Category: News
Laura Washington: Political goings-on in 2025 reflect anything but comity
The start of a new year is a freighted time. We are looking forward and looking backward.
It’s a balancing act. The end of every year comes with idiosyncrasies and cargo. Who could believe that in 2025, Donald Trump would be rehabilitated and reinstated as president of the United States? Only this time, thanks to a popular majority of voters.
Trump ensured this departing year has been like no other. Wake me up next year. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect 2025 was all a bad dream or a bout of indigestion caused by sour shrimp or spoiled mussel.
The news flow of 2025 has been feverish, and next year, I fear, will be even spookier. We need a bit of comity. Please.
However, this year’s political goings-on reflect anything but comity. Comedy, perhaps, but comity? No way.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson seems intent upon running the ball down the field while his allies stand around looking for guidance. This fall, his city budget came out of left field and landed with a thud. The budget had to be rescued at the last minute by a renegade City Council majority. They will be loaded for bear in 2026.
Johnson’s meager spade work in Springfield was about as productive as planting a garden without tilling the soil. The mayor and governor are congenial as crabs in a barrel. Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker need to work together for Illinois and Chicago to prosper. The last year has shown precious little evidence of any comity between those two. It’s time for Pritzker to invite the mayor back to his tony Gold Coast abode to break bread and make some peace.
U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino watches as agents detain a man they found painting a house in Chicago’s Edison Park neighborhood on Oct. 31, 2025, during immigration enforcement operations. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)
An even bigger nightmare here is Trump’s ICE parade. His emissaries from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol are scouring the streets to hunt down law-abiding residents — who are mostly people of color. Housekeeping staffers, construction and day care workers, restaurant servers, taco vendors. For months, federal officers have been snatching hardworking people from the streets.
No criminal should get a hall pass. If the bad guys are here illegally, ship them out of town, pronto. Yet it’s clear that the vast majority of those who have been arrested are law-abiding residents, living quiet and productive lives.
They are the people America needs to keep its economic engine running. They are powering the so-called Trump economy. Ask small business owners if they can replace these workers. They are scrambling. Have you noticed the “help wanted” signs popping up in stores and restaurants across the city?
It’s time for the Trump nightmare to end. What a propitious time as 2026 arrives.
Slipping into 2026 mode should be easy. Leaving behind mountains of crummy political baggage should be a treat. The problem with the future, however, is that the individual responsible for so much destruction ain’t going anywhere. Trump has designs on political immortality.
The big number for 2026: Trump’s favorability ratings. They are sinking fast. At the end of his first year in office, Trump’s job approval rating stands at 36%, which is the worst level for any U.S. president at that point in time in the last 50 years, according to a new Gallup poll taken Dec. 1-15.
Now is the time to clip DJT’s wings. The upcoming midterm elections could be the pivot point to electing a Democratic majority. That would be a momentous change, but it could lead to extra-extraordinary political volatility.
2026 will be the year when the pols who hanker for the presidency will have to show their cards. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is flying so high, he may as well declare now. The media has already anointed him as a runaway front-runner to take on Trump. That is, if the two-term president decides to defy the Constitution and mount a bid for another round.
Other Democratic presidential aspirants don’t want Newsom to get too far ahead, but I predict that he is already out over his skis, and his ambitions will crash and burn.
That brings us to the White House wannabes right here at home. Pritzker has been aggressively laying the groundwork for a run, but he needs to lay back until Newsom fades.
For months, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has been boosting his profile on TV talk shows, podcasts and political speeches. He is considering a presidential run, so he says. There is no path for the hard-charging Rahmbo, who has permanently alienated his party’s progressive wing.
Back in Chicago, the “new” City Council made history this year, wresting control of the city budget from Johnson. The women of the council sported the biggest brawn in the budget battle. Look for them to rise as City Hall stars in 2026: Ald. Pat Dowell, 3rd, Nicole Lee, 11th, and Samantha Nugent, 39th.
They will flex their newfound muscles in the policy and budget brawls to come.
I will be blessed to have a ringside seat. 2026, bring it on.
Laura Washington is a political commentator and longtime Chicago journalist. Her columns appear in the Tribune each Wednesday. Write to her at LauraLauraWashington@gmail.com.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
Budget fights to funding freezes: Chicago’s top education stories of the year
Chicago’s education landscape faced an unprecedented set of challenges this year — from Chicago Public Schools’ protracted budget fight, to intensified immigration enforcement, to federal funding cuts.
During President Donald Trump’s first year in office, his sweeping policy shifts left a mark on K-12 and higher education alike.
Illinois schools have emerged as a microcosm for national issues, including Operation Midway Blitz, the dismantling of the U.S. Education Department and culture wars in the classroom.
Looking back at a year of headlines, we picked five Tribune education stories that defined our city in 2025.
Immigration crackdown hits schools
Trump’s intensified immigration enforcement struck CPS and surrounding districts hard, sparking widespread fear among schools, students and community members.
Migrant families voiced concerns as early as Inauguration Day. Attendance declined at many predominantly Latino schools across the district. That same month, a mistaken report of two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at a South Side elementary school spurred panic.
Many of those fears were realized in the fall, when Trump launched Operation Midway Blitz. Communities across the district banded together to create new systems and amplify existing support for families and students directly impacted.
At the height of the crackdown, there were calls to offer remote learning for frightened families in Chicago neighborhoods and some hard-hit suburban districts. District leadership, however, maintained that schools were the safest place for students.
Budget woes at Chicago Public Schools
The Chicago Board of Education approved a $10.25 billion budget in August, closing a $734 million deficit. But it was far from an easy feat: The monthslong budget fight led to the resignation of the entire school board last year and the ouster of former CPS CEO Pedro Martinez.
At the heart of the debate was a $200 million high-interest loan and a disputed pension payment for nonteaching CPS staff members, both backed by Mayor Brandon Johnson. The final budget excluded the loan and relied instead on a one-time cash infusion from special taxing districts.
Still, the district’s budget woes will persist into the new year. Just shy of a year of negotiations with the district, the Chicago Teachers Union ratified a new contract in April with historic member support — and notably, without a strike — that will cost CPS $1.5 billion over the next four years.
Chicago Board of Education board members listen as the city’s chief financial officer, Jill Jaworski, speaks during a budget hearing at CPS headquarters on March 14, 2025. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)
Meanwhile, a November report from the Office of Inspector General, the district’s watchdog, found that CPS travel expenditures more than doubled from $3.7 million to $7.7 million after the COVID-19 pandemic.
CPS ended fiscal year 2025 with $339 million in net negative cash, which was $485 million less than the year prior. But CPS wasn’t alone. Issues with Cook County property tax data also slowed suburban school districts’ efforts to secure the maximum allowable tax revenue.
Federal pressures rattle Northwestern, higher ed
Trump’s pressure campaign on elite universities hit Chicago hard in April, when his administration froze $790 million in research funding for Northwestern University. The abrupt pause triggered a wave of cost-cutting measures across campus, including a hiring freeze and the layoffs of hundreds of staff members.
Under the weight of the freeze and intense criticism from Republican lawmakers, Northwestern’s embattled president, Michael Schill, resigned.
To restore funding, Northwestern agreed to pay a $75 million fine in November. In exchange, the White House closed several investigations into alleged antisemitism on campus. The settlement sent shockwaves through campus, with many students and faculty members condemning the move as acquiescence to Trump.
Julie Biehl, clinical professor of law at Northwestern University, gives Peter Barris, chair of the board of trustees, a packet of letters of support from law professors, legal organizations and alumni across the country asking the university to take a stand against the federal government, April 9, 2025. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)
Other Illinois higher-education institutions have been affected by Trump. International enrollment dropped at nearly two dozen Illinois universities amid shifting visa policies — leading to dramatic budget cuts at DePaul University. Changes to federal student loans and repayment programs have continued to raise concerns about the future of college accessibility.
Trump’s Education Department
The Trump administration has taken dramatic steps to dismantle the Education Department, aiming to return oversight to the states and forcefully roll back diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
Those shifts have already ripped across Chicago and regional schools. Thousands of complaints filed in the Office for Civil Rights, which investigates discrimination in schools, were left in limbo after department layoffs.
The remaining staff members have been instructed to open cases aligned with Trump’s civil rights agenda. That includes an investigation into CPS’ Black Student Success Plan for alleged racial discrimination. A similar probe was launched against Evanston/Skokie School District 65 in May based on the district’s social justice programming.
Superintendent salaries vary statewide
A Tribune analysis of 2024 salaries found that at least 18 suburban superintendents in Illinois received higher compensation than former Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez despite overseeing significantly smaller districts. Collectively, these 18 superintendents oversee 117 schools serving 76,000 students — roughly 600 fewer schools and 230,000 fewer students than Martinez.
For example, in Dolton School District 148, a small south suburban school district, a fifth of the students met state reading requirements in 2024. Yet, the former superintendent of their district earned a total compensation of more than $537,000 in 2024 — the highest in the state.
While experts struggled to definitely identify which factors should be considered when drafting a superintendent’s contract, residents across the state said high pay in low-performing districts is unacceptable.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/31/education-stories-of-the-year/
2025 in review: A look back at our most heartfelt op-eds
Our commentary section offers a broad spectrum of views on weighty subjects and timely topics. But we also publish op-eds that are personal, some bordering on transformative; they appear most often on Saturdays in print (and online the day before). They dive into the tender aspects of what it means to be human and what it means to be in community and emerge with universal truths. Sometimes, those truths make our hearts swell with compassion or quiver with sadness. Sometimes, those truths make us feel lighter than air because the joy they inspire makes us buoyant.
It is always a privilege to publish these emotionally resonant essays. We find these selections from the past year to be particularly rewarding, and we hope you find them rewarding as well.
Here is a look back in excerpts.
April 18: David McGrath, “Mourning my sister Rosie with loved ones, I felt a spiritual rising”
Author David McGrath’s father, Charlie, with David and sister Rosie in 1951 at their home on Chicago’s South Side. (Gertrude McGrath)
My old friend Orville, who had been my manager when Marianne and I worked at Jewel, came over, and we hugged it out. He said he was sorry, and we both lied about how we looked the same. Orv had briefly dated Rosie back in the day. When I thanked him for driving up from Crete, he said he considered it a “rare thing” to have been a friend to every member of our family for five decades.
Next, I was surrounded by five of the 12 Bracken kids who had lived one door down from us in Evergreen Park. Veronica and Annie were our babysitters, and Rita was Rosie’s best friend whom I knew well from hanging with Rosie’s crew when she and I were college classmates. They liked to pile into Rosie’s 1960 VW Bug for a trip to Chicago’s Chinatown and a certain spooky lounge with no cover charge. Among them was Marianne, who would become my wife, for which my sister was partly responsible.
Walking to the front of the funeral parlor, I was intercepted by Donna, Bill and Mary Kay, children of Dan Whitters, my late father’s close friend who had married his cousin Betty. The world never felt more right than on summer nights when Dan and my old man talked White Sox and the weather while sitting in lawn chairs — brown bottles of cold Drewrys beer sweating in their hands — while we caught lightning bugs with our cousins in the yard. A wave of that feeling, I swear, washed over me the instant I saw their bright smiles.
May 11: Colin Fleming, “I’ve had three mothers, and they all mattered”
Colin Fleming and his mom Barbara in Mansfield, Massachusetts, in the early 1980s. (Family photo)
My mother is an exemplar, and she has always been a reminder to me that love is not just something that happens. It’s active and perpetually put into practice.
She shared a poem that she’d found with me when I was young, the same way I’d share the stories I wrote with her. It sat in a little frame on my bureau.
The poem concluded with the line, “You weren’t born under my heart, but in it,” and not a day has passed that I have not thought of it.
My mom taught me the real meaning of being a mom, and that was relevant for me, too, in the standards I have for myself, the decency and grace with which I strive to live my life, no matter how hard anything gets.
May 30: Andie Townhouse, “I revamped a school library, then lost my job. The trauma is deja vu for my child and me.”
One of the worst days of my life was when I drove us out to Ikea. I remember this day vividly because the ice cream cones cost $1 each, like the clothes we were wearing.
I just wanted to lie down on a bed, so we skipped from exceptionally clean modern showroom to an even more exceptionally clean modern showroom like we were going to buy the whole cubicle. You know you are in a fantasy world when there are fake sky panels glued to the wall. Those were very different panes than the welfare windows we stared into for two years.
We thought about what a new life might feel like, beginning with a perfectly creased corner of a bed.
If only one of them were ours, could be ours. If only I tried harder.
When Chicago Public Schools laid me off, my daughter asked me if we were going to lose our house. She is a teenager now and restless with questions.
She stared at me with the look: “Is this really happening to us again?”
We broke eye contact.
She knows what happens when the yarn begins to fray, and the bobbin of your life spins completely out of control.
Aug. 24: Michael McColly, “I walked the length of Chicago and discovered we can knit our city together, step by step”
Chicago, as its motto boasts, is a “City in a Garden,” but you have to get out on foot to experience it. Whether I am walking along the lake or the Chicago River, through cemeteries or brownfields, down streets or under expressways, the natural world is there, pushing up through the cracks, migrating overhead or thriving in community gardens. In my walks, the city’s grand parks are impressive, but it’s the individual acts of citizens and voluntary organizations that often lead the way. The phenomenal restoration of Montrose Beach and Bird Sanctuary is a good example. For years, nearby residents came to this isolated corner of the lakefront to take walks and find comfort in the solitude and often unkept beach and weedy woodland behind it. Along with birders, locals realized that with stewardship and some plantings of native grasses and trees, they could assist in the natural rewilding of this area. Twenty-five years later, Montrose is a true sanctuary for birds and people, and all along the lakefront, other restoration projects have followed.
Walking for long stretches in the city, your perception deepens, and often, rising from the very earth below your feet, a feeling emerges. Like a revelation, you can sense the layers of history held in the land. You look at the lake and imagine it as a mile-high glacier of ice. You recognize that the street you are on was once a trail used by Indigenous peoples centuries ago. And in brick buildings that you’ve passed scores of times before, you see monuments to the workers who built them. On foot, there are no boundaries in the land, no divides, nothing but the past and the potentiality of the future.
Sept. 18: Sheila Rogers Clancy, “Jerome Gavin was ‘uncle’ to many Chicago lifeguards under his watch”
Jerome Gavin salutes the flag on the Fourth of July, circa 1998, at Leone Beach in Chicago. (Chris Serb)
Uncle Jer did not look like the other guards who were fresh off swim teams with their V-shaped physiques, bronzed skin and sun-drenched hair. Uncle Jer was a little paunchy, had dark hair peppered with gray (which he blamed on us) and skin so white it was difficult to tell where his skin left off and the sunscreen began. What he lacked in muscle mass, he made up for in heart and dedication.
He stressed the importance of staying in shape in the event of a rescue and was not above poking fun at himself. He told the story of hearing a whistle, grabbing the oxygen, running through the sand only to use the oxygen on himself before tending to the victim.
He tried to act like a tough guy to the rookies, but we all soon realized he was a big softie. He was fatherly toward the female guards, advising us to stay away from bad boys and suggesting we find good Catholics with stable job prospects. He was practical like that. As for the young men, he considered them “knuckleheads.” He shook his head when he found them sleeping under the boats after partying all night, backflipping off the cement seawall or torpedoing, the act of jumping out of the Whaler as it traveled at full speed. He might have been envious of their youthful invincibility, but he was really concerned that no one get hurt. Not on his watch.
Nov. 14: Ofelia Casillas, “I found faith at a Chicago food pantry”
After a year of volunteering weekly, my faith in the world slowly started to restore like a cup filling up again, forces for good overpowering all the sadness.
The gratitude in some of the recipients’ eyes was another reminder. And the community’s endless generosity.
A few Sundays this summer, I joined other pantry volunteers at a local farmers market booth. I saw the look on the faces of some of the market patrons when they heard “donate,” “volunteer” and “food pantry”: an immediate recognition that food insecurity in their community was their problem to help solve. They opened their wallets to give cash. They signed up to volunteer. They later donated food and clothing.
The other day, a recipient thanked me, as many do, and asked God to bless me.
As I moved to serve the next recipient, without thinking about it, without pausing to reflect, I answered: “God bless you too.”
Nov. 30: State Sen. Sara Feigenholtz, “We adoptees deserve to know our origins. Illinois law made that possible.”
State Sen. Sara Feigenholtz, D-Chicago, is emotional June 9, 2011, on the first anniversary of the Illinois law that allows adult adoptees to access their original birth certificate without a court order. (José M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune)
I still remember the day the first adoptees walked into the Illinois Department of Public Health and applied for their original birth certificates. Some cried. Others stood silent, taking in the weight of the moment. Many reached out to me afterward to say that, for the first time, they felt whole. One woman learned she had three siblings she never knew existed and had been living less than 10 miles from them their entire lives. Another woman finally understood her family’s medical history. Every story reminded me why the work was worth it.
It’s easy to see laws as words on paper, but for adoptees, this one was life-changing. It restored something that had been taken away for generations: the right to know ourselves.
When people ask me what I’m proudest of during my time in public service, I don’t hesitate. This is it. It’s my most meaningful legacy. Not because it was the most politically advantageous or newsworthy, but because it required patience, coalition-building, vulnerability and persistence when the easy thing would have been to give up.
That’s how real change happens. It happens through lived experience, through genuinely listening to people’s fears and hopes, through finding common ground where none seemed possible. It happens through a willingness to stay at the table for years until you get it right.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/31/opinion-2025-heartfelt-humane-op-eds/
Christmas comes late for Zion family who lost their home in a fire: ‘I don’t have the words’
Leandrea and John Hernández started gathering gifts in October. After years of small Christmases on tight budgets, the Zion couple wanted to ensure that everyone — from their four kids to extended family — would be tearing open wrapping paper on Christmas.
That moment never came.
On Christmas Eve, a fire destroyed the Hernández family’s north suburban home of the past six years. They lost everything, gifts and all, leaving the family of eight to figure out what’s next while they wade through their grief.
It’s been unimaginable and overwhelming, they say.
But they’ve been getting by with the community’s help thanks to an outpouring of support for the family, with loved ones and neighbors and even strangers donating what they can to alleviate the loss.
“We were broken,” said Leandrea Hernández, 36. “We still are broken. … But then I get online at 2, 3, 4 o’clock in the morning when I can’t sleep, and people are still donating, sharing our GoFundMe, sending meals. Telling me, ‘What else can we do? What else do you need?’”
Marcial Rodríguez, CEO of 911 Fire Board-Up and Construction, walks in front of Leandrea and John Hernández’s home that caught fire on Christmas Eve in the 3100 block of Ezekiel Avenue in Zion, Dec. 26, 2025. All eight people and their pets made it out of the house alive. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)
Before the blaze broke out, Leandrea Hernández was busy preparing a few dishes for Christmas dinner, which they’d planned to host, she recalled days later in an interview with the Tribune. As she spoke, she and her family huddled together in the lobby of a local hotel, the Inn on Sheridan, where they’ve been living since the fire.
When she finished cooking, Leandrea Hernández walked through the house to make sure doors were locked and lights were off. About 10 minutes later, she began smelling what she thought was a lit candle, she remembered. At first, she didn’t think much of it — she fashions candles as a hobby and the kids make use of them now and again.
Then her 11-year-old daughter, Lihanna, took notice, too, running downstairs to see what was going on. She found the door handle to their sunroom hot to the touch and black smoke seeping out.
“She’s yelling down to us, ‘Mommy! Daddy! Come down, come down,’” Leandrea Hernández said.
Alongside the couple and their four kids, who range in age from 2 to 18, Leandrea Hernández’s brother and mother also lived with them. All but her mother, who was at work, were home when the fire erupted.
Initially, Leandrea Hernández thought the house was salvageable, recalling that she turned to her husband and said, “‘Let’s grab buckets, let’s get whatever we can.’”
He told her it was time to get out.
“At this point (I’m thinking), ‘No, I don’t want to leave. I don’t want,’” her voice breaking, “‘to watch my house burn.’”
Within a matter of minutes after everyone was out, the entire facade of their house had gone up in flames.
Fire crews responded just after 8 p.m., according to the Zion Fire & Rescue Department. The home was empty by the time fire crews arrived, but heavy fire and smoke billowed out, fire officials said.
It took firefighters three hours to control and extinguish the blaze, which investigators on the scene deemed an accident.
The fire, which began on the front porch, left the home uninhabitable, Zion Fire Chief Justin Stried said Monday. Investigators could not rule out discarded smoking materials as the most likely cause of the fire.
Having met as kids while growing up on Chicago’s West Side, the family moved into their Zion home in 2019. Though suburban residents, John Hernández works for the city of Chicago, while Leandrea Hernández had worked in waste management from home. Her work is in limbo, with everything burned in the fire, she said.
The couple moved out of the city for a better life for their kids. Before Zion, they lived in low-income housing in North Chicago, but eventually decided it was time to acquire their own home. They only saw their Zion house twice before they knew it was the one, roomy enough to hold their whole family.
Since coming to Zion, Christmases have been quieter affairs with money tight, Leandrea Hernández said. But this year, they had aspirations to pull out all the stops: games, music, gifts for everyone, having planned the celebration weeks in advance.
“This Christmas, I think, was (supposed to be) kind of like the best Christmas” that they’ve ever had, said her mother, Katrina Smith.
Katrina Smith, from left, sits with her daughter, Leandrea Hernández, center, and Hernández’ son Aiden Hernández, 13, as they talk about the Christmas Eve fire that destroyed their home in Zion, Dec. 27, 2025. (Michael Schmidt/for the Chicago Tribune)
Smith couldn’t believe it when she rushed home from work to see the house bright with fire. The moment brought the 54-year-old back to the same day decades ago, when she was little and her own house burned down in a Christmas Eve fire, Smith recalled.
“I was like, ‘This has got to be a dream, it’s gotta be a dream,’” she said.
After escaping the blaze, the family stood barefoot outside, watching their home be destroyed.
It didn’t take long for the neighborhood to take notice. Their next-door neighbor let them wait inside his house until they had a place to go while word of the fire, and the family’s loss, spread.
Within hours, the family went from having nothing to having clothes, toiletries, food deliveries and gift cards flooding their way.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the GoFundMe page the family started had amassed just over $9,000. On Facebook, messages and offers to help have mounted.
“Thinking of you this morning,” one Facebook user wrote to the family on Christmas Day. “We want to help fill any gaps.”
“I’m glad you got out safely,” another person wrote. “Please, what do you need?”
John Hernández, left, holds his daughter, Luna, 2, as Hernández and E.J. López, right, talk about the fire that destroyed their home in Zion, Dec. 27, 2025. (Michael Schmidt/for the Chicago Tribune)
On Saturday morning, Tiffany Dean strolled into the Inn on Sheridan and placed a black duffle on the reception desk: to donate, she’d said. Since Leandrea Hernández and her family temporarily moved in, the hotel has been accepting donations on their behalf.
Dean, 45, was shocked when she read about the devastating fire. She brought the family clothes, she said, and hopes to donate more.
Asked what the support has meant to her, Hernández said, “I don’t have the words.”
On Dec. 26, Christmas came late. While donations filled the family’s hotel rooms, loved ones flocked to the inn, presents in hand. That night, without a home but surrounded by warmth, they celebrated.
“It was like we were having our Christmas dinner,” Leandrea Hernández said, “but in the hotel room.”
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/31/christmas-eve-zion-house-fire-lake-county/
Set to open in the fall, Northwestern’s $862M Ryan Field touted as ‘best place to watch football in America’
As Northwestern, fresh off a bowl win, wraps up its second season of playing football at a small lakefront field shared with the lacrosse and soccer teams, workers are busy building out a new $862 million football stadium in Evanston.
Beginning next season, the Wildcats, once the doormat of the Big Ten, may finally have home field advantage over their conference rivals.
After nearly a century at the concrete stadium formerly known as Dyche, and two seasons at the temporary lakefront facility, Northwestern will christen what it believes to be the most fan-friendly major college football venue in the U.S. when the new Ryan Field opens in the fall.
“It’ll be the best place to watch a football game in America,” said Pat Ryan Jr., whose family drove the project and funded the majority of the money needed to build their namesake stadium.
Northwestern announced plans for the privately funded Ryan Field rebuild in 2022. The modern open-air stadium includes a canopy roof, better sight lines, chair backs instead of benches and 35,000 seats — 12,000 fewer than the old Ryan Field, which was demolished in 2024 after the Evanston City Council narrowly approved the project.
Unlike older stadiums, including its predecessor, newer construction technology allows seating levels that are steeper and closer to the field — a more intimate experience similar to a modern basketball arena.
The primary benefactor of the new stadium is insurance billionaire Patrick Ryan, founder and retired CEO of Aon Corp. and a Northwestern alumnus. The Ryan family donated $480 million in 2021 — the largest gift in Northwestern history — in large part to help build the stadium, and has since committed additional funding as the cost of the project has risen.
His son, Pat Ryan Jr., 58, a technology entrepreneur who holds a law and MBA degree from Northwestern, led the stadium redevelopment, navigating a contentious approval process that included calls to halt the ambitious project in the wake of a hazing scandal and July 2023 firing of the football team’s coach, Pat Fitzgerald.
In August, Northwestern reached a settlement agreement in a $130 million wrongful termination lawsuit brought by Fitzgerald, who was recently named the new head coach at Michigan State University.
Meanwhile, backed by the Ryan family’s funding, vision and tenacity, Northwestern’s $862 million football stadium — the most expensive in college sports — is coming to fruition.
“They could have walked away a dozen times and nobody would have blamed them,” Chicago-based sports business consultant Marc Ganis said. “This is not just a gift and a name. The Ryan family is the driving force behind every aspect of this building.”
In addition to football games, the new stadium will host up to six major concerts per year, an area of concern for some neighbors and community groups worried about increased noise and traffic.
But the national spotlight will be on a half-dozen or so Saturdays in the fall, when the new Ryan Field looks to transform college football for Northwestern, Evanston and what the university has branded — with mixed results — “Chicago’s Big Ten Team.”
Ganis said the new venue may help generate broader interest in a college football team that for years saw Big Ten opponents outdraw them in their own stadium.
“For Evanston and Northwestern, it’s a massive benefit,” Ganis said. “This will allow the teams that play in there to start being more competitive against their Big Ten brethren. It will also allow the teams to have a home field advantage, which they have not had for a very long time.”
The most iconic college football stadiums are mostly century-old, massive concrete coliseums such as Ohio Stadium, Notre Dame Stadium and Michigan Stadium, the so-called Big House in Ann Arbor, which regularly draws more than 100,000 fans to watch the Wolverines play.
Northwestern’s predecessor facility, the crescent-shaped Dyche Stadium, was built in 1926 and renamed Ryan Field three decades ago when the family donated funds to renovate the interior.
It was already the smallest stadium in the Big Ten at 47,000 seats. Northwestern is getting smaller — in a big way — with the new 35,000-seat Ryan Field, which has a price tag higher than many NFL stadiums.
After winning City Council approval in November 2023, Northwestern demolished the old stadium and the football team relocated for the past two seasons to Martin Stadium, the lakefront home of the university’s soccer and lacrosse teams. Northwestern also played two home games at Wrigley Field this season.
The school broke ground in June 2024 on the new Ryan Field, which has risen up on the same footprint on Central Street, hovering over the iconic Mustard’s Last Stand hot dog joint to the south.
Topped off in October, the new stadium is actually 320,000 square feet larger than its predecessor. But eliminating bench seating and the upper-deck “nosebleed” level has created a more intimate setting, with fans closer to the field than at the century-old “cathedrals to college football,” Ryan said.
During a recent tour of the stadium construction, a blue-jeaned and hard-hatted Ryan navigated planks and temporary steel stairways to ascend to the two concourses and four seating levels, admiring the view of large cranes rumbling across the muddy future playing field below like behemoth fullbacks.
“The seats at the top of any stadium are the most expensive to build, the hardest to sell and the lowest fan satisfaction,” Ryan said, pointing to the nonexistent upper deck. “By getting rid of that, we were able to leverage the technology of steel and cantilevering and push everybody closer to the action.”
Another signature feature is the canopy roof over the seats, something more often associated with open-air soccer stadiums — including the new Chicago Fire venue going in on the city’s South Side.
Like a giant three-season porch, the canopy should make for an authentic fall football experience in relative comfort for most fans, Ryan said.
“The game is out in the elements on the field, but the canopy covers all the fans so that if the weather is bad, they’re protected,” Ryan said. “So it’s about protecting the fan while preserving the authenticity of the game.”
The new Ryan Field will have 200,000 square feet of festival grounds on the perimeter for tailgating, pop-up concessions and community activities.
Inside, the new stadium will also host up to six major commercial concerts per year — negotiated down from a proposed 10 to appease neighborhood opposition and win zoning approval. Northwestern was previously not allowed to hold concerts at the old stadium.
“This isn’t going to be a building that is built for seven Saturdays a year,” Ryan said. “It will be a year-round community asset.”
While year-round activation offers financial and cultural opportunities, those seven football Saturdays catalyzed the new Ryan Field, a potentially game-changing venue for Northwestern and the North Shore.
With four premium club areas, new amenities and unrivaled proximity to the action, the downsized Ryan Field is an “intelligent stadium” that should do equally well at drawing fans for a football game or a folk festival, Ganis said.
“They are building a right-sized building that will create the kind of game-day and event-day experience that should result in sellouts for virtually every event that takes place in the building,” Ganis said.
More broadly, Ryan Field is part of a once-in-a-century stadium renaissance in Chicago.
Announced in June, the Chicago Fire are building a 22,000-seat, open-air soccer stadium at The 78, a long-fallow megadevelopment planned for 62 acres along the Chicago River south of Roosevelt Road.
The privately funded $750 million stadium is slated to open in 2028.
In 2023, the Bears spent $197 million to buy the former Arlington International Racecourse to build a planned $2 billion domed stadium. But the team is still looking for more favorable long-term property tax rates and $855 million in public funding for infrastructure improvements.
The Bears recently threatened to move the new stadium across state lines to northwest Indiana without financial incentives from Illinois.
In 2024, the White Sox proposed a new publicly funded ballpark at The 78, but Springfield lawmakers balked at the idea of contributing a reported $1 billion to build it. The Cubs completed a $1 billion, five-year renovation of Wrigley Field in 2019.
The Fire and Northwestern stadium projects share similar scale, timing and open-air fields with canopy roofs. More importantly, both will not require public funding, increasingly the biggest impediment to building a new sports facility, Ganis said.
“These are gifts given to the community,” Ganis said. “The Ryan family deserves tremendous thanks and praise for what they’ve done here.”
As Northwestern’s largest donors, the Ryan family name adorns everything from nanotechnology and musical arts buildings to Welsh-Ryan Arena and the predecessor Ryan Field, which was renamed during a 1997 stadium renovation.
The family’s largesse extends beyond Northwestern as well, funding such projects as the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, an acclaimed rehabilitation facility in Chicago.
Not surprisingly, the new stadium has generated a lot more media attention than the nanotechnology building, Ryan said.
“We invest broadly in our philanthropy across the board,” Ryan said. “It’s just a high-profile one, because it’s a football stadium that ends up on television.”
Getting it across the finish line on time and on budget has been a challenge, with inflation raising construction costs and delays in governmental approvals pushing back demolition by several months, “eliminating any buffer,” Ryan said.
The Ryan family is covering any additional costs. Northwestern’s share of the project remains the equivalent of what the university would have spent to do needed renovation to the old stadium, Ryan said.
The new stadium is on target to “open at some point in the fall of 2026,” Ryan said, 100 years after Dyche Stadium hosted its first contest, a 34-0 Northwestern win over South Dakota. Whether the innovative Ryan Field ushers in a new era for college football stadiums remains to be seen.
“It is different than any stadium people have seen before,” Ryan said. “If we’re right, then you’ll see echoes of this in other buildings going forward. And if we’re wrong, well, it’ll be one of a kind.”
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/31/new-ryan-field-northwestern-football/
2025 in review: The year in Scott Stantis cartoons
From the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term to the end of Illinois’ Michael Madigan era, 2025 gave our editorial cartoonist Scott Stantis an abundance of material. Here is a look back at a number of his best and most humorous illustrations from this year.
Jan. 19: Joe Biden, the president who did not know when to leave the stage
Scott Stantis editorial cartoon for Jan. 19, 2025, on Joe Biden’s legacy. (Scott Stantis/For the Chicago Tribune)
Feb. 5: The joy of reading and the Illinois crisis stealing it away
Scott Stantis editorial cartoon for Feb. 5, 2025, on Illinois student reading scores. (Scott Stantis/For the Chicago Tribune)
Feb. 13: Michael Madigan, convicted felon
Tribune editorial cartoonist Scott Stantis on the Feb. 14, 2025, verdict that found Michael Madigan, once the most powerful politician in the state, guilty of bribery conspiracy and other corruption charges. (Scott Stantis/for the Chicago Tribune)
March 30: Holding onto United Airlines
Scott Stantis editorial cartoon for March 30, 2025, on worries over United Airlines moving its headquarters out of Chicago. (Scott Stantis/For the Chicago Tribune)
April 6: Chicago has struggled to regain international tourism. Now that’s coming true for the entire nation.
Scott Stantis editorial cartoon for April 6, 2025, on Trump and tourism. (Scott Stantis/For the Chicago Tribune)
April 13: Chicago voters’ Trump aversion doesn’t mean they’ll warm to Brandon Johnson
Scott Stantis editorial cartoon for April 13, 2025, on Donald Trump’s effect on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s popularity. (Scott Stantis/For the Chiacgo Tribune)
May 11: Our fifth star
Scott Stantis editorial cartoon for May 11, 2025, on Pope Leo XIV. (Scott Stantis/For the Chicago Tribune)
Aug. 10: Gerrymandering now truly is a dangerous threat to American democracy
Scott Stantis editorial cartoon for Aug. 10, 2025, on gerrymandering. (Scott Stantis/For the Chicago Tribune)
July 30: Ryne Sandberg, the quiet all-timer, inspired us with his joy of living
Scott Stantis editorial cartoon for July 30, 2025, on Ryne Sandberg (Scott Stantis/for the Chicago Tribune).
Aug. 31: Put down your phone and think for yourself
Scott Stantis editorial cartoon for Aug. 31, 2025, on our virtual lives. (Scott Stantis/for the Chicago Tribune)
Sept. 14: Tent cities don’t belong in Chicago’s parks
Scott Stantis editorial cartoon on tent encampments in Chicago parks for Sept. 14, 2025. (Scott Stantis/For the Chicago Tribune)
Nov. 23: There’s a new level of property tax rebellion this time. But it’s not all bad news.
Scott Stantis editorial cartoon for Nov. 23, 2025, on the latest property tax bills. (Scott Stantis/For the Chicago Tribune)
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/31/editorial-cartoons-2025-scott-stantis/
How Hallmark built a holiday media empire, complete with cruises
LOS ANGELES — The holiday season is Hallmark’s Super Bowl.
This year alone, Hallmark has 80 hours of original holiday-themed programming, including two unscripted series, two scripted series, a holiday special and 24 movies with titles such as “The Snow Must Go On” and “Christmas at the Catnip Cafe” that run from mid-October to Christmas.
The company also has branched out into the experiences business with a Hallmark Christmas Cruise and the Hallmark Christmas Experience festival in Kansas City, Missouri, where the company is based.
“I think that’s one of the most brilliant business decisions they’ve made, and they’re expanding there because they have to,” Anjali Bal, associate professor of marketing at Babson College, said of Hallmark’s experiences business. “It allows a connection between the consumer and the brand on a direct level in a way a movie can’t provide.”
It may seem like a far cry from Hallmark’s roots as a greeting card purveyor, but company executives say the holiday feelings evoked by its cards, ornaments and gift wrap translate into the type of content they produce.
And that plethora of content has turned Hallmark into a Christmas juggernaut, fueling competitors such as Lifetime and Netflix, which also produce holiday romantic comedies in the vein of Hallmark movies.
But Darren Abbott, Hallmark’s chief brand officer, doesn’t seem overly concerned.
“There’s a reason everyone else is trying to do this, and it’s because consumers are looking for this,” he said.
Hallmark’s legacy is rooted in celebrating holidays and Christmas, he said, “and no other business or brand has that.”
Countdown to Christmas
Founded in 1910 by an 18-year-old entrepreneur hawking postcards, Hallmark built its brand over the years through cards, holiday ornaments and retail stores.
The family-owned business ventured into entertainment in 1951 with the television presentation Hallmark Hall of Fame. Today, Studio City-based Hallmark Media operates three cable networks, including the Hallmark Channel, which debuted in 2001, as well as a subscription streaming service.
Though Hallmark had aired holiday movies practically since the inception of its cable channel, the company doubled down on the season in 2009, rolling out “Countdown to Christmas,” a 24-hour-a-day programming block focused solely on holiday content, a tradition that has lasted for 16 years.
Hallmark produces about 100 movies a year, both holiday and non-holiday films.
As a privately-held company, Hallmark did not disclose its finances, though executives acknowledge the holiday season is a key driver of entertainment revenue.
The expansion into entertainment is a way for Hallmark to stay in the zeitgeist over multiple generations and to diversify its business beyond just cards and retail products, analysts said.
“Their television stations and experiences business allows them to stay culturally relevant while staying true to their origin,” said Bal, the marketing professor.
Holiday programming — and the breezy, romantic fare Hallmark has become known for — has become increasingly popular with audiences.
Holiday features, both old movies and new, typically make up more than a third of total movie viewing time in December, according to U.S. television data from Nielsen. That percentage has remained fairly consistent for the last three years, though it reached 42% in December 2021.
Hallmark’s television viewership also edges up in the months leading into the holidays. In October, Hallmark commanded 1% of total viewership across linear TV and streaming, ticking up to 1.2% in November, according to Nielsen data. During that same time, competitor A&E, which owns Lifetime, remained constant at 0.9%.
Hallmark’s feel-good movies typically resonate with audiences across the country. They invariably conclude with happy endings (and at least one kiss), where romantic misunderstandings, financial difficulties and family drama all get resolved. After years of criticism, the movies’ casts and plot lines are diversifying, though experts say there is still room for improvement.
“These films are designed to be highly appealing to broad audiences,” said Kit Hughes, associate professor of film and media studies at Colorado State University, who watched every single Hallmark film released in 2022 for research on the portrayal of small business owners. “They’re good consensus movies.”
To grow its audience and the types of stories it tells, Hallmark has increasingly turned to brand partnerships, including with the NFL.
Last year, the company released a movie centered around a Kansas City Chiefs romance; this year, it released one about Buffalo Bills fans. Hallmark also has a partnership with Walt Disney Co. to release a holiday movie next year set at Walt Disney World. The film stars Lacey Chabert, who Abbott describes as Hallmark’s “Queen of Christmas.”
Meeting Hallmark stars on cruise ships
Hallmark’s foray into the cruise business might seem odd, but it follows a long tradition of entertainment companies creating real-world experiences with their fans, whether that’s on a ship, in a theme park or on a stage. As part of its massive tourism business, Disney operates its own line of cruise ships that promote the company’s classic characters.
Hallmark launched its first “Hallmark Christmas Cruise” last year on Norwegian Cruise Lines. The inaugural cruise from Miami to the Bahamas sold out even before a planned TV marketing campaign. After racking up a wait list of 70,000 people, Hallmark had to add a second cruise, Abbott said.
For this year’s cruise, from Miami to Cozumel, Mexico, Hallmark had to book a bigger ship to accommodate demand. During the November cruise, attendees participated in various Christmas festivities, such as ornament-making workshops and cookie-decorating, and mingled with Hallmark stars in various on-stage games.
The cruises even spawned an unscripted Hallmark show focused on the experiences of several attendees and their interactions with Hallmark actors.
Many are not exactly household names, but they’ve starred in dozens of Hallmark holiday movies over the years and have loyal fan bases.
Abbott joined the cruise last year, and while he’s not a “cruise person,” he said he was fascinated to see how guests interacted with the stars.
“We’re a bit of a respite from what’s going on in the world right now,” he said, “and these experiences sort of hit on that at the right time and the right place.”
“The Snow Must Go On,” one of 24 holiday movies this year on Hallmark. (Steven Ackerman/Hallmark Media)
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/31/hallmark-media-empire/
Watch: Destroying Kamikaze Drones With Cheap Autonomous Turrets
Watch: Destroying Kamikaze Drones With Cheap Autonomous Turrets
Kamikaze drones, particularly FPV and loitering munitions, have introduced a new dimension to modern warfare, as demonstrated in the Russia-Ukraine war and other active conflict zones globally. These low-cost, off-the-shelf systems are increasingly assessed as a credible threat to civilian targets in the Western world, as highlighted by a recent U.S. government threat assessment warning of potential drone attack risks surrounding Chicago’s upcoming New Year’s Eve fireworks.
For months, we have tracked tech weapons startup Sentradel, which is developing a low-cost, easily deployable counter-unmanned aircraft system (CUAS) designed to engage drones using inexpensive kinetic interceptors, such as bullets.
“In today’s threat landscape, a $500 FPV drone can easily destroy a $10M tank,” Sentradel stated on its website, warning, “We’re losing this asymmetric cost warfare. The solution is not $100,000 missiles; it’s affordable systems like Sentradel.”
From time to time, Sentradel releases new demonstration videos showing the rapid progress of its CUAS platform.
“Here is another update on Sentradel, our counter-drone robotics company. Since the last video, we have made several upgrades to the system. We improved tracking to handle faster-moving drones operating at greater distances. Additionally, we focused on intercepting drones flying perpendicular to the field of view. The vision stack now includes several new thermal cameras, allowing the system to operate in nighttime and low-visibility conditions. We are currently working on multi-drone tracking and neutralization,” Sentradel said.
Here’s the latest:
Company Update #robotics #drones @sts_3d @camrrowe pic.twitter.com/0JoVSeYkpI
— Sentradel (@sentradel) December 2, 2025
Here’s a quick update on Sentradel, a new company I’m starting with @camrrowe #robotics #drones pic.twitter.com/ZSzKvSr6s2
— Stefan Spain (@sts_3d) August 11, 2025
From May:
Will Sentradel be at the SHOT Show in Las Vegas in the next several weeks?
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/31/2025 – 05:45
https://www.zerohedge.com/military/watch-destroying-kamikaze-drones-cheap-autonomous-turrets
Today in Chicago History: Bears win ‘Fog Bowl’ at Soldier Field — but did anyone really see it?
Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Dec. 31, according to the Tribune’s archives.
Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.
Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
High temperature: 68 degrees (1875)
Low temperature: Minus 10 degrees (1967)
Precipitation: 0.89 inches (1978)
Snowfall: 7.6 inches (1978)
The Briggs House at Randolph and Wells streets in 1957 was raised by hundreds of workers, and the hotel stayed open for business throughout. (Chicago Tribune)
1855: Chicago began a project to raise streets (and buildings) out of the muck.
Over a period of almost two decades, Chicago’s buildings were jacked up 4 to 14 feet, higher foundations were built beneath them, storm sewers were placed on top of the streets, and the streets were then filled up to the level of the front doors of the raised buildings.
Raising Chicago out of the mud
To raise larger buildings, an enterprising newcomer to the city named George Pullman perfected a method involving hundreds of men turning thousands of large jackscrews at the same time.
Notre Dame kicker Bob Thomas boots a 19-yard field goal to give the Irish a 24-23 upset victory in the Sugar Bowl against Alabama in New Orleans on Jan. 1, 1973. Holding is Brian Doherty. (JW/AP)
1973: Notre Dame won the national title after with a 24-23 victory over previously unbeaten Alabama at the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.
Chicago Bears defensive end Sean Smith (97) and defensive tackle Steve McMichael (76) on the field against the Philadelphia Eagles in the game that became known as the “Fog Bowl,” Dec. 31, 1988 at Soldier Field. The Bears won 20-12. (John Dziekan/Chicago Tribune)
1988: The “Fog Bowl” — which marked the first time the Bears ever played on New Year’s Eve — is one of the franchise’s most memorable games. It also marked the first time in three seasons the Bears advanced past their first playoff game.
Fans at Soldier Field on Dec. 31, 1988, settled in to watch a divisional playoff game against the Philadelphia Eagles in unexpected comfort. There was bright sunshine, little wind and temperatures heading for the 40s.
Until a sudden slap in the face.
A look back at ‘The Fog Bowl’ on Dec. 31, 1988: ‘Steam from the bowels of Hell’
“A fog that rolled in from the lake late in the first half left the spectators to stare into a gray shroud from which the players would emerge with maddening infrequency,” Tribune reporter Phil Hersh wrote at the time.
Few of the 65,534 spectators were able to see the final moments of the Bears’ 20-12 victory because of the thick haze.
Mistakes by the Eagles — two touchdowns called back by penalties in the first 21 minutes and a dropped touchdown pass — allowed the Bears to preserve a lead before the fog rolled in. Still, the Bears weren’t perfect. Quarterback Mike Tomczak threw three interceptions and was flattened by Reggie White late in the third quarter and forced out of the game due to injury.
Kicker Kevin Butler made a 46-yard field goal but missed one of 51 yards. Eagles coach and former Bears defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan refused to shake hands with Bears coach Mike Ditka.
Since then, the Bears have played on Dec. 31 three more times and on Jan. 1 five times.
Richard Gordon, military analyst for CLTV and WGN, does an interview from the Chicago Tribune newsroom in March 2003. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
2019: Local cable news channel CLTV shut down after a 26-year run.
CLTV launched in January 1993, bringing 24/7 local news to Chicago cable viewers before national news channels became cable powerhouses.
The channel’s name initially stood for ChicagoLand TV, employing a moniker coined decades earlier by Col. Robert R. McCormick, the former publisher of the Chicago Tribune. At its inception, CLTV was under the same corporate umbrella as the Tribune. But the cable channel owed much of its programming to WGN, which supplied everything from news content to Cubs baseball games over the years. CLTV also produced its own local newscasts.
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https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/31/chicago-history-december-31/
How China’s Rare Earth Stranglehold Is Unleashing American Innovation
How China’s Rare Earth Stranglehold Is Unleashing American Innovation
Authored by Owen Evans via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The West may have found an unexpected way to chip away at communist China’s dominance in the production of critical minerals: extracting metals from oil wells, waste streams, and discarded electronics in an attempt to scale up processing technologies at home.
Instead of waiting years for new mines to open, a wave of startups is turning to existing resources to recover metals that Beijing has controlled for decades.
“Chevron’s wells in just three [Texas] counties can actually produce the world supply of rhodium,” Eric Herrera, CEO of MaverickX, recently told The Epoch Times.
Rhodium is the world’s most valuable precious metal, prized for its ability to neutralize toxic emissions.
It sits alongside a wider class of materials that make up the hidden components in smartphones, electric vehicles, renewable energy, and even weapons.
Geostrategic Weaponized Tools
Rare-earth elements such as neodymium and dysprosium are not actually rare. They are abundant but difficult to separate, while minerals such as lithium, cobalt, and tungsten are deemed “critical” because modern economies and defense systems cannot function without them.
Currently, China controls roughly 90 percent of global capacity for the processing, smelting, and separation of all such materials, as well as for the manufacturing of magnetic materials.
This means that while the United States, Australia, Brazil, India, and parts of Africa are racing to establish new mines, most of their concentrates will still have to travel to Chinese refineries.
Beijing knows the leverage this monopoly provides and used it most recently during a trade spat with the United States by restricting exports of rare earths, germanium, and other critical materials this year.
In 2010, China cut off rare-earth exports to Japan for about two months during a territorial dispute.
Meanwhile, Western companies are seeking to confront China’s processing advantage by leapfrogging it.
Replacing China
Herrera’s company is developing methods to recover more metal from existing ore and waste, juicing rocks and discarded electronics for all they are worth.
He told The Epoch Times that he also believes that part of the solution lies under American oil fields.
He said his process can use oil wells to yield not only rhodium, but also titanium, nickel, vanadium, cobalt, copper, and more.
“The oil here in Texas is 19,000 feet deep, about 110 stages,“ he said. ”Each stage has about 110,000 gallons or 20,000 gallons of water to use that’s already permitted, that’s already set up, and the infrastructure is already deployed.”
“All we have to do is add our chemical to take the metals out, and then separate the chemicals. … That’s much, much faster, much cheaper as well,” he said.
Herrera said the oil industry can also move more quickly than traditional mining operations. For major companies, it takes at least five to 10 years for a new technology to reach a mine site.
It also uses existing infrastructure. Moreover, unlike a mining project, a well can be shut down with minimal disruption, whereas killing a copper mine is far more consequential, he said.
That speed, Herrera said, may allow Western companies to compete with China’s processing advantage in a “slow and steady” way.
“I don’t think it’s going to happen all at once,“ he said. ”I think it’ll be subtle, a couple of wells first, more wells, then fields, then entire plains of oil, all of those will have to be going at full capacity to take it away from China.”
“We’re not at that level yet, I think in a couple of years we can get to that level, and if we all do it at once, then yes, then China would absolutely respond,” he said, noting that the same technology could be deployed in other major countries with metal-rich geology, including Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia, whose hot shales are known to contain extractable uranium.
Can ‘Prevent Wars’
At Rice University in Houston, chemist and nanotechnologist James Tour has pioneered a method for quickly extracting rare-earth metals.
Tour developed a technique capable of breaking down electronic waste, ash, tailings, and more to rapidly recover rare-earth metals and other critical minerals, with a minimal environmental footprint.
His method uses flash Joule heating technology, a patented process that raises material temperatures to thousands of degrees within milliseconds and uses chlorine gas to extract rare-earth elements from magnet waste in seconds without needing water or acids.
Tour said his flash Joule heating technology is already commercially proven in the company Universal Matter, which was spun out of his lab, and in other contexts with graphene, a one-atom-thick form of carbon used to strengthen materials, improve battery performance, and enhance electronics.
“People never really knew how to scale that, and we came up with a process to do this using flash Joule heating,“ he told The Epoch Times. ”That company is up and running and making 1 ton per day of graphene, and it’s already introduced into concrete and asphalt markets.”
The rare-earth version is close behind with a Texas factory that has licensed the method for metal recovery.
He said Flash Metals USA, the U.S.-based subsidiary of Australia’s Metallium, is aiming to process 1 ton per day of print circuit boards by January 2026 and 20 tons per day by September 2026 to recover the rare-earth elements and critical metals they contain.
Electronic waste can contain metal concentrations up to 1,000 times higher than those found in natural ores.
“It’s easier to just deal with things that we already have separated, that we have already deployed into our current electronics and magnets that we’re throwing away,“ Tour said. ”This is [a] treasure, it’s an absolute gold mine.”
The technologies behind modern rare-earth separation were developed in the United States during the Manhattan Project led by J. Robert Oppenheimer. Solvent extraction methods were later adopted to isolate individual rare-earth elements.
The United States dominated global production through the 1960s and 1970s via California’s Mountain Pass Mine but lost that position after the mid-1980s as China, initially lacking expertise in heavy rare-earth refining, expanded mining and processing.
A key turning point occurred in 1995 when General Motors sold its magnet subsidiary Magnequench, the last U.S. company making rare-earth magnets, to a Chinese-led consortium. The sale was approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and resulted in the transfer of technologies and operations to China, marking the end of U.S. leadership in rare-earth production.
The deal was condemned in 2005 by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) for leaving the United States without a domestic neodymium magnet supplier during Washington’s broader economic opening to Beijing under President Bill Clinton.
Tour said China’s monopoly has also bred its environmentally destructive refining methods.
“This is a horrendously messy process in China, and they’ve contaminated the cities and the rivers in those cities and the water systems in those cities,” he said.
Tour said the Trump administration is treating the issue of rare-earth processing with great importance.
“President [Donald] Trump’s very serious, and it’s this type of thing that can prevent wars,” he said.
“[But] if we don’t have access to these elements, we will go to war. This is the stuff you fight over.”
With guaranteed pricing, Tour said, the U.S. government will counter China’s tactic of artificially depressing prices and bankrupting competitors by flooding markets with cheap material to render Western projects uneconomic.
“The U.S. government will stand behind us, make sure that we get paid a fair price for this, so that the Chinese cannot just artificially drop the price and put us out,” he said.
A former U.S. Army officer said she views the rare-earths issue as “the free world against the not-free world.”
Jessica Lewis McFate, who is now senior director of intelligence solutions at Babel Street, focusing on open-source intelligence and national security, said the implications around sourcing rare earths are profound.
McFate told The Epoch Times that if a Fortune 500 company were to lose access to rare earth-dependent components such as gallium for six months, the impact would extend well beyond a shortage of high-performance chips used in high-intensity computing or radio-frequency applications, including weapons and radar systems.
Gallium, she said, is also critical in medical technologies, meaning that disruptions would ripple across both national security and civilian sectors.
“It scales out to our smartphones, it scales out to MRI machines,” she said.
“And it becomes this requirement for CEOs to all of a sudden really ask how much they know, and ask their vendors tough questions [such as] ‘Where did you get the circuit board?’”
“The Chinese perspective is that they are fighting a war,” she said.
“I think it’s a lot safer for humanity if we fight back by non-lethal means for what we believe in. So I think it’s OK to be deeply competitive and even clever in our competition for advantage.”
‘Momentum Is Clearly Shifting’
Billions of dollars in federal funding are now moving into the sector.
The Department of Energy has announced nearly $1 billion in funding opportunities aimed at supply chains for critical minerals and rare earths, covering mining, processing, manufacturing, recycling, and byproduct recovery.
Under the Trump administration, Washington now holds stakes in MP Materials, Vulcan Elements, ReElement Technologies, and Lithium Americas, and has struck critical minerals deals with more than a dozen countries.
Australia is becoming the strongest non-Chinese processing hub through Lynas’s expansion, Iluka’s Eneabba refinery, and Arafura’s Nolans Project.
Read the rest here…
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/31/2025 – 05:00
