Category: News
OpenAI Looking To Hire ‘Head Of Preparedness’ To Tackle AI Dangers
OpenAI Looking To Hire ‘Head Of Preparedness’ To Tackle AI Dangers
Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,
OpenAI is seeking to hire a candidate for the post of “Head of Preparedness” to tackle dangers posed by the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI), CEO Sam Altman said in a Dec. 27 post on X.
OpenAI sparked initial public interest in AI chatbot interactions with the popular launch of ChatGPT in November 2022.
“This is a critical role at an important time; models are improving quickly and are now capable of many great things, but they are also starting to present some real challenges,” Altman wrote.
“The potential impact of models on mental health was something we saw a preview of in 2025; we are just now seeing models get so good at computer security they are beginning to find critical vulnerabilities.”
The post comes as OpenAI is facing a host of lawsuits on the subject of mental health. In November, seven complaints were filed against the company in California, alleging that its ChatGPT chatbot sent three people into delusional “rabbit holes” while encouraging four others to kill themselves.
According to the lawsuits, the four deaths occurred following the victims’ conversation with ChatGPT about suicide. In some cases, the chatbot romanticized suicide, advising the victims on ways to carry out the act.
As for computer security, multiple reports have flagged the risks posed by AIs.
For instance, a May report from McKinsey & Company warned that AI models capable of detecting fraud and securing networks can also infer identities, expose sensitive information, and reassemble stripped-out details.
The State of Cybersecurity Resilience 2025 report from Accenture warned that 90 percent of companies are not modernized enough to defend against AI-driven threats.
In its Aug. 27 Threat Intelligence Report, AI company Anthropic, which makes the Claude AI, said that AI was being weaponized to carry out sophisticated cybercrimes. In one operation, a hacker used Claude to infiltrate 17 organizations, with the AI used to penetrate networks, analyze stolen data, and create psychologically targeted ransom notes.
In his post, Altman said that while OpenAI has a “strong foundation” for measuring the growing capabilities of its AI models, the company is entering a world where a “more nuanced understanding and measurement” is required to assess how these capabilities could be abused and to limit downsides.
These are “hard” questions with very little precedent, he said. Many ideas that sound good have “edge cases,” which are extreme or unusual scenarios that test the boundaries of a system, such as an AI.
“This will be a stressful job, and you’ll jump into the deep end pretty much immediately,” Altman said.
The role, based in San Francisco, requires the person to build capability evaluations, establish threat models, and build mitigations, according to a post by OpenAI. The job offers $555,000 in annual compensation plus equity.
The head of preparedness will oversee mitigation design across major risk areas, such as cyber and biology, and ensure that safeguards are “technically sound, effective, and aligned with underlying threat models.”
As of September, ChatGPT had 700 million weekly active users globally.
AI Threat
In an interview clip released on X on Aug. 18 as part of the “Making God” documentary film, Geoffrey Hinton, a computer scientist known as the “godfather of AI,” said he was “fairly confident” AI would drive massive unemployment.
However, “the risk I’ve been warning about the most … is the risk that we’ll develop an AI that’s much smarter than us, and it will just take over,” Hinton said. “It won’t need us anymore.”
In a July 18 post from Charles Darwin University in Darwin, Australia, Maria Randazzo, an academic at the university’s law school, warned that AI puts human dignity at risk.
While AI is an engineering triumph, it does not exhibit cognitive behavior; these models have no clue what they are doing or why, she said.
“There’s no thought process as a human would understand it, just pattern recognition stripped of embodiment, memory, empathy, or wisdom,” Randazzo said.
“Globally, if we don’t anchor AI development to what makes us human—our capacity to choose, to feel, to reason with care, to empathy and compassion—we risk creating systems that devalue and flatten humanity into data points, rather than improve the human condition.
“Humankind must not be treated as a means to an end.”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/29/2025 – 15:40
https://www.zerohedge.com/ai/openai-looking-hire-head-preparedness-tackle-ai-dangers
Lake County News-Sun’s Top Stories of 2025: Fear grips area as feds step up immigration enforcement
Community concerns that arose in Lake County over President Donald Trump’s potential immigration enforcement policies were realized in January, then turned into fear when federal agents arrived at Naval Station Great Lakes in September, and have barely subsided as 2025 draws to a close.
With people still unwilling to leave home — those undocumented or with Latino characteristics — to buy groceries and relying on places like Mano a Mano Family Resource Center and HACES to deliver them, the impact of federal immigration enforcement was one of the Lake County News-Sun’s Top Stories of 2025.
How long that fear will last remains uncertain.
“It depends on who wins the next election,” Dulce Ortiz, Mano a Mano’s executive director and a Waukegan Township trustee, said last week. “I think the fear will be lingering. It will take time for the immigrant community to trust the government.”
The immigrant community and those who support them continue to adjust to the impact of raids, which intensified over 64 days of Operation Midway Blitz this fall throughout Lake County and the Chicago area because of uncertainty about when it might again intensify.
From the first action by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents six days after Trump took office — a Waukegan man was deported, and a Round Lake resident was arrested and released — to more intense raids during Midway Blitz, at least 76 people were arrested in Lake County.
Members of the community yell at Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino during immigration enforcement action on Nov. 7, 2025 in Waukegan. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)
“The way the administration is going about this is terrorizing the community, dividing people to placate (Trump’s) base,” U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Highland Park, said last week. “The vast majority of immigrants are working people who are being terrorized.”
Carolina Fabian, a member of the Waukegan Community Unit School District 60 Board of Education, said she believed Trump about his plans to deport millions of people. She urged district residents to be prepared.
“Families need to have a plan if someone in your family is pulled by ICE,” Fabian said. “There should be a plan for your child. Who’s picking them up? Who are the emergency contacts for them? Who can take care of them?”
Ortiz said Mano a Mano and other organizations banded together to develop their own plans. Rapid response teams were put together to help when needed and document the actions of federal immigration officers. Know-your-rights sessions were quickly offered to the community.
Waukegan Mayor Sam Cunningham, left, talks to federal agents outside City Hall in 2025. (City of Waukegan)
“We had to be ready, which we did,” she said. “Unfortunately, we prepared for the worst, but we didn’t know how bad the worst was going to be.”
After the initial Jan. 27 Chicago raid, Trump said on several occasions there would be enhanced operations in the area. On Sept. 3, the News-Sun learned the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would base its Midway Blitz operation at Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago.
Greg Jackson, the chief of staff for North Chicago Mayor Leon Rockingham Jr., said DHS would use a building at the Navy base as its command center, with agents staying at hotels in the Waukegan area. Raids would be conducted in Lake County.
“I don’t believe that a time has come in our country where the National Guard and ICE are coming into our community to basically scare the Latino population,” Rockingham said at the time. “I didn’t think our country would ever get to that point.”
Two days after the DHS presence at Great Lakes was announced, Rockingham — joined by Schneider, U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Springfield, and U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Hoffman Estates — was denied a meeting with DHS officials at the base.
“This is just political theater for Donald Trump,” Durbin said at the time. “If he wants to help lower crime, he should release the funds he is holding for gun-violence prevention.”
For the 64 days that followed, agents from ICE and the U.S Border Patrol conducted raids in Waukegan, North Chicago, Gurnee, the Round Lake area, Wauconda, Fox Lake and Park City. Dozens were apprehended, including 41 in Waukegan.
“Let me be absolutely clear: Greg Bovino did not come to Waukegan to serve, to protect, or to help,” Waukegan Mayor Sam Cunningham said at the time of the man leading the operation in the Chicago area. “As he has in other cities, Mr. Bovino came here to escalate chaos, to provoke confrontation and to spread fear.”
Though he was not arrested by federal immigration agents, Waukegan Ald. Juan Martimnez, 4th Ward, sounded his horn at a large truck in front of him as he returned to work after lunch on Nov. 7. He soon had four federal agents pointing guns at him. Bystanders said, “He’s the alderman.”
While the guns were pointed at Martinez with his hands raised, Martinez said he kept saying, “Don’t kill me. Don’t kill me.”
“My life flashed before my eyes,” he said at the time. “All I could think of was my family was going to be planning my funeral.”
Schneider, Ortiz and Fabian all believe the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policy will continue in 2026. Ortiz said vigilance will remain in place and be used when needed. The rapid response teams will not disband.
“The government will continue to weaponize its resources to attack the immigrant community,” Ortiz said. “Most important, we have to continue to organize. Not only in our community, but around the state.”
Schneider said he believes DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Bovino will return to the area, pushing Trump’s deportation agenda.
“The more they are able to act, the more I see them increasing their actions,” Schneider said. “They are going to carry out the Trump administration’s plans. I’m going to work hard to deter the force.”
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/29/top-stories-of-2025-immigration/
Kane County launches new alert system for emergency weather, large-scale police activity and road closures
Kane County is launching a new public safety alert system meant to notify residents of things like emergency weather, large-scale police activity and road closures.
The county recently switched to a new mass notification vendor, Regroup, to improve the delivery of such alerts and improve how residents receive this information, according to a news release from the county’s Office of Emergency Management.
The updated system replaces the county’s previous vendor and offers expanded features, better reliability and more flexibility for residents, per the county.
The system is managed by the Office of Emergency Management.
Under the new system, residents can choose how they receive alerts, the news release noted — by text message, phone call, email or mobile app notifications.
Notifications could be about things like severe weather, hazardous materials incidents or gas leaks, large-scale police activity, evacuations or shelter-in-place orders and road closures and major traffic disruptions, according to the county.
Kane County residents can sign up for the system online at: https://tinyurl.com/KaneEmergAlerts.
2 New Jersey pilots killed in a helicopter collision frequented a cafe together near the crash site
Two men who died after their helicopters collided midair in New Jersey over the weekend both earned their private pilot licenses over a decade ago and would often have breakfast together at a cafe near the crash site before taking to the skies from the local airport.
Authorities on Monday identified the two New Jersey men as Kenneth Kirsch, 65, and Michael Greenberg, 71. Witnesses told police that the two helicopters they were piloting Sunday were flying close together just before they crashed in a farm field near the airport in Hammonton, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) southeast of Philadelphia.
Hammonton Police Chief Kevin Friel said in a statement that Kirsch, of Carney’s Point, was pronounced dead at an area hospital after being flown there, while Greenberg, of Sewell, died at the crash site.
Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board were examining the accident site on Monday and determined the debris field is about 100 yards (91 meters) long and contains parts of the main rotors and tail rotors, a spokesperson said. Both helicopters are expected to be removed from the site Tuesday and taken to another location for further review.
A preliminary report is expected in about 30 days, the NTSB said.
Friel said rescuers responded to a report of an aviation crash at about 11:25 a.m. Sunday. Video from the scene shows a helicopter spinning rapidly to the ground. Police and fire crews subsequently extinguished flames that engulfed one of the helicopters.
The Federal Aviation Administration described the crash as a midair collision between an Enstrom F-28A helicopter and Enstrom 280C helicopter near Hammonton Municipal Airport. Only the pilots were on board.
Kirsch and Greenberg both received their pilot licenses in 2014, FAA records show. They often stopped at the Apron Cafe next to the airport for breakfast before flying, said the restaurant’s owner, Sal Silipino.
Silipino said Kirsch and Greenberg ate at the cafe shortly before the crash. Patrons watched the helicopters take off from the airport and were stunned when the aircraft fell from the sky, he said.
“It was shocking. Still shaking to see that happen,” Silipino said. “They were just at our café having breakfast. They’re regulars. They come in every week or every other week. They fly in together. They seem to be very nice people. They were also very kind to the workers and staff and all.”
He said the helicopters’ flights appeared to begin without incident.
“I saw one go down and then I saw the other one go down and there was little bit of disbelief. It’s like, is that really happening?,” Silipino said.
FAA records show Kirsch was the registered owner of one of the helicopters, while the other aircraft was registered to M&M Charter LLC of Mountville, Pennsylvania. Contact information for M&M Charter could not be immediately found Monday.
Hammonton resident Dan Dameshek told NBC10 that he was leaving a gym when he heard a loud snap and saw two helicopters spinning out of control.
“Immediately, the first helicopter went from right side up to upside down and started rapidly spinning, falling out of the air,” Dameshek told the TV station. “And then it looked like the second helicopter was OK for a second, and then it sounded like another snap or something … and then that helicopter started rapidly spinning out of the air.”
Hammonton is a town of about 15,000 people located in Atlantic County in the southern part of New Jersey. The town has a history of agriculture and is located near the Pine Barrens, a forested wilderness area that covers more than 1 million acres (405,000 hectares).
Investigators will likely first look to review any communications between the two pilots and whether they were able to see each other, said Alan Diehl, a former crash investigator for the FAA and NTSB.
“Virtually all midair collisions are a failure to what they call ‘see and avoid,’” Diehl said. “Clearly they’ll be looking at the out-of-cockpit views of the two aircraft and seeing if one pilot was approaching from the blind side.”
Although it was mostly cloudy at the time of the crash, winds were light and visibility was good, according to the weather forecasting company AccuWeather.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/29/new-jersey-helicopter-collision/
Indiana football’s rise to national title contender rewards fans who endured decades of losing
Bill Murphy has been an Indiana football season ticket holder for 66 years. He says he has rarely missed a game even though 55 of them have been losing seasons in a historic stretch of bowl-less holidays.
One of those rare misses stands out: The 1968 Rose Bowl, when Indiana lost 14-3 to O.J. Simpson and a USC team that went on to be crowned national champion. Murphy was 15 at the time, and his parents weren’t on board with sending him to California alone. But neither Murphy nor his parents could have anticipated the bowl drought that followed. The Hoosiers didn’t make another bowl until 1979, and after that, 1986.
Now 77, Murphy wasn’t sure this day would come again. So a backup plan was established in case of an emergency.
“I told my wife, son and daughter, I told them, ‘If I die before we go to the Rose Bowl again, I want you to take my urn and buy a program, buy a seat, set the program and urn on the seat, and I’ll be there with you guys,’” he said.
Murphy’s story would resonate with any lifelong Indiana football fan, though he warns there may not be many. He grew up a dedicated supporter of Indiana’s losing football team in Bloomington, a city that rallied around the powerhouse and championship-winning basketball team.
The script has since flipped a bit. Hoosiers fans have had more to cheer about the past season or two when it comes to football than basketball. A team that was once an afterthought in its community has a new brand of committed fans who have the chance to head to Pasadena for the program’s biggest game in years: Top-seeded Indiana will play Alabama on Thursday in the Grandaddy of Them All for a chance to advance to the College Football Playoff semifinals.
The program has reached new heights over the past two years under back-to-back AP Coach of the Year Curt Cignetti, finally abandoning the title of losingest program in the history of the Bowl Subdivision and handing the unwelcome crown to Northwestern earlier this year. Indiana finished the regular season as Big Ten champion with a perfect 13-0 record behind quarterback Fernando Mendoza, the school’s first Heisman Trophy winner.
Longtime fan Kevin Harrell wouldn’t miss the Rose Bowl, even though his last trip to the stadium wasn’t too long ago. When the Big Ten expanded with four West Coast teams in 2024, he took the opportunity to see his team play in the iconic stadium, thinking the mid-September matchup against UCLA could be the closest he’d come to seeing Indiana in the Rose Bowl this century.
“It’s beyond my wildest dreams,” Harrell said, admitting that having this level of confidence in the team is an unfamiliar feeling. “We have always expected the worst. We could always find a new way to lose the game. It’s been kind of weird how quickly I’ve gone from that way of thinking to expecting to win. I expect this team to win every time they take the field, and I think that’s just a testament to the job Curt Cignetti has done.”
Not all fans have earned their stripes like Harrell and Murphy. The Indiana football bandwagon is filling up.
Memorial Stadium reached the brim with new followers this season. “Heis-Mendoza” chants on Saturdays become common this fall, and for the second straight year, all four home conference games sold out.
Airlines have adjusted accordingly to the high demand. Delta, American and Southwest Airlines added additional nonstop flights from Indianapolis to Los Angeles in the days leading up to the Rose Bowl.
“People get excited because people like winners,” Murphy said. “(There are) not a tremendous amount of people like me that will go support their team win or lose, and I’ve seen a lot of losing football over the years.”
So now, 58 years later, Murphy finally gets the chance to make up for the missed game that has haunted him for decades.
“Fortunately for me, I get to go this year and actually sit in a seat and see the game,” Murphy said. “I’m still pinching myself, trying to make sure I’m not dreaming.”
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/29/indiana-college-football-playoff-fans/
J6 Pipe Bomber’s Motive Revealed In DOJ Pretrial Detention Memorandum
J6 Pipe Bomber’s Motive Revealed In DOJ Pretrial Detention Memorandum
Nearly five years after pipe bombs were planted outside the DNC and RNC headquarters on January 5, 2021, authorities arrested Brian Cole Jr. on December 4, 2025. The 30-year-old from Woodbridge, Virginia, now faces charges for allegedly planting those devices. Within hours of the arrest, major outlets rushed to frame Cole as a MAGA adherent. NBC News reported that Cole “believed conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.” Politico ran with the headline, “Justice Department says Jan. 6 pipe bomb suspect believed election conspiracy theories.”
However, the suspects’ own words belie that claim.
The Department of Justice filed a memorandum on December 29 in support of pretrial detention for Cole. The document dismantles the narrative the media pushed following Cole’s arrest.
According to the filing, Cole initially denied assembling or planting the bombs during his videotaped interview. He claimed he drove his Nissan Sentra to Washington alone to attend a protest about the election outcome. Cole explained his reasoning: “I didn’t agree with what people were doing, like just telling half the country that they – that their – that they just need to ignore it. I didn’t think that was a good idea, so I went to the protest.”
He also described himself as someone who “has never really been an openly political person” and avoids discussing politics with family to prevent conflict. According to Cole, “no one knows” his political views, including his family. After the 2020 election, “when it first seemed like something was wrong” and “stuff started happening,” he began following the issue on YouTube and Reddit and felt “bewildered.” Cole believed that if people “feel that, you know, something as important as voting in the federal election is being tampered with, is being, you know, being – you know, relegated null and void, then, like, someone needs to speak up, right? Someone up top.”
Cole felt leaders on “both sides, public figures” should not “ignore people’s grievances” or call them “conspiracy theorists,” “bad people,” “Nazis,” or “fascists.” Instead, “if people feel that their votes are like just being thrown away, then . . . at the very least someone should address it.”
After agents confronted Cole with surveillance video showing him planting the bombs, he admitted he was the individual in the footage. He then walked investigators through the entire process of constructing, transporting, and planting the devices.
Cole stated he assembled the devices in the hours before driving to Washington on January 5, 2021, and cleaned them with disinfectant wipes. He eventually admitted he did not travel to Washington to attend a protest but to plant the devices.
“When asked why he placed the devices at the RNC and DNC, the defendant responded, ‘I really don’t like either party at this point,'” prosecutors said in their filing, describing the interview. “[Cole] also explained that the idea to use pipe bombs came from his interest in history, specifically the Troubles in Ireland. The defendant denied that his actions were directed toward Congress or related to the proceedings scheduled to take place on January 6.”
Cole allegedly said in the interview that he had actually intended for the devices to detonate and set 60-minute timers on both after planting them outside of the DNC and RNC. After leaving them, he said he went to his car, picked up food from a restaurant in Virginia and then returned home.
When agents returned to the subject of motive, Cole explained that “something just snapped” after “watching everything, just everything getting worse.”
“In his own words, the defendant did so because he did not ‘like either party,’ but ‘they were in charge’ and thus were, in the defendant’s mind, an appropriate target for extreme acts of violence,” prosecutors explained. “The defendant’s choice of targets risked the lives not only of innocent pedestrians and office workers but also of law enforcement, first responders, and national political leaders who were inside of the respective party headquarters or drove by them on January 6, 2021, including the Vice President-elect and Speaker of the House.”
The DOJ memorandum presents a picture of someone disenchanted with the entire political system rather than a MAGA activist. Cole’s stated motivation centered on frustration with both major parties for their handling of election concerns, and his confession reveals someone who felt compelled to act against the institutions themselves, not in support of one side against the other.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/29/2025 – 15:20
Oak Lawn library offers teens a place to slow down and destress over the holidays
A program at Oak Lawn Public Library is helping take the edge off of life’s pressures for teens, whether worries about grades, the future or simply fitting in.
The stress can be especially tough over the holidays, so the library recently treated teens to some dog therapy as part of the Teen Self Care Slow Down program. Dogs from Love on a Leash were on hand to nuzzle hands and wag their tails as teens sat on the floor with them and chatted with volunteers from the South Side Chicago group.
The library program offers other ways to relax and feel good, too, including sensory activities.
During a recent session, they made “stress balls” by filling balloons with flour. Jazz or other soothing music often plays in the background during the program, but only if it fits the teens’ tastes. They also do coloring activities using geometric patterns.
For Grady Gilhooly, a sophomore at Richards High School in Oak Lawn, squeezing the stress ball he created was helpful — “It calmed me down,” he said — along with the atmosphere in general at the club. Grady, who has an orange cat at home, also enjoyed the pet therapy because he loves dogs.
Jason Molenaar, who attends Oak Lawn Community High School, said the room has a relaxing vibe, pointing to the rows of popular books, comfortable seating and games.
Both teens said they had found ways around some of the stressors in their lives, including things like annoying music or people talking loudly. Their coping mechanisms helped at this time of year, too.
“For me, I don’t really mind,” said Grady about the periodic distractions in the room and elsewhere. “If anything, it just cancels out. … I’m really relaxed here. It’s definitely an acquired skill, mostly just practicing going in loud places and trying to find peace in the loudness.”
Jason agreed, though he, too, appreciated the quiet.
“I’m here for the quiet music,” said Jason. “It’s different compared to the rest of the week when it’s usually louder. It’s a much more chill, calmer vibe.”
Jason Molenaar interacts with a dog from the South Side chapter of Love on a Leash during a recent session of the Teen Self Care Slow Down program at Oak Lawn Public Library. (Janice Neumann/Daily Southtown)
A dog lover with several at home, Jason, too, was excited to spend time with the therapy dogs.
Librarian Nicholas Vidmar, who started the Slow-Down program several months ago, said some trial and error was involved in coming up with ideas to help teens relax. Vidmar, who has a master’s degree in Library Science and bachelor’s degrees in history and psychology, said some of the techniques were developed for young people with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or social anxiety disorder.
“For some of them, traditional meditation music, quiet gongs, humming, for that group, it sounds like nails on a chalkboard,” said Vidmar. “I tried it and they all hated it.
“Their relaxation music is very fast, noisy and basically sounds like static for the most part, to me, but they love it,” said Vidmar.
He tends to mix things up to fit the mood and audience.
“The program shifts wildly based on who is there, ” said Vidmar. “It’s like, okay, we’re going to turn off the quiet music and scream at each other over video games.”
Vidmar also said the teens seemed to like the space. Many are “nerds” and hang out at the library all the time.
“The space the library offers is more kind of quiet, focused on niche interests and they tend to be like, ‘I love this thing … I don’t want to deal with other people,” he said.
Tori Zart, the library’s Teen Services assistant who helped out at the pet therapy event, said she was struck by the teens’ acceptance of their own differences.
“I like how willing to participate in other peoples’ interests they are,” she said. “They’ll all kind of jump in and welcome a new person.”
The Teen Self Care Slow Down program at Oak Lawn Public Library recently featured a visit from dogs from the South Side chapter of Love on a Leash. It’s one of the many activities designed to help teens decompress from their sometimes hectic lives, especially during the holidays. (Janice Neumann/Daily Southtown)
Participants recently posted comments on the library’s Teen Room Discord platform about the pressures in their lives. Some added how they dealt with them.
“I bottle up everything inside,” said one poster. “I spend time with friends and creative projects to use that energy.”
Another mentioned being bothered by seasonal depression, grade pressure and finals, explaining, “I tend to escape by being around people and playing games.”
Vidmar also offered some de-stressing tips for people at this time of year.
“I think everyone tends to start to feel overwhelmed at this time, and some people shut down because there is too much to do,” said Vidmar. “That is where bandwidth comes in, instead of “there is too much to do” bandwidth means “there is too much to do at once.”
“A part of what eats up bandwidth is the worry over incomplete tasks and closing loops is finishing those small tasks to see progress and remove that passive worrying stress,” he said.
Janice Neumann is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/29/oak-lawn-library-teen-slow-down/
Double homicide in Richton Park, shooting death in Blue Island Saturday night
Two people were shot and killed Saturday night in an apartment on Jackson Court in Richton Park and a suspect is in custody, according to police.
The victims were identified as Nivia Phillips, 38, of Richton Park, and Marcus T. Jones, 45, of unknown address, by the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Both were pronounced dead at about 8:40 p.m. Saturday. The cause of death was listed as multiple gunshot wounds.
The Richton Park Police Department said in a statement officers were called from a nearby address about 6:40 p.m. after gunshots were heard. On investigation, first responders learned a shooting took place in a nearby apartment and found the two victims dead, the statement said.
A man who police said was inside the apartment at the time of the shooting was detained and remains in custody. The Cook County state’s attorney’s office was contacted regarding charges, police said.
Police also said a small child found at the scene was uninjured and later released to the care of a parent.
Blue Island
Deandre D. Golden, 32, of Chicago, was killed early Sunday morning on the 12200 block of Western Avenue in Blue Island.
The medical examiner’s office listed his cause of death as multiple gunshot wounds, and his time of death as just after 1 a.m. Sunday morning.
Tom Wogan, city administrator for Blue Island, said there was a suspect in custody but charges had not been filed as of midday Monday.
elewis@chicagotribune.com
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/29/homicides-richton-park-blue-island/
Afternoon Briefing: St. Sabina suspends basketball league after 3 shot
Good afternoon, Chicago.
The Rev. Michael Pfleger is demanding offenders face consequences for yesterday’s shooting outside St. Sabina church, the second shooting to occur on his turf this year.
After an argument inside the church gym during a basketball tournament led to a triple shooting Sunday afternoon, Pfleger said he was suspending their men’s basketball league on Sundays and is working with police to arrest the shooter.
Here’s what else is happening today. And remember, for the latest breaking news in Chicago, visit chicagotribune.com/latest-headlines and sign up to get our alerts on all your devices.
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Karim Lakhani, a Democratic candidate for the Illinois House, in a campaign photo in Chicago on Nov. 7, 2025. (Christopher Dilts)
Illinois House candidate for Lincoln Park area fueled by family hotel chain that drew scrutiny in lawsuit
The family business that is powering Karim Lakhani’s campaign has drawn scrutiny in the past — including a jury verdict in 2022 against Lakhani Hospitality in connection with an alleged 2013 sexual assault by an employeeat at one of its hotels. Read more here.
More top news stories:
Illinois attorney general ends year filled with lawsuits against the Trump administration with one more challenge
Juell Kadet, local jewelry chain executive and nightclub singer, dies at 96
Former Chicago Bears running back Khalil Herbert has his four-bedroom, 2,461-square-foot townhome in Buffalo Grove on the market for $630,000. (Bob Goldsborough)
Former Chicago Bears player Khalil Herbert lists Buffalo Grove home for $630,000
In Buffalo Grove, Khalil Herbert paid close to $610,000 in 2022 to buy the townhome from its builder, M/I Homes. Read more here.
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Silver pulls back from record after historic rally above $80
Stocks slip on Wall Street as 2025 winds down
Bears nickel back C.J. Gardner-Johnson makes an interception that was wiped out by a penalty for illegal use of hands during the second quarter against the 49ers on Dec. 28, 2025, at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)
Inside the Chicago Bears’ 15-play, 58-yard nail-biting final series that came up short: ‘We had a shot’
Here’s a look at some key plays from the 15-play, 58-yard final series for the Bears — with different perspectives on how it all unfolded. Read more here.
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Workers process purple yams at Benguet State University, in Benguet, northern Philippines, Dec. 1, 2025. Ube, a purple yam, is going viral and Philippine farmers are struggling to keep up. (Jes Aznar/The New York TImes)
Ube is in high demand. Philippine farmers are struggling to keep up.
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DOJ Subpoenaed Flight Records For Reporter Who Exposed Epstein Scandal
DOJ Subpoenaed Flight Records For Reporter Who Exposed Epstein Scandal
Authored by Ken Silva via HeadlineUSA,
Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown’s late 2018 series on sex offender Jeffrey Epstein contributed to the Justice Department reopening its case against Epstein the next year.
It looks like the DOJ also subpoenaed Brown’s flight records. Brown said she found her name in the recently released “Epstein files”—the trove of documents released by the DOJ earlier this month pursuant to congressional legislation.
“What I didn’t expect to see was an American Airlines flight record from 2019 with my full name on them, including my maiden name, which I don’t use professionally. It’s an unusual name, so it’s clear it’s me,” Brown wrote on her Substack.
“The document appears to be details of an itinerary for a series of flights I booked in July just before the SDNY and FBI arrested Epstein.”
According to journalist Michael Tracey, the DOJ may have been tracking Epstein accuser Annie Farmer. Brown and the Miami Herald reportedly booked a flight for her in July 2019.
Solved the mystery for you.
Julie K. Brown wrote in her book “Perversion of Justice” that the Miami Herald, Brown’s employer, paid to fly Annie Farmer — a purported Epstein victim — to Little Rock, AR in July 2019. The itinerary shows a round-trip flight for a passenger… https://t.co/fQYf8KKO5h
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) December 29, 2025
“Julie K. Brown now says she personally booked this flight. It stands to reason that the DOJ would’ve subpoenaed American Airlines, and other entities, for travel records pertaining to Annie Farmer, as she’d been identified as a purported victim of Epstein/Maxwell,” Tracey said on Twitter/X.
“It further stands to reason that Julie K. Brown’s name would appear in these records, as the person who booked the flight on Annie Farmer’s behalf.”
Epstein was arrested in July 2019 and found dead in a prison cell a month later.
Meanwhile, the DOJ has yet to release all the Epstein files. The DOJ said last week that it’s found 1 million more records, and is going through them to redact sensitive information.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/29/2025 – 15:00
