Waymo wants Illinoisans to hail driverless cabs. But the company will need to overcome legal hurdles — and concerns about its vehicles’ safety — before it can bring self-driving taxis to the Land of Lincoln.

The company has been advertising in Illinois for some time, urging residents to contact their legislators to encourage them to bring Waymo here. In an email to the Tribune, Waymo spokesperson Ethan Teicher confirmed the company was “currently working with the legislature to determine what the best path forward is for enabling Illinois residents to access our safe, transformative, technology.”

Republican state Rep. Brad Stephens of Rosemont is among several lawmakers this year who’ve introduced legislation that could bring those vehicles to Illinois, though none of the bills have advanced through the legislature. Legislation is likely needed to authorize Waymo to operate its vehicles in Illinois, according to state officials.

Waymo, which is owned by Google parent Alphabet Inc., currently operates in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta. The company has announced plans to expand to more than 20 other cities worldwide, including St. Louis, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Miami.

In Illinois, the company is hiring a Chicago-based community and public affairs specialist whom it says will “build trust in Waymo’s technology and maintain Waymo’s ability to operate in major Midwest cities.”

Stephens said that while he has personally not ridden in an autonomous vehicle, other Illinois lawmakers have done so out of state and they’ve “talked and raved about it.”

Stephens, who is also mayor of Rosemont, believes those vehicles could be ideal for his 2 ½-square-mile town that abuts O’Hare International Airport and is home to a large convention center that bears his father’s name, Allstate Arena and some hotels. His bill calls for a pilot program that he said would allow self-driving vehicles around O’Hare and in Rosemont, a couple of other surrounding suburbs and in Springfield. The program would help decision-makers weigh the pros and cons of the technology, he said.

Stephens’ bill introduced during the spring legislative session would require Waymo or other autonomous vehicle operators to submit to the Illinois Department of Transportation a so-called law enforcement interaction plan, which would include contact information for the designated vehicle and where police could obtain owner information, registration and proof of insurance in case of a traffic crash.

The plan would also include how to safely remove the vehicle from the roadway and any information on hazardous conditions or public safety risks associated with its operation, according to the bill.

“I want this to work and if it doesn’t work, I don’t want nothing to do with it,” Stephens said. “So that’s why we talked about a pilot program to make sure that it works and to see what the potential kinks could be. Let’s get that figured out before we start saying, ‘Oh, this would be great for the rest of the state. This would be great for Chicago.’”

Stephens said the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association had concerns about potential liability issues with the legislation.

The lawyers’ association had no immediate comment about this issue Friday.

A lobbyist for ABATE of Illinois, which advocates for motorcyclists, off-roaders and all-terrain vehicle riders, said the group has concerns about safety and transparency when it comes to Waymos.

“Driverless technology, while it is advancing, continues to show failures in everyday situations that humans have no issue with,” said Josh Witkowski, a lobbyist for ABATE.

Waymo says its vehicles are safer by many metrics than vehicles driven by humans. More than 1,100 people died as a result of traffic crashes in Illinois last year.

But the company has faced scrutiny over safety, including from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which opened a probe after a Waymo vehicle drove around a stopped school bus. On Friday, the company’s chief safety officer, Mauricio Peña, said Waymo was issuing a voluntary software recall “related to appropriately slowing and stopping in these scenarios.”

And in October, a Waymo vehicle struck and killed a San Francisco bodega cat named Kit Kat, sparking mass outrage and calls for limits on the company’s growth. “How Kit Kat was Killed: Video Shows What a Robot Taxi Couldn’t See,” read a Dec. 5 New York Times headline about the cat’s death.

A Waymo self-driving vehicle passes an impromptu memorial to the bodega cat Kit Kat in front of Randa’s Market, near where the feline was struck and killed by a similar vehicle in San Francisco on Nov. 11, 2025. The cat’s death has sparked debate over the safety of autonomous vehicles. (Mike Kai Chen/The New York Times)

In response to questions about safety, a Waymo spokesperson said its vehicles are involved in five times fewer injury-related crashes than human-driven vehicles. Waymos are involved in 12 times fewer injury-related crashes involving pedestrians, the company added.

“We are committed to continuously strengthening our industry-leading performance on public roads, and working with the communities we serve, as well as local, state, and national leaders to help achieve our shared safety goals,” the Waymo statement said.

Democratic state Rep. Curtis Tarver, an assistant majority leader in the House, said he’s been paying close attention to the autonomous vehicle issue since joining the legislature in 2019 and filed a bill on it in January.

Dubbed the Safe Autonomous Vehicle Act, or SAVE Act, the bill would allow auto manufacturers to determine the geographical boundaries for autonomous vehicles, including on highways, city streets, university campuses and areas designated for senior citizens, among other places.

Tarver said autonomous vehicles “don’t have the same errors as humans,” meaning they don’t drink and drive, get high, or hesitate to provide service to customers going to or coming from neighborhoods challenged by crime and violence.

“Realistically, it brings down the barriers to me of a lot of things that are related to discrimination and otherwise,” said Tarver, of Chicago’s South Side. “They’re not going to discriminate and say, ‘You know what, that address is in Englewood, I’m not going to pick that person up.’”

Stephens and Tarver said autonomous vehicles will be a focus for them when they return to Springfield in mid-January.

“I think if there’s a path, I think it’s most likely something that’s more limited in scope, more of a pilot than it is just a full-fledged let’s put a ton of autonomous vehicles on the street,” Tarver said. “I don’t think you can just roll it out without considering that people are going to have a reaction to a vehicle with no human being.”

In 2016, Bloomington-based insurance giant State Farm helped survey the public’s perception of autonomous vehicles and found 30% to 40% of about 1,000 respondents said they’d definitely consider riding in a vehicle with driverless capabilities if the vehicle was in an area with few or no other vehicles, in low-speed areas and for rides under 10 minutes.

“While some are willing to try, most are not completely at ease with the concept,” according to the survey.

Julia Kite-Laidlaw, senior program manager for the Road to Zero Coalition at the National Safety Council, said the group believes autonomous driving technology “has tremendous potential” to help eliminate roadway deaths in the U.S.

A Waymo car drives up a hill in San Francisco, Sept. 4, 2025. (Jeff Chiu/AP)

Because so many traffic crashes are preventable, advanced autonomous driving systems that can eliminate human error should “in theory” be able to help substantially reduce roadway deaths, Kite-Laidlaw said.

“Right now in practice, we can’t really evaluate what the safety records are,” she said.

P.S. Sriraj, director of the Urban Transportation Center at the University of Illinois Chicago, said Chicago’s grid layout is a factor that could make it easier for Waymo to operate driverless vehicles here.

On the other hand, Sriraj said, “the jury is still out” on whether autonomous cars can operate effectively in Chicago’s winter weather conditions.

Waymo said it currently operates in conditions that include freezing temperatures and hail, and that it was “validating our system to navigate harsher weather conditions,” including by testing its vehicles on closed-course facilities.

In Illinois, Waymo is also likely to face scrutiny from organized labor. Representatives of some politically powerful unions indicated they were concerned that opening the door to autonomous taxis could be a slippery slope.

Pasquale Gianni, director of government affairs for the Illinois Teamsters, said Waymo reached out to the union and that the groups were in conversation with each other.

The Teamsters — who represent drivers at companies such as UPS — could be convinced to get on board with, or remain neutral on, efforts to change state law if it won certain assurances, such as a ban on the use of autonomous vehicles for commercial deliveries, Gianni said.

“We don’t want to wake up one day where this is the pivotal moment that kind of opened the floodgates to hell,” Gianni said.

Driverless cars could be a “segue to a bunch of other avenues” including “driverless equipment,” said Marc Poulos of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150, which is working to organize ride-share drivers statewide.

In a statement, Waymo argued it brings jobs to new markets.

“Concerns are normal when there is a big technological shift, but the nature of operating in the physical world means the deployment of this technology has been and will continue to be gradual,” the company said.  “Thousands of humans still drive professionally across a range of industries in Phoenix, where we’ve operated for five years, and in San Francisco, where we’ve operated commercially for two.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/06/waymo-self-driving-taxis-illinois/ 

At the recent convention for the National Council of Teachers of English, I had the pleasure of seeing Percival Everett in conversation with incoming NCTE president and Stanford University professor Antero Garcia.

I have long considered Everett — author most recently of the award-winning Huck Finn retelling “James” — a “genius,” saying as much in this very newspaper in June 2017, having believed this to be true for several years before that public declaration.

I have always been curious about “genius,” working in a field in which such things are identifiable, while being confident I am not one. I thought maybe hearing a conversation with someone whose work I considered genius would give me some insights into the subject.

It is clear from the conversation that Percival Everett would put little stock in the idea of “genius.” He was funny and laconic, perhaps a little grumpy — remarking how tired he was of reading publicly from “James” — but also warm and human. I learned he never goes online. He drafts his novels longhand with pencil in an “embarrassing” notebook, the kind of thing associated with a grade-school girl.

Never going online and handwriting manuscripts are off the table for me in terms of how I make my way in the writing profession, so if these are the keys to genius, I’m out of luck.

Listening closely over the 40 minutes or so, I tried to piece together something concrete I could take away, a real-world practice of genius. I think I may have noticed something anyone could put to use, regardless of our pursuits.

The first intriguing nugget came when Garcia asked about the origins of “James,” and Everett admitted there was no good story, that the idea came to him in a moment after hitting an errant tennis shot. He wondered if anyone had ever written “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” from the point of view of Jim.

In the same portion of the conversation, Everett downplayed his own work ethic, declaring that he’d never uttered the sentence, “I can’t because I have to work,” when asked if he wanted to do something like go to the movies. This suggests that a key part of genius is just waiting around for the brilliance to arrive, but it struck me that Everett was allowing life to unfold without the pressure of production. It is a philosophy of anti-optimization.

At the same time, Everett’s work requires a kind of immersive attention. He read Huck Finn more than a dozen times (overkill, according to Everett), and spent many hours contemplating the fact that we have no accurate record of what enslaved persons would have spoken like, a notion that became the keystone to the novel’s exploration of language as a source of power and also a way to deceive.

His approach appears to use distraction and attention in combination, opening up the receptors to the world. He recalled wondering to a friend why he kept finding himself walking around caves, and the friend replied, “You’re working on a novel,” which must be referring to his 2020 novel, “Telephone,” in which the main character is a geologist.

This capacity for simultaneously detaching from all the surface-level things clamoring for attention, while also being able to focus on small points of interest — language, caves — that grow into interesting storytelling problems to solve seemed like a good way to produce unique, meaningful literature.

In the end, we’re talking about a practice of sensitivity to life and experience, a willingness to be present and explore and think to see what it reveals through this deliberation.

Honestly, it seems very worthy of emulation.

John Warner is the author of books including “More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI.” You can find him at biblioracle.com.

Book recommendations from the Biblioracle

John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.

1. “Summer of Our Discontent” by Thomas Chatterton Williams
2. “The Wide Wide Sea” by Hampton Sides
3. “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates
4. “Charley’s Web” by Joy Fielding
5. “The Women” by Kristin Hannah

— William S., St. Charles

For William, I’m recommending the first in what is going to be a trilogy from Colson Whitehead, “Harlem Shuffle.”

1. “Atonement” by Ian McEwan
2. “More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI” by John Warner
3. “Empire Falls” by Richard Russo
4. “Olive, Again” by Elizabeth Strout
5. “The Stranger” by Albert Camus

— Neil T., Chicago

Jennifer Haigh is one of the most reliably satisfying novelists working today. “Heat and Light” is the specific pick.

1. “Isola” by Allegra Goodman
2. “The Correspondent” by Virginia Evans
3. “The Fire Next Time” by James Baldwin
4. “Cursed Daughters” by Oyinkan Braithwaite
5. “Audition” by Katie Kitamura

— Ileana P., Chicago

I think Ileana stands a good chance of being entertained by Hannah Pittard’s “If You Love It, Let It Kill You.”

Get a reading from the Biblioracle

Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to biblioracle@gmail.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/06/biblioracle-percival-everett/ 

Upon walking into the gym at Carl Von Linné Elementary School on the city’s North Side, a former student — who asked to remain anonymous — said little had changed since his time there in the 1990s.

The gym teacher’s office, with its heavy metal door that locked from the inside and dark window shades, looked exactly as he remembered.

Just beyond the office’s threshold, he said, he endured repeated sexual abuse over the course of five years by a former Linné employee, identified in legal documents as Isaac Vega.

The former student — identified in the litigation by an alias, John Doe — and his attorney conducted the walk-through this year as part of a child sexual abuse lawsuit filed against the Chicago Public Schools district. Initially filed in March 2019, the case spanned six years and led to a $1.1 million settlement approved by the Chicago Board of Education.

According to the lawsuit, the alleged sexual abuse began when Doe, now 40, was 11 years old and continued until he was 15.

Vega first met Doe outside of the school before joining as a physical education teacher. Vega also coached football, basketball and baseball at Linné. While the lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed in October 2023, it was refiled by Doe’s legal team in March 2024. During the course of the litigation, Vega was terminated from his position at the school in 2022. In the end, the school board agreed to a settlement in June.

“We were happy that we were able to reach a resolution that was satisfactory to our client,” said Mark Brown, Doe’s attorney at the personal injury law firm Lane Brown.

In a statement to the Tribune, Chicago Public Schools emphasized its commitment to student safety: “All schools across the District are committed to building a physically and emotionally safe teaching and learning environment for students, staff, and families.”

While the settlement ended a lengthy legal battle, Doe emphasized that it was never about compensation — it was about accountability and the hope that speaking out could encourage others with similar stories to do the same.

And that starts with him telling his story.

Following the death of his father in 1993, Doe said his mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. To keep him and his brother active amid her declining health, his mother enrolled them in sports through the Chicago Park District at a park near their home, Doe told the Tribune in an  interview.

According to the suit, Vega frequently visited that park, where he often sat beside Doe’s mother during practices. Over time, Vega developed a close friendship with the family, learning more about their financial struggles and Doe’s mother’s illness.

“They hit it off. One thing led to another, and he became a family friend,” Doe said about his mother and Vega.

Not long after, Vega secured a job at Carl Von Linné Elementary, the school Doe attended. Doe was 8 years old when they first met.

At first, Vega’s presence seemed positive. Growing up with an abusive father, Doe said, it was nice to have a male figure in his life who rewarded him with gifts for good grades and bought the family items like food and clothing.

But years later, the relationship took a dark turn.

The suit alleged that Vega began staying at the family’s home and eventually sleeping in Doe’s room, which led to the initial moment of alleged abuse.

The suit further claims that multiple school board employees knew that Vega was living at Doe’s home and spending time alone with him, including a school security guard.

A brief investigation was opened by the Department of Children and Family Services during Doe’s late middle school years. Still, according to the suit, Vega lied and pressured Doe into lying about the occurrence of alleged abuse as well. Based on former DCFS policy, unsubstantiated claims would be dismissed and any documents related to the case would be purged after one year — a practice no longer in place today.

Although Vega briefly moved out following the DCFS investigation, he returned to Doe’s home within weeks.

The suit states that the then-principal asked Vega not to contact Doe, but Vega refused, telling the principal that he would not stay away. Still, Vega remained Doe’s teacher and coach following the conversation between him and their principal.

Doe’s mother, whose health continued to decline, was eventually placed in a nursing home by his grandmother, who gained full custody of him and his brother, he told the Tribune. Because his grandmother was nearly 80 years old and believed Vega was a positive influence, she allowed Doe to live with him while his brother lived elsewhere.

No one, including Doe’s mother or grandmother, knew at the time that he was allegedly being abused by Vega, Doe said. He recalled a time when he was close to telling his grandmother about the abuse, stating to her over the phone that “he’s (Vega) not the person you think he is.” When she asked what he meant, he said he couldn’t bring himself to say the words aloud. He feared what would happen to him if he did.

For years, the abuse continued at home, school and at various locations around the city. Doe said he often slept in the gangway outside of his home during winter to avoid sleeping inside. When he could, he would journey in the mornings on the bus to his grandmother’s home.

But, by age 15, he began resisting Vega, though he described fighting a 30-year-old man as a battle he never thought he’d win. While the alleged sexual abuse ended when Doe was a sophomore in high school, he told the Tribune that the alleged physical abuse continued until he moved out at 18.

The two had no intentional contact for years, other than occasionally running into each other around the city. That is, until 2018, when Vega contacted Doe amid renewed investigations into DCFS complaints from the 1990s, according to the suit. Hoping for closure, Doe agreed to meet him twice.

According to the lawsuit, Vega begged Doe not to disclose the alleged sexual abuse.

Doe recorded those conversations, capturing Vega’s admission of alleged sexual abuse on tape.

“You were just a kid,” Vega said on one of the two recordings Doe taped. “The adult’s the one that makes the decisions, the adult’s the one that knows better. And I did know better.”

Typically, under Illinois law, recording Vega without his permission would be illegal. But in Illinois, if you suspect a crime is or about to be committed against you or others, recordings without explicit permission are permitted.

While the investigation follow-up never occurred, those recordings were later turned over to  Chicago Public Schools’ Office of the Inspector General, which conducted an independent investigation of this matter.

Today, Doe said he has spent years in therapy and is focused on his future. He told the Tribune he owns his own business in Chicago and said a strong support system of friends surrounds him.

Vega’s defense attorneys could not be reached for comment.

“Speak up, tell your story,” Doe said, offering words to others with similar trauma. “You’re not as alone as you think.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/06/cps-sexual-abuse-settlement-linne-elementary/ 

Ho, ho, ho! Snip, snip, snip! There’s no better gift for a gardener than a good, high-quality pair of pruners.

“Hand pruners are a gardener’s most basic and versatile tool,” said Sharon Yiesla, plant knowledge specialist at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle. “You’ll use them every time you’re out in the yard. Even in winter, you can put them to use right away pruning dormant shrubs.”

As with all tools, it’s worth it to pay more for good quality. “The best pruners can be a bit of a splurge, but that makes them a nice gift,” she said.

Hand pruners are basically specialized scissors made for cutting wood. They are used to prune shrubs, snip out dead or diseased branches, cut back perennials, deadhead annual flowers and many other tasks in the garden.

“They’ll stay sharp longer if you only use them on plants,” Yiesla said. Find something else to open mulch bags or cut rope.

Well-made pruners will last a long time. A pair that fits your hand wells will require less effort and hand strength. If their blades are sharp, they will cut more easily and make clean cuts that are healthier for plants.

Pruners come in two major types: anvil and bypass. “Gardeners should choose bypass pruners,” she said.

The difference is in the arrangement of the blades. Anvil pruners have one straight blade that closes against a flat surface, like a hammer hitting an anvil. They grab and crush branches and are often used by landscape contractors to remove large amounts of dead wood.

Bypass pruners have two curved blades that move past each other like the blades of a pair of scissors. They slice rather than tearing or crushing, making a clean wound that is less likely to admit diseases and will seal up more quickly. A sharp pair of bypass pruners will cut branches up to about one-half inch in diameter.

Beware of pruners priced at $12 or $15. “Cheap pruners are flimsy and dull and won’t last,” Yiesla said. “They probably won’t be comfortable to use.”

Decent pruners can be found in the $25 to $40 range. At the high end, professional-quality tools can cost $50 to $80. Because they are made of durable materials and can be taken apart for cleaning and sharpening and replacing parts, these pruners can last for decades.

They also come in a range of sizes and handle designs to fit a variety of hands. There are even left-handed models.

Comfort is important with pruners because they are used so often and sometimes for long periods of time. A pair that isn’t right for a gardener’s hand can be awkward to use. With heavy use, an ill-fitting tool can raise blisters or make hands ache.

When you buy a pair of pruners for a gift — or for yourself— make sure it will be returnable even after it is removed from the packaging, so the gardener can try it out to see how it feels.

If your gardener already has good pruners, consider a pair of bypass loppers. These are large-bladed pruners on 15- to 24-inch-long handles that extend the gardener’s reach and provide more leverage to cut larger branches.

Or, choose a pruning saw. A folding saw with a 7- or 8-inch blade, which typically costs $20 to $35, cuts larger branches than hand pruners or loppers. “It will handle the largest branches a homeowner ought to be cutting,” Yiesla said. Look for a saw with replaceable blades that cut on both the pull stroke and the push stroke to make the job faster and easier.

Spend another $10 on a little something more to tuck in the package: a small diamond file or pruner-sharpening tool so the gardener can touch up pruner blades’ cutting edges. “Sharp tools are always better for plants and for gardeners’ hands,” she said.

For tree and plant advice, see the online resources of The Morton Arboretum at mortonarb.org/plant-care, or submit your questions online at mortonarb.org/plant-clinic or by email to plantclinic@mortonarb.org. Beth Botts is a staff writer at the Arboretum

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/06/good-tools-make-good-gifts/ 

Welcome to December, quotes readers! We hope you’re staying warm during this cold and snowy start to winter. This fall was one of the top 10 warmest ever recorded in Illinois, but it sure doesn’t feel like that now, with record-breaking snowfall and bone-chilling temps outside.

Luckily, the Chicago Bears are warming our hearts this season. On Black Friday, the team defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 24-15, thanks to their rushing game and a big defensive play by cornerback Nahshon Wright — which helped earn him the title of NFC Defensive Player of the Month. But the win over the defending Super Bowl champions was significant for another reason: free hot dogs. During the Bears’ postgame celebration, head coach Ben Johnson rose to the Wieners Circle’s challenge, ripping off his shirt and triggering a day of free frankfurters at the popular hot dog stand for the second time this season.

After a few days off, the Bears returned to practice this week at Halas Hall in preparation for their matchup against the Green Bay Packers. The team plays Sunday afternoon at Lambeau Field with the hopes of beating their longtime division rivals and maintaining their place as the top team in the NFC.

This week, Chicago aldermen proposed their own budget plan that would include higher garbage collection fees and liquor taxes as an alternative to Mayor Brandon Johnson’s corporate head tax. But on Thursday, Johnson’s administration publicly shot down the proposal, arguing it is no real plan at all. Across the hall, the Cook County Board of Review announced it would reopen appeals for property tax assessments through Dec. 12, allowing taxpayers another shot at lowering their bills for next year. And Charles Beach was sworn in as Cook County’s new chief judge on Monday, replacing Tim Evans after more than two decades leading the county judiciary.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s administration was concerned with several matters abroad this week. Congress is investigating a series of September military strikes on boats in the Caribbean after it was alleged that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth violated peacetime laws when he ordered a second attack to kill survivors. U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss a peace plan to end the war in Ukraine. But Putin left the negotiations saying that there were still several parts of the plan that he can’t agree to.

Stateside, Trump’s immigration operations have moved their focus to New Orleans, with officials saying they aim to make 5,000 arrests. Still, enforcement efforts are ongoing in Chicago. Federal immigration agents displayed a show of force in the west suburbs Friday, detaining at least three people in Cicero and Berwyn. Also this week, attorneys representing a group of media outlets and other plaintiffs abruptly moved to dismiss a lawsuit over the use of force by immigration agents during Operation Midway Blitz. Trump administration lawyers responded Thursday, arguing that the dismissal would bar journalists and protesters from bringing similar claims of constitutional violations in the future.

In other news outside the city, an Evanston church is making headlines for its controversial Christmas Nativity scene, the Indiana House passed new congressional maps and former Northwestern football coach Pat Fitzgerald, who was fired in the wake of the program’s 2023 hazing scandal, has a new gig as head coach at Michigan State.

Plus, the winners of the Tribune’s Holiday Cookie Contest were announced this week! See the winning cookies — and get the recipes — here.

Those are the headlines. Without further ado, here’s the Tribune’s Quotes of the Week quiz from Nov. 30 to Dec. 6.

Want more quotes? You can check out our past editions of Quotes of the Week, here.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/06/quotes-quiz-december-6/ 

The sight of the slur shocked and alarmed the mother of a young boy with special needs.

Kimberly Steffes of Joliet never imagined a sitting president would use the “R-word,” a derogatory term long reviled by the intellectual disability community and its advocates.

Yet in a Thanksgiving message on Truth Social, President Donald Trump lobbed the anachronistic insult at Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, calling the former Democratic nominee for vice president “seriously retarded.”

A few days later, amid a firestorm over the remark, Trump stood by his use of the word when questioned about it by reporters on Air Force One.

“If you have a problem with it, you know what, I think there’s something wrong with him,” Trump responded, referring to Walz.
President Donald Trump speaks aboard Air Force One en route to Washington on Nov. 30, 2025, where he was questioned by reporters about use of the “R-word.” (Pete Marovich/Getty)

But to Steffes, the president’s casual use of the slur directly harms her 8-year-old son Trevor, who has Down syndrome. It threatens his very acceptance in society that she and others have been working so hard over the years to forge. “]

Language, she argues, is inextricably linked to real-world barriers, outcomes and opportunities for her child and others with intellectual disabilities.

“For those that think it’s OK to use the R-word … it’s not,” the mother posted on Facebook shortly after Trump’s use of the term. “You don’t have to hurl your insult at a person with a disability for it to be wrong. Your words matter. If they didn’t matter I wouldn’t be fighting for my son’s place in school. I wouldn’t be fighting for my son’s medical treatment. I wouldn’t be fighting for people to presume competence when it comes to my son.”

Once a common schoolyard insult, the word had largely vanished from mainstream speech until recently, primarily due to the concerted efforts of disability advocates.

The Special Olympics declared the term a form of “hate speech” and in 2009 launched a campaign against the slur dubbed “Spread the Word to the End the Word.”

In 2010, then-President Barack Obama signed Rosa’s Law, which required the federal government to use “intellectual disability” in lieu of the increasingly problematic and outdated word. The legislation with bipartisan support was named for a 9-year-old girl with Down syndrome who, with her family, had championed the nationwide change in rhetoric.

At the time, Obama had invoked the words of her then 11-year-old brother, Nick.

“Now this may seem to some people like a minor change, but I think Rosa’s brother Nick put it best. …He said, ‘What you call people is how you treat them. If we change the words, maybe it will be the start of a new attitude towards people with disabilities.’ That’s a lot of wisdom from Nick,” the president said, as the children’s parents teared up in the crowd.

Yet the slur appears to be creeping back into everyday vernacular, as a handful of politicians and celebrities — from billionaire Elon Musk to Georgia Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to popular podcast host Joe Rogan — have recently used the term.

During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump had also reportedly used the word to describe opponent Vice President Kamala Harris during a dinner with donors. Trump was also accused calling actor and Morton Grove native Marlee Matlin, who is deaf, the R-word when she was a contestant on the reality television show “The Celebrity Apprentice.” Matlin responded by saying that “the term is abhorrent and should never be used.”

When high-profile figures amplify the word in this fashion, its general use on social media skyrockets immediately after, suggesting its broader renormalization, according to recent research.

Experts who have studied the slur also found that the label and its negative connotations have a tangible impact on how folks with intellectual disabilities are perceived and accepted by others, adding greater consequence to the recent shift in rhetoric.

The term’s “resurgence online and in public discourse is deeply troubling,” the National Down Syndrome Society said in a statement.

“As the language used by our political leaders carries significant weight in shaping actions and societal attitudes toward individuals with disabilities, we are dismayed and disheartened that President Trump used this harmful term in a recent social media post,” the statement added. “The R-word perpetuates harmful stereotypes and barriers people with Down syndrome and other disabilities face.”

Northwest Indiana Republican State Sen. Michael Bohacek, whose daughter has Down syndrome, also rebuked the president’s language, threatening to vote against a Trump-supported congressional redistricting plan after his use of the slur.

The legislator from LaPorte County, which is about an hour from downtown Chicago, added  in a recent Facebook post that the president’s “choices of words have consequences.”

As for Steffes, she remembers when the R-word was a common taunt in the 1980s.

But language and policy advanced over the decades, slowly becoming more inclusive and empathetic to those with intellectual disabilities like her son, a young boy with Down syndrome who loves Illini basketball, animals and cracking jokes.

Now the mom fears the nation is “going backwards, when a president is willing to say our kids are less than.”

“Not using the word is progress — it’s progress in having the world see our kids as capable and competent and to have a worth in society,” she said during a Tribune interview. “It’s about just being human.”

Renormalization, ramifications

When high-profile voices use R-word, researchers have found that its use by the general public dramatically rises, essentially renormalizing the slur.

In January, Elon Musk used the slur on his social media site X, targeting a Finnish graduate student who’d accused him of “rapidly becoming the largest spreader of disinformation in human history.”

Afterward, use of the word exploded on the site, spiking more than 200% over the next two-day period following Musk’s post, according to a study by professors Bond Benton and Daniela Peterka-Benton at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

“He used the term and we instantly saw a significantly larger number of people using the term,” Bond Benton said, noting that use of the word on X in the months since then has continued to remain higher than it had been before. “We can see that it is becoming a more frequently used term on the platform overall and in a pretty dramatic fashion.”
The researchers used the same method to track the R-word on X after it was used by Trump and found usage of the slur roughly doubled, rising from 40,000 posts beforehand to about 80,000 in the hours after the president’s Thanksgiving message.

The mass proliferation of the term has troubling ramifications, the professors said.

“To me, it also shows how fragile society is,” said Daniela Peterka-Benton. “For years the disability community has worked really, really hard to stamp out the use of the word because of the implications it had. And how quickly all of that can go out the window.”

This resurgence of the word also “sends the message that there is a group of people who are less than,” a sentiment that can leak into policymaking decisions and funding for programs for vulnerable groups, she said.

“Then it has … real implications,” she added. “Because we see these people as less, we don’t want to give them the supports to help them with some of the issues they face.”

Disability rights groups and education organizations nationwide have decried sweeping layoffs in the U.S. Department of Education’s special education offices in October, though officials have said jobs might be restored now that the federal shutdown has ended.

The cuts coincided around the 50th anniversary of the landmark Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The legislation, signed by President Gerald Ford in 1975, promised all children with disabilities “a free, appropriate public education.”

But many advocates fear these gains will be rolled back by the Trump administration.

“These layoffs circumvent the will of Congress and dismantle 50 years of precedent upholding rights for students with disabilities,” said an October letter signed by hundreds of disability rights and education groups in opposition to the recent job cuts.

‘Horribly hurtful’

The Republican legislator from northwest Indiana made international headlines for lambasting Trump’s Thanksgiving post and threatening to vote against an effort to redraw state congressional district lines in favor of Republicans.

“This is not the first time our president has used these insulting and derogatory references and his choices of words have consequences,” state Sen. Michael Bohacek wrote on Facebook the next day.  “I will be voting NO on redistricting, perhaps he can use the next 10 months to convince voters that his policies and behavior deserve a congressional majority.”

The father of a 24-year-old daughter with Down syndrome called the president’s use of the R-word “horribly hurtful.”

“This is not the first time he’s used this language … it’s becoming almost mainstream,” Bohacek added during a recent interview with the Tribune.

He’s faced intense backlash for his stance. The day he criticized the president on Facebook, his family received a bomb threat at their home, the lawmaker said.

Right-wing commentator Ann Coulter has also chastised Bohacek’s position on social media.

“BRILLIANT! In order to honor his daughter with Down’s Syndrome, State Sen. Michael Bohacek will FIGHT to hand a majority to the political party that wants to abort Down’s kids,” she posted on X.

In 2012, Coulter came under fire for calling then-President Barack Obama the R-word on the same social media site, known then as Twitter.

Coulter responded to criticism of her use of the slur saying, “oh, screw you,” adding that the term had been used colloquially to mean “loser” for decades.

“But no, no, these aggressive victims have to come out and tell you what words to use,” she added during the interview with Fox News radio network.

Special Olympics athlete Frank Stephens, who has Down syndrome, wrote an open letter reproaching Coulter’s use of the slur.

“You assumed that people would understand and accept that being linked to someone like me is an insult and you assumed you could get away with it and still appear on TV,” the letter said. “I have to wonder if you considered other hateful words but recoiled from the backlash. Well, Ms. Coulter, you, and society, need to learn that being compared to people like me should be considered a badge of honor.”

Presidential example

In an April episode of the top-ranked podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience,” its namesake host used the R-word, calling its comeback “one of the great culture victories.”

But research has revealed that the slur can have concrete impacts on the way folks with intellectual disabilities are perceived, often with damaging repercussions.

A 2020 study from the Ohio State University found that the perceptions and attitudes of roughly 250 undergraduate students who participated in a survey changed drastically when they encountered the R-word versus the phrase intellectual disability.

Although the surveys were otherwise identical, researchers discovered that the two different labels produced extremely different results.

Those who encountered the slur “were more likely to have negative beliefs and… negative connotations,” said researcher Darcy Haag Granello, professor of counselor education.

“People who received a survey that used the R-word were significantly more likely to believe that people…with intellectual disabilities should be excluded from society, that they should be sheltered and tucked away from everybody else,” she said.

They were also significantly less likely to believe that people with intellectual disabilities should be empowered to make their own decisions in life, Granello said.

“And I think the one that is maybe more insidious — less likely to believe they were human beings who had the same rights and privileges and basic humanity as themselves,” she added.

Deborah Bruns, a recently retired professor in the Special Education Program in the School of Education at Southern Illinois University, was dismayed but not surprised by Trump’s use of the slur on Thanksgiving.

She recalled how Trump, as a candidate, mocked a New York Times reporter with a disability in 2015.

“I was done. Right then and there, I didn’t think he should have continued the next day,” Bruns said in a Tribune interview. “I thought people would be upset and make noise and say this is not someone that should even be considered to be a candidate to lead the country.”

Yet it’s even more egregious — and damaging — that Trump used the slur as the nation’s leader, she added.

“And he is unrepentant about it, which makes it 100x more awful as it comes from the person who should be setting an example for our country and beyond,” Bruns said in a recent post on Facebook. “All in the disability community have worked so long and hard to stop the use of the ‘R-word.’ There is no ‘right’ use for it when used to bully and ridicule.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/06/donald-trump-r-word-slur/ 

A fatal crash that may have occurred while the driver was livestreaming on TikTok, and a severe sentence in a fatal drunken driving crash, highlight continued dangers from impaired and distracted driving as the holidays approach.

In the TikTok case, police are investigating whether a woman was taking video of herself on the app while driving and striking a man in Zion.
Darren Lucas, 59, who worked at Torres Fresh Market, was crossing Sheridan Road after work to catch a bus home Nov. 3 when he was struck and killed, police said. The driver, a 43-year-old woman, stopped and called 911.

A woman under the pseudonym tea_tyme_3 streaming herself live on TikTok the same day suddenly screamed and swore, and said she had hit someone. Police were investigating, and have obtained search warrants to seize the driver’s phone and social media accounts, Lt. Paul Kehrli said.

In an unrelated case, a DuPage County judge sentenced a woman to 21 years in prison for striking and killing a brother and sister in a drunken driving crash near Winfield in June 2023.

Prosecutors said Christine Brocious, 39, of Chicago Ridge, maneuvered her car between two other vehicles stopped at a red light, ran the red light, and T-boned another vehicle, killing Jorgo Cukali, 25, and 30-year-old Nastika Cukali. Brocious’ blood alcohol content measured .2, prosecutors said, more than twice the legal limit.

The victims’ mother, Glentina Cukali, said the sentence was inadequate for the loss her family has suffered. She thanked prosecutors for seeking the maximum allowed sentence of 28 years, but said the law needs to be more strict.

Since their only children were killed, Glentina and her husband Llambi, who immigrated legally to the United States in 1998, returned to Albania.

“After this tragedy, we can’t live anymore in that country,” she said. “It’s a lot of pain from the memory of living 25 years there.”

Llambi Cukali had worked two jobs, in maintenance and traveling the country doing dangerous work painting bridges and towers, so Glentina could stay home with the children. Glentina later worked as a housekeeper at Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital in Geneva, and at Walmart and elsewhere.

The children attended Wheaton-Warrenville schools before Nastika attended College of DuPage and became a registered nurse. Jorgo was self-employed and lived with his parents in Wheaton.

The night of the accident, Jorgo was driving his sister home to Glen Ellyn when they were struck. Jorgo survived until the next day, and Nastika lingered several days, before both died of their injuries.

“It’s her right to drink, but not to drink and drive,” Glentina said of the other driver. “Why didn’t she call Uber or her family? She killed my two lovely children, and she enjoyed the next day of her life. She can never bring back my kids.”

Drunken driving opponents welcomed the sentence, one of the strictest on record in DuPage in recent years. Rita Kreslin, executive director of the Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists, said drivers often get a “slap on the wrist” for impaired driving, particularly for distracted driving.

Kreslin, whose 19-year-old son John was killed in a drunken driving crash in 2002, said cannabis use has become more of a problem since Illinois legalized use of the drug in 2020.

Enforcement has been problematic for police. Marijuana blood tests don’t necessarily prove impairment, because signs of use can remain in the body for days or weeks after use.

One federal report in 2022 found that 25% of seriously or fatally injured road users tested positive for THC, the component of marijuana that gets users high. The percentage of fatalities involving cannabis generally has increased with legalization, more than doubling from 2000 to 2018, to 21%.

Kreslin also emphasized that mobile phones have made distracted driving similar to drunken driving in the 1980s, before awareness and increased penalties and law enforcement lowered its frequency.

“It’s egregious and unfortunate that people are losing their lives,” Kreslin said. “It’s a huge issue.”

Illinois law prohibits hand-held use of a phone while driving, including texting, emails, watching a video, using a social media app, which includes streaming live, or attending a video meeting, even while stopped at a red light. State police also warn drivers against personal grooming in a vehicle mirror, eating and drinking, and attending to children while driving.

Approaching the holidays, Illinois State Police and the state Department of Transportation will resume the annual “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over,” “Drive High. Get a DUI.” and “Click It or Ticket” statewide safety campaigns in mid-December, along with an additional 200 local law enforcement agencies.

“Impairment is impairment — whether caused by alcohol, cannabis, or other drugs — and driving under the influence is both illegal and deadly,” Transportation Department spokeswoman Maria Castaneda told the Tribune.

The enhanced enforcement period, which lasts until Jan. 5, also targets seat belt violations, speeding, distracted driving and other risky behaviors.

Earlier this year, Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoullias launched a “One Road. One Focus” campaign. Including a safety video viewing requirement for student drivers, billboard ads to raise awareness and expanded distracted driving patrols.

If a distracted driving crash causes death or serious injury, the driver can face a mandatory minimum fine of $1,000 and up to three years in prison.

Nationally, nearly 3,300 people were killed and over 300,000 people were injured in vehicle crashes involving distracted drivers in 2023, the latest figures available from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

“This ‘intexticated driving’ is the drunk driving of our time and is 100 percent preventable,” Giannoulias said.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/06/suspected-tiktok-and-drunken-driving-crashes-highlight-dangers-of-impaired-and-distracted-driving/ 

While the 1985 Bears were good — OK, great — the timing of the “Football immortality” feature article (Nov. 30) is unfortunate. As a famous quote attributed to Tony Robbins goes: “Every moment you live in the past is a moment you waste in the present.”

At a time when Chicago is rallying around today’s Bears, let’s not use history as a measuring stick for success. Let’s put our energy and words behind a future filled with achievement and triumph.

Say goodbye to the past, it’s time to move on. Go Bears: Good. Better. Best.

— Lindsay Resnick, Chicago

Give fans more details

Had enough politics for a while? Maybe some football talk? Especially with the improved Bears facing the Pack for two games in the next three.

I’ll watch on TV. I’ll see and hear the good and great plays by the running backs, the quarterback and the receivers. But what’s really going on? I’d like to see more. Football is the ultimate team sport. All 11 players have an assignment on every play. The success of the play depends upon their performance of that assignment. No runner, no passer, no receiver can excel without the help of his on-field teammates.

Iowa in the late 1950s rode this play to a Rose Bowl victory and No. 1 ranking: the Wing-T offense tackle power play. This is what happens leading to the run: The tackle and the end at the point of attack double-team the defensive tackle. The guard, the center and the offside tackle block to allow no penetration. The fullback leads through the hole ignoring the defensive end and looks for a block. The offside guard pulls and goes after a linebacker at the hole, also ignoring the defensive end. The offside end pulls and blocks the defensive end, who sees a back with the ball coming at the hole. Two blockers have gone past, ignoring him and setting him up to be blocked. The offside end has to amp up his speed to beat the wingback who started a yard behind him running an arc before heading for the hole after getting the handoff. The QB has spun back to open a path for pulling players and faking to the other halfback going in the opposite direction before the handoff. This is all happening in the same seconds. The process is repeated with different details for all plays.

There’s no time during the game other than to show and emphasize the back and the run. Reports in the paper and TV after the game likewise usually only mention the runner’s effort. That’s understandable, but a lot is missing. On film day with the coaches and players, the plays are run several times. In detail, what succeeded and what failed. It’s fun to see the successful plays. Not so much when you’re the one who missed a block. Coaches and players use it to learn and progress.

Fans might like to know more. And perhaps enjoy the inside view. I know I would. Maybe someone should try to come up with something fun and informing?

— Bill Burns, South Elgin

Snow a great pleasure

With the falling of the first snow of the season, a gloomy outlook of the world took a nice turn.

People of all ages, grandparents, parents and children, all came out to enjoy the pleasantries that snow can bring. Last Saturday, at the store where I work, they came in to have their skis waxed, to inquire about renting snowshoes or skis, to buy snowsuits and extra gloves.

Earlier this week, I saw neighbors, who normally do not speak to each other, working together to shovel their parking spaces and sidewalks.

I went out to my neighborhood park to snowshoe and saw others using the sledding hill, cross-country skiing, playing tackle football and having snowball fights and dogs running and jumping.

Other than driving, snow is one of the great pleasures. For those who enjoy the snow, let’s hope we have a good amount. But most importantly, please play and drive safely.

— Cary Riske, Grayslake

Keeps sidewalks cleared

Winter has arrived with a vengeance in Chicago and the state of Illinois. With its sudden onset, here’s just a reminder that we need to make sure sidewalks are cleared as quickly and completely as we clear streets of snow and ice.

Clearing sidewalks is important for everyone, but especially people with disabilities, older individuals and people who cannot or choose not to drive and rely on walking to get around. High-trafficked areas where sidewalks are used are especially important to get cleared as soon as possible. Failure to clear sidewalks can lead to unnecessary injuries and an inability for some to get around. It can also lead to lawsuits, which will result in unnecessary legal expenses that could have been prevented simply by clearing the sidewalk.

My wife and I recently encountered a sidewalk in Chicago that was not cleared and should have been. We were traveling back home to Springfield after spending Thanksgiving with family. Our trip home required us to take a bus to Union Station, get dropped off on Jackson Boulevard since Canal Street in front of the station remains closed, and walk to the entrance leading into Union Station to catch our Amtrak train. When we arrived at the bus drop-off, we found that no effort had been made to clear the sidewalk from the bus drop-off to the stairs leading down into the station. This is inexcusable!

The city of Chicago knows this area is a bus pickup and drop-off area for Union Station since Canal is still closed. It was very scary walking to the station and trying not to fall.

This example illustrates how difficult it can be to get around when sidewalks are not cleared. So please, while it’s important to make sure streets are clear, it’s just as important to clear sidewalks.

Many of us depend on it.

— Ray Campbell, Springfield

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/06/letters-120625-chicago-bears/ 

Chase Bandolik caught everyone’s attention when he ran 31 miles, in a row, for every point lost by the Chicago Bears against the Detroit Lions in early September — including the Bears.

Star quarterback Caleb Williams and wide receiver DJ Moore — who this week was named the Bears winner of the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award — have interacted with his social media accounts. Last month, the Bears sent Bandolik a gift package filled with Bears socks, pajamas, blankets and other gear.

Now, the Bears are 9-3. On Sunday, they’re set to face the Green Bay Packers, 8-3-1, at Lambeau Field. The winner of the matchup will take the lead in the NFC North and possibly maintain the top seed in the conference. 

For Bandolik, who has been running a mile for every point the Bears lose by in games since 2024, the challenge has become personal.

His fiancee, Rylee Jade Ollearis, is a die-hard Packers fan.

The rivalry is “definitely very competitive,” said Bandolik, a 29-year-old fitness enthusiast and gym owner from Wheeling. “A lot of her family’s Packers fans and a lot of my family’s Bears fans, so it’s kind of a fun rivalry.”

Now in competition with each other, whosever team loses this Sunday has to run 1 mile for however many points their team loses by. With an expected high of 29 degrees on Sunday, are they ready to brace the cold and the mileage?

“Good luck. You’ll need it,” Ollearis joked to her fiance on Thursday before they set out for a run together. He retorted that Ollearis should get a new pair of running shoes.

The friendly rivalry has become a tradition for the couple, who met in 2021 — the day of the Super Bowl, no less — to collaborate on a fitness challenge for their social media pages.

Ollearis ran 2 miles for the Packers’ two-point loss in January this year, when the Bears snapped their 11-game losing streak against the Packers in the Week 18 finale last season. Last November, Bandolik was left to run a mile after the Packers blocked what would have been a game-winning field goal by the Bears.

“We are both very competitive people, but I feel like it’s all in good fun,” Ollearis said. “At the end of the day, I just care that we’re both happy.”

Bandolik set out on the challenge to run 1 mile for every point lost in games in Week 8 of the Bears 2024 season. He ran 109 miles total for those losses in the remainder of their schedule.

This season, he set out on the same goal. At first, it seemed like the ultimate challenge for the ultramarathoner. The Bears had an 0-2 start. By the end of Week 2, Bandolik had already run 34 miles, 31 miles after the Bears’ 52-21 loss to the Lions. But since then, he has only run 48 miles total so far.

Chase Bandolik, an ultramarathon runner, has posted on TikTok that he’ll run a mile for every point that the Bears lose by. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)

“I feel like what’s so cool about it … is like the game could go anyway,” he said. “That’s what’s so fun is everything’s kind of live-in-the-moment.”

Ollearis, 28, said she inherited her Packers fandom from her grandfather who collected team memorabilia all his life. It was a way for her family to hang out every game day, which they continue to do.

She expects a 14-point win by the Packers on Sunday and said she’s been right on score predictions a few times this season. Bandolik expects the Bears to win the rest of their games during the regular season.

He’s gone viral since the start of this running challenge. Every week, Bandolik uploads videos of him before and after each Bears game letting his audience know about the season-long challenge. He has amassed over 38,000 followers on Instagram and nearly 97,000 followers on TikTok.

And the Bears players have noticed.

Packers fan Rylee Jade Ollearis, left, and fiance Chase Bandolik, a Bears fan, in suburban Northbrook on Dec. 4, 2025. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)

“It’s just been crazy to see some of my favorite players have been liking my reels, which is like mind-blowing to me,” Bandolik said. “I can’t believe just from my phone posting a video could be seen by someone on the team, it’s just like a crazy concept.”

Ollearis supports Bandolik and his success. She’s right there with him on Bears game days.

“Packers are my favorite team, Packers always,” Ollearis said. “I will root for the Bears because I love Chase. So, if the Bears are playing anyone else, I’ll support him by rooting for the Bears, but Packers always.”

The couple goes on frequent runs together, which range from running up to 8 miles on a regular day to competing in marathons and Ironman triathlons.

On Sunday, the loser will have to run right after the game is over. If it’s too cold and dark to run outside, the loser will run indoors on a treadmill.

Even though Ollearis expects a normal deficit, Bandolik expects the Bears to win by a million points, he joked.

With that, Bandolik has met his match.

“I love a challenge and I think I grow the most when I’m put under pressure,” Ollearis said.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/06/he-runs-a-mile-for-every-point-chicago-bears-lose/ 

Por MARI YAMAGUCHI

TOKIO (AP) — El destacado dramaturgo y actor estadounidense, Jeremy O. Harris, conocido por su obra “Slave Play”, nominada al Tony, fue arrestado en Japón por supuesto contrabando de éxtasis, informaron las autoridades el sábado.

Agentes en el Aeropuerto de Naha, en Okinawa, una isla del sur del país, arrestaron a Harris el 16 de noviembre por una presunta infracción de la ley de aduanas al tener 0,78 gramos (0,0275 onzas) de la droga cristalizada, también conocida como MDMA, en un recipiente dentro de una bolsa que llevaba, dijo el portavoz de la Aduana Regional de Okinawa, Tatsunori Fukuda.

Harris, de 36 años, había salido del Aeropuerto de Heathrow, en Londres, dos días antes y pasó por el Aeropuerto Internacional de Taoyuan, en Taiwán, antes de llegar a Naha para hacer turismo, agregó Fukuda. Okinawa es un popular destino turístico que tiene un clima suave durante todo el año.

Según Fukuda, el dramaturgo fue arrestado en el lugar y quedó bajo la custodia de la policía de Tomishiro, que presentó una denuncia penal ante la Fiscalía del distrito de Naha el jueves para que se realice una investigación que podría derivar en una acusación.

Las autoridades japonesas no encontraron otras drogas en su equipaje y creen que el MDMA era para uso personal. La pesquisa sigue abierta, indicó Fukuda, que agregó que no se podía revelar si Harris había hecho algún comentario sobre el caso.

Los representantes de Harris no realizaron comentarios.

Los procedimientos penales japoneses permiten a los investigadores retener a un sospechoso hasta 23 días antes de presentar cargos, y la detención preventiva puede prolongarse si el acusado ejerce su derecho a guardar silencio o niega los cargos, una práctica ampliamente tachada de “justicia de rehenes”.

En Japón, las condenas por contrabando de drogas pueden acarrear penas de prisión de varios años.

Harris irrumpió en la escena artística con “Slave Play”, que escribió mientras estudiaba un posgrado en la Escuela de Arte Dramático de Yale. Se estrenó fuera del circuito de Broadway en 2018 y provocó polémica e incluso una petición para cerrar la producción por su provocadora mezcla de tabúes raciales, de clase y sexuales. Pasó a los escenarios de Broadway al año siguiente y fue nominada al Tony a la mejor obra, aunque no ganó el premio.

Además de pequeños papeles como actor, apareció interpretándose a sí mismo en la nueva versión de “Gossip Girl” y fue coproductor en varios episodios de la exitosa serie de HBO “Euphoria.”

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La periodista de The Associated Press Mallika Sen en Nueva York contribuyó a este despacho.

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Esta historia fue traducida del inglés por un editor de AP con la ayuda de una herramienta de inteligencia artificial generativa.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/06/dramaturgo-nominado-al-tony-jeremy-o-harris-arrestado-en-japn-por-presunto-contrabando-de-xtasis/