of roughly 20 million barrels a day of oil and related products, so Venezuela’s transfer would be the equivalent of as much as two and a half days of supply, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Despite Venezuela having the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves, it only produces on average about one million barrels day, significantly below the U.S. average daily production of 13.9 million barrels a day during October.

What US opinion polls show

Americans are split about the capture of Maduro — with many still forming opinions — according to a poll conducted by The Washington Post and SSRS using text messages over the weekend. About 4 in 10 approved of the U.S. military being sent to capture Maduro, while roughly the same share were opposed. About 2 in 10 were unsure.

Nearly half of Americans, 45%, were opposed to the U.S. taking control of Venezuela and choosing a new government for the country. About 9 in 10 Americans said the Venezuelan people should be the ones to decide the future leadership of their country.

Maduro pleaded not guilty to federal drug trafficking charges in a U.S. courtroom on Monday. U.S. forces captured Maduro and his wife early Saturday in a raid on a compound where they were surrounded by Cuban guards.

In the days since Maduro’s ouster, Trump and top administration officials have raised anxiety around the globe that the operation could mark the beginning of a more expansionist U.S. foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere. The president in recent days has renewed his calls for an American takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests and threatened military action on Colombia for facilitating the global sale of cocaine, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.”

Colombia responds to Trump

Colombia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Rosa Villavicencio said Tuesday she’ll meet with the U.S. Embassy’s charge d’affaires in Bogota to present him with a formal complaint over the recent threats issued by the United States.

On Sunday, Trump said he wasn’t ruling out an attack on Colombia and described its president, who’s been an outspoken critic of the U.S. pressure campaign on Venezuela, as a “sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States.”

Villavicencio said she’s hoping to strengthen relations with the United States and improve cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking.

“It is necessary for the Trump administration to know in more detail about all that we are doing in the fight against drug trafficking,” she said.

Meanwhile, the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom on Tuesday joined Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in defending Greenland’s sovereignty. The island is a self-governing territory of the kingdom of Denmark and thus part of the NATO military alliance.

“Greenland belongs to its people,” the statement said. “It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”

Madhani reported from Washington and Janetsky from Mexico City. AP writers Josh Boak, Konstantin Toropin, Sagar Meghani, Isabel DeBre, Linley Sanders and Manuel Rueda contributed reporting.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/06/venezuela-barrels-oil-trump/ 

MILWAUKEE — Cathy Connelly-Warren spent parts of a long Sunday night in Wisconsin awake and unable to sleep, staring at the wall in her hotel room “thinking of speeches,” she said. The “good speech,” as she put it, promised to be easy. If her daughter qualified for the U.S. Olympic Team in speedskating, the moment would speak for itself.

But what if she didn’t? What if there was more heartbreak after so much of it? What to say then?

Connelly-Warren arrived at the Pettit National Ice Center on Monday prepared for both outcomes on the final day of Olympic trials in long track. She and her family gathered along the edge of the ice and near the finish line, hearts pounding. The starting gun fired. Sarah Warren, who had been dreaming of the Olympics for almost 20 years, burst into a furious sprint.

Five hundred meters and a little more than 38 seconds later, she crossed the finish line, pumped her fists and released a celebratory scream. She cried. The first person she hugged was her mom and they held each other in an emotional embrace. After torn ACLs in both of her knees, 10 surgeries and countless rejections of those who told her it might be time to quit, Sarah Warren had done it.

She’d qualified for the Olympics. She’d made Team USA. She’s off to Milan next month.

Few American Olympians — or those anywhere else — will have endured as long and difficult a journey to Italy. In the past year alone, the 29-year-old Warren, who grew up in Willowbrook and attended Hinsdale South High School, underwent four surgeries: three on her knees and one on an ankle. She never quite felt back to full strength, she said, not even on Monday — not that she could feel anything other than elation after one of the longest days of her life.

“You envision the moment your whole career, and it’s pretty surreal,” said Warren, who now calls Chicago home. “You come across the line, you look up, and it’s hard to describe that feeling, but the emotion was just the army it took to get me here. I have to admit, my imagery before the race was hugging my family after.

“And so the crying, yes — I dreamed of this since I was a little girl.”

Warren, who began skating when she was about 10 years old, grew up around competition and sports. Her dad, Morrison, played rugby and football at Occidental College. Her brother, John, played football and rugby at the University of Chicago. Her great-uncle is Kevin Warren, known to most as the Chicago Bears president but to Sarah as “Uncle Kevin.”

“He’s also like my grandfather,” she said. “It’s just so much wisdom from him. He’s fought tooth and nail to be where he is, and he takes every opportunity. And Uncle Kevin’s a huge role model for me.”

Sarah Warren skates in the women’s 500-meter event on her way to a second-place finish and qualifying for the Milan Olympics, Jan. 5, 2026, during the U.S. Olympic Team Trials Long Track at the Pettit National Ice Center in Milwaukee. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

Sarah tried to ignore her phone most of Monday. When she looked at it after the race, though, the first congratulatory text message she received was from Uncle Kevin. He had been in meetings at Bears headquarters inside Halas Hall on Monday when one of his assistants reminded him that it was time. He retreated to his office, tuned into the broadcast and watched Sarah take the ice.

As she made the first turn, her time and pace exactly where they needed to be, Kevin Warren said he “could not hold back the emotions.”

“I just started to sob,” he said during a phone interview Tuesday. “I said, ‘She’s going to get it done.’ I was so emotional. I just even get emotional, now.”

His thoughts drifted to when his nephew Morrison — Sarah’s father — met Cathy, and “just all the dreams that we used to talk about.” They’d all wanted their children “to be good people and hard workers,” Kevin Warren said.

Bears President Kevin Warren, from left, his great-niece Sarah Warren and nephew Morrison Warren after Sarah’s University of Illinois soccer team played the University of Minnesota in 2016. (Warren family photo)

And then soon enough Sarah came along with the grandest of dreams. Olympic dreams.

When Sarah Warren competes in the 2026 Winter Games, it will be a few days after the Super Bowl. Even if the Bears make it that far, the NFL season will not overlap with her competition, and so Kevin Warren on Tuesday was planning to be in Milan to cheer her on.

“We are taking the whole family,” he said. “Just would not miss this. And so we’ll be there. All of us.”

The past few days in Milwaukee brought back memories of practices and competitions at the Pettit National Ice Center, with Connelly-Warren driving Sarah from Chicago four times a week. As Connelly-Warren walked around the arena in recent days, she could remember tying Sarah’s skates when she was little. They saw familiar faces everywhere.

A standout soccer player, too, Warren pursued that sport and played at the University of Illinois, where she suffered the torn ACLs.

Quitting was never an option. Not soccer and certainly not skating.

She’d come to consider herself from a family of “always fighters,” she said.

“And that’s something that, being a Warren, you don’t really have a choice.”

Still, it wasn’t until last October, she said, when she felt healthy enough to start believing that the Olympics could be more than a dream. And then came the first day of the women’s 500-meter event at trials, on Sunday, when she put herself in position.

She and the others with a serious chance of qualifying began that race knowing they were likely competing for second place. And, indeed, Erin Jackson, among the sport’s stars and a favorite to repeat as the gold medalist in the event, came in first Sunday with relative ease. Warren, though, finished a breathless sprint in second place, and by the narrowest of margins.

When she left the rink Sunday, she was in position to qualify for the Olympics by .02 seconds. And then she had an entire night and most of Monday to think about holding on to her spot. If Warren didn’t match or exceed her time Monday, and if someone was faster than her Sunday time of 38.86 seconds, well — that’d be it. Dream over.

And after the ACL injuries and the 10 surgeries, would there be another shot?

“It’s always the question, right?” she asked. “I think through these surgeries, you know, you can’t take anything for granted.

“So I stepped on that line thinking this could be my last trials.”

It was “do or die,” she said, and her finish in 38.66 seconds was almost .02 seconds faster than her first time Sunday. She’d left no doubt, it turned out, and Warren became the third Chicago-area speedskater to qualify for Milan, along with Oak Park native Emery Lehman and Ethan Cepuran of Glen Ellyn. They both qualified individually (Lehman in the 1500 meters and Cepuran in mass start) and make up two-thirds of a team pursuit squad that’s aiming for gold next month.

Sarah Warren skates to celebrate with her mom, Cathy Connelly-Warren, after finishing second in the women’s 500-meter event and qualifying for the Milan Olympics, Jan. 5, 2026, during the U.S. Olympic Team Trials Long Track at the Pettit National Ice Center in Milwaukee. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

When Warren crossed the finish line Monday, it looked a lot like it did during her visualization exercises. She’d spent a good part of Sunday night and Monday before her race envisioning what it would be like to secure her place in the Olympics. She saw the jubilant celebration. The hug with her mom. The embrace of family.

And when she wasn’t envisioning those things, she watched the movie “Moana.”

“I was like, I need my girl,” she said of the film’s title character.

While her mom spent hours before the race thinking of consoling words that she never had to use, Warren put her phone in do not disturb mode and tried to remain in the moment. There was no point in trying to pretend the opportunity in front of her was smaller than she knew it was.

“It was huge,” she said. “And at the end of the day it came down to 38.6 seconds of you’re going to be an Olympian, or not.”

And so she positioned herself at the starting line. The gun popped. Her mom and family braced themselves. And 38.66 seconds later, a dream that seemed improbable, if not impossible, amid all the torn ligaments and surgeries was no longer a dream at all.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/06/us-olympic-speedskating-sarah-warren-chicago/ 

Dollar Supremacy Strategy Or All-Time Grift? American AI Imperialism’s Reliance On The Middle East

Tyler Durden
Tue, 01/06/2026 – 19:15

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/dollar-supremacy-strategy-or-all-time-grift-american-ai-imperialisms-reliance-middle 

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/06/daily-horoscope-for-january-07-2026/ 

US May Subsidize Oil Giants To Rebuild Venezuela’s Energy Sector, Trump Says

Tyler Durden
Tue, 01/06/2026 – 18:50

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/us-may-subsidize-oil-giants-rebuild-venezuelas-energy-sector-trump-says 

In a news conference filled with contradictions, Republican candidate for governor Ted Dabrowski warned large spending increases on human service programs under Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker were warning signs for fraud, while also acknowledging he didn’t know of any crooked expenditures and conceding the spending could be legitimate.

Dabrowski, the former president of the Wirepoints conservative policy advocacy group, also noted that past state credit rating downgrades under previous governors were signs of fiscal mismanagement. But when asked about the multiple rating upgrades since Pritzker took office in 2019, he dismissed them as a matter of concern only for bondholders without mentioning that higher ratings lead to lower taxpayer costs on government lending.

Dabrowski even delivered a lackluster precursor for his press event, acknowledging public disinterest in state budgeting as he stood before charts festooned with numbers detailing state human services and Chicago Public Schools spending.

“Everyday Illinoisans are just getting whacked and still nobody seems to care. And budgets are boring. Nobody understands a budget. Nobody wants to look at budgets. They’re just big numbers. But when you start looking at them, you start to realize that there’s some big issues there,” Dabrowski said.

Dabrowski, of Wilmette, is one of six Republicans vying for the March 17 GOP nomination, a field that also includes the unsuccessful 2022 challenger to Pritzker, former state Sen. Darren Bailey of downstate Louisville and DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick.

Dabrowski attempted to tie a rapid rise in spending for human service programs in Illinois under Pritzker to allegations of fraud that have surfaced in Minnesota, linked to the state’s large Somali immigrant community. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic nominee for vice president, dropped his bid for a third term as governor on Monday amid the tumult.

But, Dabrowski said, “I want to say here is I’m not making an accusation today of fraud in Illinois. I’m not doing that.” Later, he added, “I’m not making any accusations of fraud. I am saying that these kind of growth rates parallel the kind of stuff that could happen in Minnesota.”

“I’m not saying we cut or eliminate right now. I’m saying we audit it … based on what we’re seeing in Minnesota that we just have this massive growth. Do we understand this growth? Has it been explained?”

Yet, as a former vice president of the GOP-aligned Illinois Policy Institute in 2016, during a record two-year state budget impasse under Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner that hollowed out the state’s inventory of social service providers, Dabrowski lamented more than a decade of underfunding to those providers by the state. At the same time, in writing for the policy institute, he attacked a massive backlog of state bills that left providers unpaid — a backlog that was finally eradicated in mid-2024 under Pritzker.

Dabrowski said COVID-19 relief funds helped pay off bill backlogs in Illinois and other states, leading to rising credit ratings as it used one-time funding to settle overdue debts to vendors.

As for the 10 credit upgrades in Illinois under Pritzker, he said only holders of state bonds cared and that “it doesn’t mean that the everyday Illinoisan is better off.” However, taxpayers pay lower interest rates for issuing bonds and Dabrowski complained that the state was once a step above high-interest junk bond status.

Dabrowski’s news conference came as reports out of Washington indicated President Donald Trump’s administration was preparing to freeze federal funding for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the Child Care and Development Fund and Social Services block grants in Minnesota, Illinois, New York, California and Colorado — all Democrat-run states — ostensibly because of the alleged fraud in Minnesota.

Rachel Otwell, a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Human Services, said the state has not received any “official communication or notification on impacts to federal funding.”

“This is yet another politically motivated action by the Trump Administration that confuses families and leaves states with more questions than answers,” she said in a statement. “IDHS will provide an update if it is made aware of program or funding changes.”

In addition to calling for a “forensic audit” of human service spending, Dabrowski also called for creating a “department that looks at government efficiency,” effectively becoming the second GOP candidate after Darren Bailey last week called for a state agency to mirror Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency.

But the federal DOGE effort never achieved the ballyhooed $2 trillion in federal savings that it’s one-time head, Elon Musk, promised. Instead, the agency has claimed savings of between $160 billion and $210 billion, and even those figures are highly disputed, with news reports saying the amounts are vastly inflated and verifiable savings are much lower.

Alex Gough, a spokesperson for Pritzker’s bid for a third term, criticized Dabrowski for not wanting to provide government support and care for people with disabilities in questioning human service spending.

“This is such an extreme, ludicrous position that members of his own party don’t even support it,” Gough said in a statement. “If that wasn’t enough, it seems the GOP’s resident ‘budget expert’ doesn’t think credit upgrades are good for people? I’d recommend he brush up.”

As for the creation of a state DOGE, Gough pointed to an early statement criticizing Bailey’s call for such an agency.

“Darren Bailey is simply showing us that he remains what he’s always been — a MAGA extremist. He echoes Trump’s lies, copies Trump’s dangerous ideas and wants to bring Trump’s chaos to Illinois,” Gough said. “Illinoisans can’t afford a wannabe Donald Trump in the governor’s office.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/06/republican-candidate-for-illinois-governor-ted-dabrowski-fills-news-conference-with-contradictions/ 

A hospital workers’ union is calling on Northwestern Memorial Hospital to beef up its emergency department staffing, ahead of a scheduled state board vote next week on whether the hospital should be allowed to embark on a $96 million expansion project.

The Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board is slated on Jan. 13 to consider the hospital’s application to add 42 intensive care unit beds and a two-story connector between two pavilions, among other things. The board must vote in favor of the hospital’s application before the project can move forward.

The project is partly intended to alleviate backups in the hospital’s emergency department due to a lack of intensive care unit beds, according to the hospital’s application for the project. Those backups have led to “excessive” emergency department wait times and many patients leaving without being seen, according to the hospital’s application.

Ahead of the state board meeting, workers with SEIU Healthcare Illinois held a news conference near the hospital Tuesday, demanding the hospital first focus on safely staffing the emergency department. The union is in active negotiations with Northwestern over its contract, which expires at the end of January.

The union represents about 1,700 workers at Northwestern Memorial, including dietary workers, housekeepers and patient care technicians, among others.

“We appreciate our SEIU-represented employees and the important contributions they make every day,” Northwestern said in a statement Tuesday. “We remain committed to bargaining in good faith.”

Union members say more workers are needed in the emergency department and throughout the hospital. The union is seeking higher wages, pay incentives and the hiring of more staff, said Anne Igoe, vice president of hospitals and health systems for SEIU Healthcare Illinois.

Sometimes the emergency department gets backed up partly because there aren’t enough workers to clean rooms or transport patients from the emergency department to inpatient hospital beds, said Morgan Jurgus, an emergency department assistant at the hospital.

Some days, there may be only six emergency department assistants on-hand, Jurgus said. Emergency department assistants help with tasks such as CPR, splinting and cleaning patients, Jurgus said.

“There are patients that end up waiting six to eight hours in our waiting room, waiting for care, and that causes additional stress on everybody involved,” Jurgus said.

“They clearly have money that they’re willing to invest into the problem,” Jurgus said of Northwestern. “It feels (like) they aren’t willing to invest in us, the workers, the people actually doing the job.”

April McNeal, a unit secretary at the hospital, said workers feel like they’re doing the job of two or three people.

“We are exhausted, stressed and we feel like we’re failing our patients, people who really need us,” McNeal said at the news conference.

Northwestern, however, says its emergency department wait times are in line with other, similar hospitals.

The average time spent in the emergency department at Northwestern Memorial, from the time a patient arrives to the time their visit ends, is about five-and-a-half hours, compared with about four hours at hospitals across the state, according to federal data. Five-and-a-half hours, however, is average across the country for hospitals like Northwestern — large, adult, urban, Level I trauma centers —said Northwestern spokesperson Chris King.

King also said in recent years the hospital doubled the number of housekeepers per shift in its emergency department, and also increased the number of its emergency department transporters by 2%.

Northwestern Memorial also recently gained approval from the state board to spend $56 million on design services for a potential new tower on its Streeterville campus. That tower is slated to have more than 200 beds to help meet demand, according to the hospital’s application for that project.

The tower could open by 2031, if it’s approved by the state board. The project going before the state board Jan. 13 to add 42 intensive care unit beds “will be a critical bridge to address the high ICU occupancy before a new tower can be opened,” according to Northwestern’s application for the project.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/06/northwestern-memorial-hospital-union/