“Elf the Musical” is the theatrical equivalent of pouring maple syrup on spaghetti; kids may love it, but nostalgia aside, it’s too sickly sweet to have broad appeal for adults. Based on the 2003 film starring Will Ferrell, the 2010 stage adaptation returned to Broadway last year, directed by Philip Wm. McKinley, and a new national tour based on this production is now playing a limited run at the Auditorium Theatre.

With music by Matthew Sklar and lyrics by Chad Beguelin, the Christmas cheer is dialed up to 11 in the familiar story of Buddy, a human raised in the North Pole who travels to New York to find his birth father. The title of the opening number, “Happy All the Time,” pretty much sums up the mood. Performed by Santa Claus (Andrew Hendrick) and the elves (average-height adult ensemble members shuffling around on their knees), the song introduces Jack Ducat’s Buddy, the happiest elf of them all.

This production didn’t change my mind about the key problem with this musical: it’s not as funny as the movie, because Buddy’s song-and-dance schtick doesn’t seem as incongruous in a setting where all the characters, even the jaded New Yorkers, regularly break into song. Most of the tunes aren’t particularly memorable, with the exception of a few unwelcome earworms. However, I’ll concede one element that kind of works in musical form: it makes sense that Buddy is the one egging on the company in many of the major numbers, because this emphasizes his role in helping his newfound family and community rediscover their love for Christmas and each other.

Ducat makes an endearing Buddy, with childlike enthusiasm that comes off as more believable than Ferrell’s performance, thanks in part to his youthful look and mannerisms. Buddy’s complete oblivion to innuendo adds a note of adult humor to this overall family-friendly comedy, and his exaggerated physicality should play well with younger viewers. The rest of the cast does fine with the material at hand, though many of the roles are underdeveloped or caricature-like. Buddy does share a few sweet moments with love interest Jovie (Felicia Martis), but she doesn’t get nearly as much stage time.

The production design is suitably loud and jolly, from the rainbow palette of the elf costumes to the tinsel-bedecked halls of Macy’s (scenic and costume designs adapted from the original by Tim Goodchild). As with most Broadway tours in recent years, the visuals rely heavily on video projections, in this case designed by Ian William Galloway. The opening scenes at the North Pole evoke the animated elements of the film — a style that Galloway unfortunately retains when the action moves to New York, resulting in an unrealistic and busy look. However, it’s a nice touch that Santa’s sleigh physically flies in the end, while fake snow sprinkles the house.

The cast of the touring production of “Elf the Musical” at the Auditorium Theatre. (Evan Zimmerman)

Even though I enjoyed the movie as much as most millennials, the musical makes me feel a bit Grinch-like, so take my grumpiness with a grain of salt. On opening night, the audience included people in festive holiday sweaters, T-shirts with quotes from the film and at least one pair of elf ears. Based on the ovation, it seemed that a good time was had by most.

Emily McClanathan is a freelance critic.

Review: “Elf the Musical” (2 stars)

When: Through Dec. 14

Where: Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive

Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes

Tickets: $40.00-$110.00 at broadwayinchicago.com

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/05/review-elf-auditorium-theatre/ 

Por ILLIA NOVIKOV

KIEV, Ucrania (AP) — Aviones no tripulados rusos alcanzaron una vivienda en el centro de Ucrania y mataron a un niño de 12 años, dijeron las autoridades, y se reportaron ataques ucranianos de largo alcance contra un puerto y una refinería de petróleo rusas, mientras los esfuerzos de paz de Estados Unidos continuaban fuera de la vista del público.

Estaba previsto que Steve Witkoff, el enviado especial del presidente estadounidense, Donald Trump, y el yerno del mandatario, Jared Kushner, se reunieran el jueves con una delegación ucraniana en Miami, pero no hubo confirmación oficial del encuentro.

Estas conversaciones programadas seguían a la reunión que mantuvieron el presidente de Rusia, Vladímir Putin, y los enviados de la Casa Blanca en el Kremlin el martes.

Los esfuerzos diplomáticos previos para romper el estancamiento no arrojaron resultado y la guerra, que comenzó hace casi cuatro años, no da signos de detenerse. Las autoridades han mantenido en gran medida en secreto el desarrollo de las últimas conversaciones, aunque se filtró el plan inicial de 28 puntos de Trump.

El presidente de Ucrania, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, apuntó que la delegación de su país en Miami quería escuchar la versión estadounidense de lo ocurrido en la reunión en el Kremlin.

Zelenskyy y los líderes europeos que lo apoyan han acusado repetidamente a Putin de demorar las conversaciones de paz mientras el ejército ruso intenta avanzar sobre el terreno.

En un mensaje en video el jueves por la noche, Zelenskyy indicó que los funcionarios querían saber “qué otros pretextos ha ideado Putin para prolongar la guerra y presionar a Ucrania”.

Mientras, el asesor de asuntos exteriores del Kremlin, Yuri Ushakov, quien acompañaba a Putin en una visita a India el viernes, repitió las recientes críticas del liderazgo ruso a la postura de Europa en las conversaciones de paz. Los aliados europeos de Kiev están preocupados por una posible agresión rusa más allá de Ucrania y quieren que el posible acuerdo de paz incluya sólidas garantías de seguridad.

Los socios europeos de Kiev están “constantemente presentando demandas que son inaceptables para Moscú”, dijo Ushakov a la televisión estatal rusa Zvezda. “Dicho suavemente, los europeos no ayudan a Washington y Moscú a llegar a un acuerdo sobre los asuntos ucranianos”.

En la región de Dnipropetrovsk, en el centro de Ucrania, un ataque con drones rusos destruyó el jueves por la noche una casa donde falleció el menor y otras dos mujeres resultaron heridas, según el jefe de la administración militar regional, Vladyslav Haivanenko.

La fuerza aérea ucraniana dijo que Rusia disparó 137 drones de varios tipos durante la noche.

Aviones no tripulados ucranianos atacaron un puerto en la región fronteriza rusa de Krasnodar. La ofensiva causó un incendio en el puerto de Temryuk y dañó la infraestructura portuaria, indicaron las autoridades.

Los drones ucranianos también apuntaron a objetivos más adentro en Rusia, atacando la ciudad de Syzran, en el río Volga, explicó el alcalde, Sergei Volodchenkov, que no dio más detalles.

Informes de prensa no confirmados señalaron que drones ucranianos golpearon una refinería de petróleo en Syzran, a unos 800 kilómetros (500 millas) al este de la frontera con Ucrania.

El Ministerio de Defensa ruso dijo que sus defensas antiaéreas interceptaron 85 drones ucranianos sobre regiones rusas y Crimea, la península anexionada ilegalmente por Moscú, durante la noche.

___

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/2025/12/05/ataque-de-dron-ruso-mata-a-un-nio-en-ucrania-mientras-sigue-el-secreto-sobre-conversaciones-de-paz/ 

It’s said that a budget is a moral document: The values that fill each cell of the budget spreadsheet represent the values of the author.

Mayor Brandon Johnson expressed a couple of core values when presenting his budget in mid-October. The city would create a permanent $100 million new community safety fund, Johnson said, and big corporations would pay for it.

“The top 3% of the absolute largest businesses in our city, those who have seen tremendous success and exceedingly high profits” would cover the costs, Johnson said. He would charge them a $21-per-employee fee for doing business in Chicago, projecting that to generate $100 million in new taxes each year.

After all, corporations can’t vote — except with their feet. Or by electing not to move to Chicago, because with a tax environment like that, why bother.

For Johnson, the combination of his community safety fund and a head tax to pay for it seemed a double winner of a budget plan. He got to play to the public’s demand for a safer city and trot out his “soak-the-ultra-rich” rallying cry too.

But here’s the catch: With this fund, Johnson isn’t putting big new money toward public safety programs; he just wants someone other than voting taxpayers to foot the bill.

Of that $100 million from head-tax revenue, $72 million would go toward programs the city’s corporate fund covered last year. Much of the remainder would go toward replacing discontinued federal pandemic relief funds dollar for dollar — without adding more.

The city’s first deputy budget director, Jonathan Ernst, showed me data that indicates planned spending on a program directed primarily to youth summer jobs would jump nearly 15 percent, to $49 million. But that does not account for 2025 federal pandemic relief funds that Johnson’s budget doesn’t replace, meaning the city’s total spend on the youth programs at best will be flat year over year, according to a former deputy budget director I talked to.

The demand for new spending on community violence intervention programs, among the most effective violence-prevention tactics available, initially prompted Johnson to earmark $18.6 million from the new community safety fund for such measures. But in an effort to lure budget votes from reluctant aldermen, Johnson diverted those funds into a new business-development grant program — over which aldermen likely would exert influence.

That switch drew pushback, so Johnson now is adding $18 million into the budget — paid for from the corporate fund this time, not the head tax. 

That change, not previously reported, could come as welcome news for advocates of community violence intervention programs. After all, the corporate fund has a more certain future than Johnson’s head tax, a polarizing proposal the council’s Finance Committee defeated in a late November vote. 

Johnson also initially planned to spend only $3.5 million from the safety fund to combat gender-based violence. After that drew sharp criticism, he allocated $9 million more — again, from the corporate fund, not his new community safety kitty. 

Not long ago, Chicago mayors’ proposed budgets sailed through the council with virtually no dissent. Johnson gets, and deserves, no such rubber stamp. The impasse last year lasted through mid-December. This week, 26 aldermen — a majority of the 50-member City Council — signed a letter proposing an alternative budget.

Once again under Johnson, the city is bearing down on a legally mandated Dec. 31 deadline for a balanced budget, after which city government must halt operations until a new balanced budget is in place. 

To their credit, the aldermen backing the competing budget proposal are showing the stomach to stake out some politically treacherous stances. Unlike Johnson, they won’t borrow to finance $166 million in back pay to Chicago firefighters, for example, and they insist on making the full $260 million pension payment needed to keep the city’s obscenely underfunded pension plans on a path toward fiscal stability.

OK, so now the two sides have squared off. And paradoxically, the pressure on both can set the stage for getting their best budget work done. To achieve that, a few standard negotiating tactics might help, starting with a move to break the process into manageable parts.

First, take the nonnegotiables — from both sides — off the table. Agree, just for now, that there will be no property tax increase, no head tax and no grocery tax, for good measure. And, by God, agree not to touch the city’s supplemental pension payment: Suspending that would be a false savings and immediately torpedo Chicago’s already fragile credit rating.

Next, put a few other issues, including the delayed firefighter payment, into a parking lot, agreeing to visit them, if needed, after other more manageable issues are settled.

With this agreed, stop talking about revenue altogether and focus instead on efficiencies, which haven’t gotten nearly enough attention. The city consulting firm EY, formerly Ernst & Young, presented dozens of good ideas — heavy on cost cuts — in its report earlier this year.

Johnson claims $80 million in savings from the EY report already is in his budget, though he has never shared details. Now is the time to go bigger with EY’s ideas.

The city could save around $200 million from reasonable changes to health benefits; consolidation of the city’s balkanized procurement systems; fleet management; and more. Touchier issues, such as saving over $50 million from a hiring freeze and $40 million from closing vacant positions, consolidating divisions and sharing labor pools, could come next.

Even bigger savings — billions over time — could come from restructuring the Police Department and Fire Department that, if done right, could save money and make the city safer too.

Even all these measures won’t entirely close the budget gap, but that’s when the parking lot and, ultimately, the “nonstarters” could come into play. In that final category, slimmed-down versions of the tactics might be worth considering. Implement the city law for property tax hikes tied to inflation, perhaps. Or consider a grocery tax, but mitigate the regressive impact by offering tax rebates for people who shop in economically challenged neighborhoods.

Instead of a head tax, consider ways to leverage the value of corporations to the city: lending personnel for finite time periods, for example.

Put the Civic Consulting Alliance to work on developing such plans and retain pro bono legal counsel to make certain any measures survive challenges in the courts.

City budgets are in fact moral documents. There’s a path by which all parties to this budget struggle can maintain their principled positions, back off their rhetorical posturing, make the city’s finances healthier and streets safer — and keep the city open for business to boot.

David Greising is president of the Better Government Association. 

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/05/column-brandon-johnson-city-budget-aldermen-alternative-greising/ 

By his account, Donald Trump has been repeatedly denied the Nobel Peace Prize he was due. Like the 1980s standup comedian Rodney Dangerfield, he complains: “I don’t get no respect.”

This time, Trump is determined by hook or crook or shady diplomacy to get a Nobel. He’s proposed a peace plan to end Russia’s bloody war in Ukraine.

In effect, it would make his buddy Vladimir Putin, who invaded Ukraine in 2022, a winner. Trump’s original 28-point plan is undergoing revisions, but he has pushed for Russia to get all the territory it has captured and for Ukraine to reduce its military and agree not to apply for membership in NATO. To sell their questionable package, Trump and the “Make America Great” Republicans insist that absent Trump’s peace plan, the fighting in Eastern Europe could escalate into a third World War.

Generally, historical predictions can’t be tested beforehand. But as Mark Twain said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”

So there is a precedent with which Trump’s peace proposal can be compared.

In the 1930s, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany by arguing that his nation had been unfairly assessed financial reparations and territorial losses after World War I. His corollary was that Germany was thereby entitled to compensate itself with territory in Eastern Europe.

First, he annexed Austria, another German-speaking country, then he set his eyes on Czechoslovakia. A small country with a mixed population — Slavs and Germans — it was formerly part of the Habsburg Empire.

As the empire disintegrated during WWI, the Czechoslovak Republic was conceived — in Chicago, of all places.

In the early 1900s, Tomas Masaryk came to the University of Chicago as a visiting lecturer. Impressed with the democratic principles in the Constitution, he promoted similar ideas for the Czechoslovak constitution. He was elected its first president in November 1918.

In 1938, England, France and Italy met with Germany at a conference in Munich to resolve the Czechoslovakian crisis. Representatives of the Czechs and Slovaks were not invited.

Similarly, Donald Trump didn’t consult the Ukrainians before proposing his peace plan. Instead, he had special envoy Steve Witkoff slip working documents to the Russians so that Putin’s people could formulate an approach to convincing the Russian leader to get on board with Trump’s peace plan.

In the 1930s, an anti-war movement prevented Europe from rationally assessing the danger posed by Hitler.

On Feb. 9, 1933, the Oxford Union Society debated a motion, “that this House will under no circumstances fight for the King and country.” The Oxford Pledge, as it became known, passed by a vote of 275 for and 153 against.

That followed a similar-minded motion at Cambridge University. In 1927, its student union debated whether “lasting peace can only be secured by the people of England adopting an uncompromising attitude of pacifism.” The motion passed 213-138.

Accordingly, England’s rearmament lagged dangerously behind that of Hitler’s Germany. So when the Czechoslovakian crisis began, an international conference belatedly attempted to solve the problem.

England was represented by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. He said: How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.”

Hitler wasn’t deterred. He immediately annexed the Sudetenland region — a German-speaking ring around the northwestern part of Czechoslovakia.

“This is the last territorial demand I have to make in Europe,” Hitler announced.

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Desperate to take Hitler at his word, England, France and Italy acquiesced to the German dictator’s annexation. Hitler and his forces invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia in 1939.

When the United States entered WWII and Hitler declared war in return in the wake of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, the Western Allies lacked military preparedness to fight back.

It was three years later that American and British navies landed troops in Normandy from which to begin the liberation of Europe.

The Soviet Union was equally naïve. Earlier, the Soviets and Hitler had denounced each other as the devil incarnate. Western leaders warned Josef Stalin that when the time was right, Hitler would attack the Soviet Union — to no avail.

Eighty years later, Trump naively wants to hand Ukraine to Russia on a silver platter, believing that it will mark the last of Putin’s demands in Europe.

Mark my words. If Trump sacrifices Ukraine, he will mimic Chamberlain’s 1938 proclamation on his return from the Munich Conference: “I believe it is peace for our time.”

Ron Grossman is a former reporter and columnist for the Tribune. Before turning to journalism, Grossman was a history professor. He is the author of “Guide to Chicago Neighborhoods.”

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

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/05/opinion-donald-trump-russia-ukraine-peace-plan-world-war-ii-czechoslovakia/ 

If you’re a parent — or considering becoming one — you likely understand that it’s a pricey prospect. Consider: The annual cost of raising a child in Illinois is an estimated $23,821 — nearly $430,000 over 18 years — according to a 2024 SmartAsset study. Saving and investing for these children is a good thing, and something many parents are already doing through existing options such as 529 college savings plans. 

They now have another option in the form of the newly created so-called Trump Accounts. 

Part of President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” the accounts are designed to promote saving for a child’s future. The program permits total annual contributions of up to $5,000 per child. What’s drawing the most attention, however, is a $1,000 taxpayer-funded deposit for every child born in 2025 through 2028 if parents open an account.

For now, the $1,000 deposit is a pilot that will expire at the end of 2028, but the reality is it will likely live on, as is the nature of such things. Dubbed a “pro-family initiative,” the program received an additional shot in the arm thanks to a $6.25 billion private donation from computer mogul Michael Dell and his wife, Susan Dell. Their gift funds a $250 match for children 10 and under in ZIP codes with median family incomes less than $150,000, which essentially covers most parts of the country.

Trump said these accounts will “help millions of Americans harness the strength of our economy to lift up the next generation. And they’ll really be getting a big jump on life.” On that score, he may be right if the program is administered well and Washington, D.C., puts in guardrails to keep Wall Street from leading recipients in directions they shouldn’t go.

The concept’s virtues include giving kids of all backgrounds a head start and teaching them the value of saving and investing. Even if a family is only able to make modest contributions on top of that $1,000, by the time their child is 18 they would have access to a healthy nest egg to put toward buying a home, investing in their education or launching a business. And when people can get their financial lives started more easily, it’s possible they’ll be encouraged to have more children — a clear aim.

These accounts clearly are designed as a capitalist alternative to progressives’ universal basic income, a concept that’s gained popularity among our youth, many of whom enthusiastically voted in larger-than-usual numbers to elect Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani mayor of New York. Fair enough, as far as it goes. There’s a potential benefit to a firsthand education on the wonders of compound returns.

Where we bristle is that while Trump, Vice President JD Vance and their allies have been on a crusade to bolster the country’s declining birth rate, Trump Accounts will do nothing to address the real affordability crisis plaguing American families. Simply stated, this policy alone won’t inspire women to have more babies. One of the biggest impediments to starting or adding to families is the costs when children are youngest. Child care alone is an incredibly steep hurdle. A $1,000 “thank you” from the government for procreating, accessible 18 years down the line, doesn’t put food on the table now or purchase clothes for ever-growing kids or ensure they’re well cared for while mom and dad have to work.

It’s also worth noting that the $1,000 Trump Account deposit is a universal benefit: any U.S.-citizen child born between 2025 and 2028 qualifies if a parent opens an account, regardless of family income. That means the nation’s richest households receive the same taxpayer-funded contribution as the poorest.

The impulse to help families is worthy. Concern about an aging nation is valid, too, as we wrote last year.

Trump Accounts are a modest pro-family initiative at best. Soaring costs for health care and child care are higher priorities.

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

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/05/donald-trump-baby-bonds-trump-accounts-savings-1000/ 

It’s easy to feel like you don’t recognize your own country when cruelty and chaos ooze daily from the White House, leaving a murky film over so much of what we cherish.

It’s easy to feel like the hard-won progress toward making this place a more welcoming, more inclusive, more equitable home is being rapidly, gleefully rolled back.

It’s easy to feel like compassion has, in so many of the hearts on display, been snuffed out by callousness.

But here’s another side of our story.

Three years ago, I wrote a column about a campaign to send holiday cards to LGBTQ+ folks who’ve been shunned by their families because of who they are or who they love.

The campaign was launched by Carolyn Pinta, co-creator of the Pinta Pride Project, an organization that raises awareness and support for the LGBTQ+ community. Her card campaign was inspired by Home for the Holidays, a Facebook group that provides a safe space for LGBTQ+ people who can’t, actually, go home for the holidays.

In November 2022, Pinta started a spreadsheet with addresses of members from the group who wanted to receive holiday cards, set up card-writing parties and added information to the Pinta Pride Project website for anyone who wanted to send or receive cards. When I checked in with her 10 days before Christmas that year, she had collected 2,134 cards.

One hundred of those were written by my long-lost childhood friend Sarah, who let me know that she read about the campaign and joined from California. She knows the power of mail: Her son has osteosarcoma, a rare type of cancer, and he also gets cards from strangers.

Pinta repeated her campaign in 2023, and the response was overwhelming. By the end of that holiday season, they had sent out close to 10,000 cards.

In 2024?

“Oh, more than 50,000,” Pinta told me a few days ago.

More than 800 writers signed up to send cards last year. Cards were written from and sent to all 50 states and a handful of countries. People magazine wrote about the outpouring of love and allyship.

The campaign is, naturally, back this year.

“People start reaching out, I’m not kidding you, in August,” Pinta told me. “‘Are you doing that card-writing thing again? I want to participate.’”

Companies across the country host card-writing days, Pinta said. Alpha Phi sorority at Miami University in Ohio gathered to write dozens of cards. Families weave card-writing into their Thanksgiving celebrations and text Pinta the photos.

“I get pictures: ‘Here’s my 20!’ ‘Here’s our 50!” Pinta said. “It’s so much fun.”

Folks who receive the cards also send Pinta photos — of their tables covered in cards, their refrigerators covered in cards, their mailboxes stuffed with cards. Many of them stay in touch with Pinta and her kindness army year-round now.

A card is a small thing, stacked against rejection from your family — the people whose eyes should light up at the sight of you, at the thought of you. An avalanche of cards wouldn’t fill that hole.

But a card is something. It says: I see you. I support you. You deserve love and joy and a whole, full heart.

“I’m not sure what I expected at first,” Chicago teacher Stephanie Guest emailed Pinta at the beginning of December. “I think I simply wanted to help people who might be suffering, feeling sad or trying to find themselves. But the more letters I’ve written, the more I’ve realized how much this experience has benefited me as well as, hopefully, others.”

Sometimes she adds a few lines about a book she’s read recently.

“In these dark and sometimes frightening times, I find myself relating deeply to the world’s suffering,” Guest wrote. “There’s something comforting about sharing words with others — even people I may never meet.”

That’s everything, isn’t it? Looking for ways to connect with and care for the people around us? Taking whatever warmth we’ve been given and feeding it so it glows brighter and longer and farther? So more people feel it? So cruelty and chaos and that murky film are no match for it? So cruelty and chaos feel unrecognizable, not routine?

We have that in us. Clearly. Tens of thousands of holiday cards say so.

And that’s also part of our story — the one we’re living through, the one we’ll look back on, the one that’s still very much being written.

Join the Heidi Stevens Balancing Act Facebook group, where she continues the conversation around her columns and hosts occasional live chats.

Twitter @heidistevens13

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/05/heidi-stevens-holiday-cards-pinta-pride/ 

In 1999, R. Bruce Dold, then deputy editor of this page, participated in a self-reflective editorial board piece about constancy and change.

Anyone who knows anything about editorial boards, including this one, knows that is our perennial conundrum. Newspapers as old as ours depend on trust, which means they must speak with an eye on their own history and long-standing principles. But they can’t get struck in a rut. They can’t embrace every fad of short-term worth; but they also can’t act like the last Roman defending the flailing empire, lest time leave them behind and they find themselves shaking their collective fists at no one in particular.

Dold, who died Wednesday at the age of 70 after a storied Tribune career that saw him rise to editor and publisher (both at once), was, we are in a position to report with confidence, happiest when he was editorial page editor, working on prior editions of the page you are reading now.

He believed that post to be the best job at the paper he loved and where he spent his entire professional life, having first been lured into journalism by Watergate. Dold won a Pulitzer Prize for writing editorials and he was known as a gentle spirit, a gifted editor and a caring, capable boss by his colleagues both in our newsroom and on the editorial page; he was always quick to deflect any praise elsewhere.

But to take a fair measure of his decades on this page means understanding how well he navigated that constancy-change conundrum, not just within journalism, although the whiplash of working at the Tribune all those years would have felled lesser journalists in Dold’s positions, but also in the city, state and nation he covered.

In 1999, Dold was remarking on how much the news business had changed. He’d received, he wrote, an email from a man in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, and this missive had sparked an ongoing conversation about politics, “Irish and Chicagoish.”

“Using the internet,” Dold remarked, the man had read his work. “Over there in Antrim,” Dold wrote, “he cut and pasted my own words and tossed them at me: An attempted trans-oceanic high-tech ‘gotcha.’ That’s fair, that’s even fun. And that’s one of the new wonders of the business. Our reach and our ability to listen to readers here and around the world have grown immensely.”

Little did Dold know then where it all was going.

A year later he ascended to become editorial page editor and, as he did, he reminded readers of how little the Tribune had liked William Hale Thompson, the last Republican mayor of Chicago.

“For Chicago,” the editorial board had written in 1931, “Thompson has meant filth, corruption, obscenity, idiocy and bankruptcy. He has given the city an international reputation for moronic buffoonery, barbaric crime, triumphant hoodlumism, unchecked graft and a dejected citizenship.”

The 1931 board did not stop there: “It is unpleasant business to eject a skunk, but someone has to do it.”

Scott Stantis editorial cartoon for Friday, Dec. 5, 2025 on R. Bruce Dold. (Scott Stantis/For the Chicago Tribune)

We are still, on occasion, critical of our current mayor. But hardly in those terms, for, being an honorable and decent man who works hard and loves his city, he would not deserve any of them.

Dold, though, for all his nice-guy reputation, looked back admirably on the famous editorial taking down Thompson in protection of Chicago and its people. “In truth,” he wrote, “I imagine it was extremely pleasant business to write such a blunt epitaph for a corrupt mayor who was voted out of office in 1931 at the strong urging of this newspaper. It’s more than pleasant, it is tremendously satisfying to have this bully pulpit and put it to good use.”

He certainly put it to good use when the paper endorsed Barack Obama, then of Chicago, for president of the United States, another break with its Republican tradition, made in concert with the former Editor Ann Marie Lipinski. In fact, as we have looked back on his work over the last day or two, Dold put that bully pulpit to good use in one editorial after another.

That’s why Dold liked this job so much, even if he turned the focus, whenever he could, away from such inflammatory rhetoric and toward the moral obligation of a city and a state, especially when it came to the children in its care. “The editorial page has given me the satisfaction of knowing how newspapers can change lives,” he wrote in 1997. He did not miss his opportunity to do so in years that followed.

In 2007, during his tenure and following much work in the paper’s newsroom, this board changed its long-held position on the death penalty in Illinois, reversing the pro-death penalty positions articulated in 1869, 1952 and 1976, to name but three examples. ​“The evi­dence of mis­takes, the evi­dence of arbi­trary deci­sions, the sober­ing knowl­edge that gov­ern­ment can’t pro­vide cer­tain­ty that the inno­cent will not be put to death — all that prompts this call for an end to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment,” Dold’s board wrote. “It is time to stop killing in the peo­ple’s name.”

Under Dold, change won out over constancy. And, to our minds, rightly so.

“My wife, Eileen, is a writer and we have two teenage daughters, Megan and Kristen,” Dold wrote by way of introduction after he got the job he loved. They listen to Backstreet Boys; I listen to Basie. Our English springer spaniel is the tiebreaker: She’s named after Koko Taylor.”

He ended with this, a nod to constancy as well as change: “My work, almost always, is very pleasant business.”

So was reading his work. Not so pleasant is trying collectively to live up to his legacy.

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After years of little snow across the Chicago area, recent record-breaking snowfall and below-freezing temperatures might seem to contradict scientific reports of winters getting warmer. But climate change is still transforming how locals experience the changing seasons, including this fall, one of the top 10 warmest recorded in Illinois.

“People are like, ‘Oh, look at this snow. It’s not climate change,’” said Trent Ford, the Illinois state climatologist.

But trends in recent decades point to an overall warming of average temperatures in winter as well as fall, spring and summer, from human activities such as fossil-fuel burning that release heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. And that overall warming doesn’t rule out some occasional outliers, including the extreme cold this week.

“Winter is, in fact, starting later as well,” Ford said, even if cold and snow this year might seemingly point to the contrary.

When thinking about climate change’s impact on seasons, he said, “We talk about the winter a lot — winter warming — and certainly we talk about more summer heat, things like that. Fall is sort of forgotten about. What’s really interesting is that all seasons, all months, are warming.”

In Chicago, fall is the second fastest-warming season after winter, according to climate science nonprofit Climate Central. Preliminary reports from weather stations across Illinois show statewide average temperatures this fall were 2.5 to 3 degrees above normal, Ford said.

This might only translate to the difference between buying an ice-cold apple cider — instead of a more seasonally appropriate hot version — on a summer-like fall day at a farmer’s market.

An analysis from Climate Central found that Chicago is experiencing 13 more fall days with higher-than-normal temperatures compared with 1970, while average autumn temperatures have increased by 2.6 degrees in that same time span. It mirrors a 2.8-degree average rise in 237 of 243 U.S. cities analyzed.

The unpredictability of snow

As winters rapidly warm up, it doesn’t necessarily mean less snow — just like more snow than normal does not necessarily mean winters aren’t warming up.

At 12.3 inches, accumulation totals in Chicago this snow season — tracked from July through the following June —  are quickly catching up to the 17.6 inches that fell during the entirety of last season. These totals also seem to be following a similar trend from the 1978-1979 season, which ended up being the snowiest recorded in the area with a total of 89.7 inches.

“It was remarkably not snowy for a long time,” Ford said, referring to low accumulation totals in recent years. “So this is definitely a contrast.”

Still, it’s hard to tell how much snow the rest of the winter holds, as “snow does not behave in a simple way.”

Senior NWS Chicago meteorologist Gino Izzi said making snowfall predictions is “very tricky, unfortunately.”

People make a snowman in Chicago’s Grant Park on Nov. 30, 2025, after the city recorded over 8 inches of snow. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

It’s hard to establish a direct correlation between early snow activity yielding more snowfall over the course of winter and toward the end of the season. However, seasonal meteorological outlook reports have indicated a potential for a more active winter.

“The ingredients for snow are cold air — cold enough to make snow instead of rain — and disturbances, so storm systems moving through,” Ford said.

The current pattern of La Niña — a climate phenomenon of colder-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean expected to persist through most of the Northern Hemisphere’s winter — tends to plunge northern Illinois into colder-than-normal temperatures and create more storm systems moving through the Ohio Valley that can bring winter weather for much of Illinois, Ford said.

Chicago weather: How our 2025-26 seasonal snowfall compares with previous years

“The range of possibilities is pretty significant,” Izzi said. “Certainly, we’ve had winters with similar patterns that have been relatively dry, but more often than not, a pattern like we’ve got coming up this winter tends to feature a little bit more in the way of precipitation. Now, more precipitation doesn’t necessarily mean more snowfall. It kind of depends on which side of the storm track we end up on.”

Another factor that could yield more snow is a warmer-than-normal Lake Michigan for this time of the year, at least until the lake freezes over.

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As cold air moves across the open, warm water of the Great Lakes, it picks up heat and moisture. Now less dense, the air then rises, cools and condenses into clouds, which produce heavy snow in narrow bands downwind.

Lake Michigan’s average surface water temperature in October hovered around 4.5 degrees higher than the 30-year average of just over 57 degrees, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“So if you get the right pattern in place, that lake (effect)snow could really be something,” Ford said.

People walk through snow flurries along West 18th Street in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood on Nov. 30, 2025, after 8 inches of snow fell on the city. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

The snowpack on the ground could also reinforce a blast of arctic, below-average temperatures that hit Chicago with “brutal” cold over the last few days after a substantial jet stream shift, Izzi said.

“There’s kind of a feedback cycle. When you’ve got snow cover on the ground, it actually keeps temperatures cooler above it,” he said. “The snow is going to act essentially like an ice cube, and it’s going to delay … any kind of warmup.”

Falls that feel like summer

Scientists have found that climate change is making summer heat linger longer into the fall.

“What we consider summer-like temperatures are extending more frequently into September, and even in some cases, into October, more often than they used to,” Ford said.

In September, the Chicago area had 15 days of 80-degree weather, including a five-day stretch at the end of the month. The following month had four days of 80-degree weather — and a day with a high of 89 — beginning Oct. 2.

September had six days, October had seven days and November had three days with temperatures 10 to 20 degrees above normal.

People walk past a puddle reflecting fall leaves on East Van Buren Street in the Loop on Nov. 8, 2025, in Chicago. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)

According to NWS data, September this year had an average temperature of 69.3 in Chicago, which is 3 degrees above normal. October followed with an average of 58.1, which is 4.1 degrees above normal and November had an average of 42.4, which is 1.1 degrees above normal. The Chicago area had a fall average temperature of 56.6 degrees from September through November, compared to a normal average of 53.9 degrees.

October statewide tied for the ninth warmest on record since 1985. Fall temperatures statewide have been some 2.8 degrees above normal, according to preliminary data, Ford said.

Fall temperatures in some western Illinois locations, especially by the Quad Cities, were closer to 4 or 5 degrees above normal.

“We think about fall — that’s Sept. 1, all the way till (Nov. 30). That’s a pretty long period of time. And for the entire state, or even just one location, to be a full degree above normal, when you take all of the weather variability … that gets averaged out, anything above a degree above normal for a season is actually pretty significant.”

Chicago Tribune’s Kori Rumore Finley contributed.

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https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/05/illinois-warm-fall-snowy-winter-climate-change/ 

Illinois homeowners and businesses shoulder some of the highest property taxes in the nation. The recent bills in Chicago — containing 30-year-high increases — are a reminder that these taxes are increasingly unaffordable. And while Chicago’s spike has made headlines, the burden is felt everywhere in Illinois.

Whether you own your home, run a business or pay rent, property taxes affect everyone. They drive up the cost of living and push families and employers out of Illinois, creating a shrinking tax base that forces those remaining to pay more.

It does not have to stay this way. Illinois is not doomed to perpetual tax increases. There are lawmakers — and candidates — who put forward serious, workable solutions that can lower property taxes. For example, many of my Republican colleagues and I have filed bills aimed at reducing property taxes, including HB0009. This bill was projected to save taxpayers more than $82 billion over 20 years.

I also introduced legislation to reform workers’ compensation and make Illinois a more competitive state for business. When jobs and investment return, the tax burden spreads, reducing costs for everyone.

But to fix the problem, voters must recognize a main cause; and it is: one-party control by the Democrats. For roughly 25 years, the Democrats have controlled state government — and Cook County far longer. When only one party governs, accountability disappears. Good ideas are blocked without debate, and failed policies continue.

Bills that can help never receive hearings, let alone get to the floor for votes. Not because they lack merit, but because the majority party has absolute control over the process and refuses to allow debate. It has been clear for a while that without more balance in government, nothing changes.

The solution — elections.

Voters have a choice between Republicans who are committed to reforms that can make Illinois more affordable and Democrats who have presided over rising taxes and outmigration. Elections have consequences.

For those fortunate enough not to feel the sting of these taxes, I ask: Who lacks compassion, Democrats whose policies push families out of their homes and employers across state lines or Republicans whose policies offer solutions that let people keep more of what they earn and expand opportunity?

Illinois can change. And it starts with electing officials who will fight for taxpayers, not against them.

— State Rep. Dan Ugaste, R-Geneva

Elected officials’ taxes

The Dec. 1 story (“Who’s to blame for property tax bills?”) on finger-pointing by elected officials directing blame for property tax increases to every office but their own is a continued reflection of government accountability avoidance. I’ve been a Cook County property taxpayer since 1989, and it is painful to continually witness the absence of integrity, personal responsibility, mutual respect and teamwork by our elected representatives.

If the Tribune really wants to do some investigative journalism, why not a story detailing the property tax history for each elected official, whether their increases fell at, below or above the median increase that year, and whether they attempted (and were successful) in appealing their assessment?

Something tells me we might not be surprised to learn the old adage, “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” doesn’t apply to our elected officials.

— Rich Baird, Palatine

Try a new income tax

Who’s to blame for property tax bills? Springfield is to blame. Taxing the value of property is absurd, because the value of the property has nothing to do with a person’s ability to pay ever-increasing taxes on it.

I have advocated for over 30 years to shift the cost of public education (at least) to a separate income tax. This would make property taxes affordable for most people, but the tax is still absurd.

— Larry Craig, Wilmette

Homeowners’ obligation

Aren’t all responsible property owners obligated to pay taxes? When you buy a house, it’s your obligation as the owner to budget for mortgage and taxes. You don’t purchase a home expecting someone else to make the payments.

Also, the taxing bodies should do due diligence when assessing taxes, making sure the taxes are fair and equitable.

— Donna M. Soukup, Darien

Tactic for takeovers

I didn’t vote for our current mayor. And I won’t be voting for him in a couple of years either. A 14-year-old kid gets killed downtown. Does the mayor say that he will rethink, at least, his position on the snap curfew? No, he doesn’t. He only keeps going on about the causes.

That’s all well and good. But there needs to be something done to curtail these takeovers.

— Michael J. Medley, Chicago

State’s probate system

The Nov. 30 article “’Out of money in no time’” struck a chord with us. The article underscores a reality many Illinois families and human service professionals already know too well: Our state’s probate system no longer reflects the needs of today’s older adults and people with disabilities.

Illinois is aging quickly, yet the structures meant to support vulnerable residents have not kept pace. The caregiving workforce is shrinking, costs continue to rise and community services that should prevent crisis are stretched thin. When families can’t find adequate support, they often end up in probate court, not because it is the best solution but because it is the only one available.

Probate courts work hard under difficult circumstances, but they are increasingly asked to manage problems rooted in gaps in medical, social and long-term care — gaps the legal system was never built to fill alone.

Illinois needs modern reform that strengthens oversight while offering clearer processes and practical alternatives to guardianship. We must also invest in community-based services so older adults and people with disabilities can remain as independent as possible. The goal is simple: protection that preserves dignity, autonomy and common sense.

The Tribune’s reporting should be a catalyst. Illinois can build a system worthy of the people who rely on it, but only if we recognize yesterday’s rules can’t handle today’s realities.

— Sheila McMackin, LCSW, and Steven Fox, D.O., Chicago

Chicagoans’ generosity

ln these past few months, I have been dealing with some ambulation issues. When I have been navigating the city streets and on transit, I have been gratified by the generosity of the human spirit as people offer a helping hand or the CTA bus drivers go overboard to make transit easier and less stressful.

There have been other acts of helpfulness I have experienced that have made life a bit easier for me. All of this is refreshing and encouraging in these hard times.

— Joseph Murry, Chicago

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We are starting to see the consequences of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s open disdain for military lawyers. The recent war crime allegation reported by The Washington Post was a long time coming.

Since September, Hegseth has ordered at least 21 strikes on civilian fishing boats in international waters, killing more than 80 people so far in what is being called Operation Southern Spear.

I served as a judge advocate, or military lawyer, for eight years in the Army Reserve, including 3 1/2 years on active duty. As a national security law attorney in Iraq, I advised commanders on the application of the rules of engagement and the law of armed conflict to the full spectrum of operations against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. I’ve also been involved with shaping rules of engagement requests during the planning of operations in other theaters. 

Even a freshly minted judge advocate out of the basic course might identify Operation Southern Spear’s strikes as violations of U.S. obligations under international law, not to mention Department of Defense policy. Hegseth’s argument that the boats are manned by drug traffickers doesn’t change the legal analysis. 

Why are we in this predicament? Because Hegseth has contempt for anyone standing in his way of playing TV solider on Fox News and impressing President Donald Trump.

In his 2024 book “The War on Warriors,” Hegseth recounts openly disparaging the rules of engagement during his 2005 deployment to Iraq and referred to judge advocate generals, or JAGs, as “jagoffs.” During his confirmation hearing before the Senate, Hegseth described a jagoff as “a JAG officer who puts his or her own priorities in front of the war fighters, their promotions, their medals, in front of having the backs of those making the tough calls on the front lines.”

The Senate, in an act of malfeasance, confirmed Hegseth, and within his first month on the job, Hegseth fired the top ranking legal officers in the Army and the Air Force. Hegseth tried to justify the firings, explaining that these JAG positions were “roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander in chief.” 

Hegseth continued to push military lawyers out of their roles advising commanders, going so far as to send them to other departments. For example, in August, DOD memos reached the press, revealing a plan to send 600 judge advocates to the Department of Justice to serve as judges in immigration court. This plan was particularly notable as it placed members of the military in control of civilian court matters that have no military nexus. 

In September, Hegseth gathered the military’s top officers for a televised rally. Among his speech’s alarming elements, his most dangerous idea was his open contempt for what he called “stupid rules of engagement.” He proceeded: “We untie the hands of our war fighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement.” 

Fast-forward to last Friday. The Washington Post reported that a Sept. 2 boat strike left two survivors, until Hegseth issued a verbal order to “kill everybody.” The subsequent second strike eliminated the two survivors.

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If the reporting is true, Hegseth committed a war crime. Either the boat crew members were civilians or combatants. If civilians, the law of armed conflict prohibited targeting them at all. If combatants, as Hegseth argues, the first strike would have rendered them “hors de combat.” This status, literally “out of combat,” applies when a combatant is rendered unable to participate in fighting. The law protects hors de combat individuals, and they may not be intentionally targeted.

Also if true, the chain of command that carried out such a patently illegal order facilitated a war crime. Ordinarily, the appropriate step for investigating senior leader misconduct is for the department’s independent inspector general to conduct an investigation into the allegations. However, the DOD’s inspector general, Robert Storch, was one of the 17 inspectors general that Trump fired after taking office. A federal judge ruled in September that the firing was unlawful, but the DOD still remains without a new permanent inspector general. 

In the absence of executive branch review, the only available check is congressional oversight.

Regardless of partisan affiliation, elected officials should seek to ensure that the appointed leader of the world’s most powerful military does not continue down the road to war crimes. 

I have advised on the application of the rules of engagement and the law of armed conflict on the field of battle, and following these rules helps keep our troops safe. Any soldier, officer, commander, secretary of defense and even president of the United States must be held accountable for violations.

Dan Tully is a major in the Army Reserve and a judge advocate, and he is running for Illinois’ 8th Congressional District. Use of military rank, titles, insignia, marks or photographs in uniform does not imply endorsement by the U.S. military or the Department of Defense.

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