Associated Press

TESERO, Italia (AP) — El noruego Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo ganó el domingo una novena medalla de oro en esquí de fondo, con lo que estableció un récord de los Juegos de Invierno, en los Juegos Olímpicos de Milán-Cortina.

El atleta de 29 años ganó el domingo el relevo 4 x 7,5 kilómetros en la competencia masculina para conseguir su cuarto oro en los Juegos de 2026.

Había compartido el récord con tres atletas noruegos ya retirados: Marit Bjoergen y Bjoern Daehlie en esquí de fondo, y Ole Einar Bjoerndalen en biatlón.

Ahora se encuentra solo en la cima.

___

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/2026/02/15/el-noruego-klaebo-gana-su-9no-oro-en-esqu-de-fondo-y-bate-un-rcord-olmpico-invernal/ 

After eight years representing the 34th District in the Illinois General Assembly, Rep. Nick Smith decided he will not seek reelection this year.

Instead, Aja Kearney and Cleopatra Cowley are poised to compete in the March 17 Democratic primary. No Republican filed to run for the seat.

The district stretches from the South Side neighborhood of Roseland south along the Indiana border and into the Kankakee area. It includes all or parts of Burnham, Calumet City, Chicago, Crete, Ford Heights, Grant Park, Hopkins Park, Kankakee, Lansing, Lynwood, Momence, Sauk Village, South Holland, St. Anne and Sun River Terrace.

Aja Kearney

Kearney’s interest in public service was fostered from a young age. A nearly lifelong South Side resident, she recalls during high school tagging along with her mother, was an assistant to a Chicago alderman, to community events and political meetings.

She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After graduation, she says she grew more active in community organizing, eventually becoming chairman of the Cook County Young Democrats. Kearney worked within several county government departments, including the office of the board president.

She said she stepped away to raise her daughter and has owned several small businesses. She most worked for the Metropolitan Apostolic Community Church and 33rd District Rep. Marcus Evans.

Kearney has sought office once before, in a crowded race for 6th Ward alderman in 2023. William Hall, a pastor at St. James Community Church and the director of faith and community for UCAN, a crime prevention and social service agency, was endorsed by Gov. JB Pritzker and ultimately gained the seat.

Aja Kearney (Campaign photo)

Kearney said she has fond memories volunteering for former 34th District Rep. Connie Howard and took inspiration from her leadership.

“It gave me a view of what’s needed in the community,” Kearney said.

She said she hopes to make the 34th District office as transparent and community focused as possible.

“A lot of people don’t fully understand what certain elected officials’ offices are for,” Kearney said. “It’s important to educate people about what our office is for, what we can do and how we can help.”

Kearney said she would focus on building relationships and learning how to best address issues of importance to the district.

Priorities include addressing environmental issues, public safety, health care access and economic development, Kearney said.

In the 6th Ward in particular, Kearney said, the lack of a nearby trauma center creates challenges when emergencies arise.

“What’s most important is preventative measures,” Kearney said. “But things happen, and when they do, you should have the same access to the same necessities to make sure you are able to survive and thrive.”

Cleopatra Cowley

Cowley’s campaign is shaped by tragedy — the 2013 South Side shooting death of her 15-year-old daughter, Hadiya Pendleton.

Since Hadiya’s death, Cowley has been outspoken in calls to end gun violence.

Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)

“My life has been forever changed because of what someone else did,” she told the Tribune in 2013. “I’m not going to be extremely political, but if I can help someone else not go through what we’ve gone through, then I have to do what I can.”

Cowley wants to champion policies that attack the root causes of violence while holding offenders accountable, according to her campaign website. Plans include investing in economic opportunities and mental health support within 34th District communities.

Cowley’s website states within historically underserved areas, she plans to boost economic development by providing more resources for small businesses and boosting job training opportunities.

She also intends to fight for equitable school funding and mentorship programs while improving access to high-quality, affordable health care, including trauma services.

Cowley did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.

ostevens@chicagotribune.com

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/15/aja-kearney-cleopatra-cowley-34th-house-district/ 

As a lifelong Aurora high school sports fan, and also as a reporter covering those sports for many years, I recall that the town had a “golden age” of sorts for school football in the 1950s and 1960s.

Basketball began to steal the show in the 1970s and 1980s, but football experienced a rebirth in the 1990s and 2000s. This was especially true in Aurora’s religious high schools.

Notable coaches during these times were Paul Murphy and Dan Thorpe of Marmion Academy, Don Beebe of Aurora Christian and Mike Curry of Aurora Central Catholic.

I’ve had many interviews with Murphy, Thorpe and Beebe over the years, but only recently met up with Curry to discuss his amazing career as a head coach. His many accomplishments include state championships, conference titles, many winning seasons and membership in two halls of fame.

Curry initially objected to talking about himself, but I persisted and reminded him that, in my opinion, he is among the greats of Aurora’s many fine coaches.

He graduated from Aquin High School in Freeport, and played football and ran track there. He then graduated from Loras College in 1974, but admitted that the idea of coaching started in his mind during the high school years.

That same year, he began as a middle school teacher and lower level football coach back at Aquin, and ascended to become its head coach in 1978 at the age of 28. The Aquin Bulldogs were successful under Curry’s leadership almost immediately.

During his nine years as head coach, Aquin made the state Class 1A playoffs four times, and became state champs in that class in 1981 and again in 1986. The school had a record of 68-26 during those nine years.

“The kids came out and we had great talent,” Curry said of his Aquin years. “We had decent numbers for a 1A school, and we had excellent speed — a lot of speed for a small school.”

Curry resigned there in 1987, and began to look for a new position, possibly in a bigger IHSA class school. Aurora Central Catholic, then a Class 3A school, hired Curry in the summer of 1987 as a teacher, head football coach and assistant track coach. His family – wife Liane and their four young children – made the move rather quickly before the start of the school year.

I asked Curry for some memories of first coming to ACC.

“Basketball and baseball were the big sports at ACC then, but the school supported us in football,” he said. “We had to blend in with those successful programs.”

The football program blended very well and, as had happened in Freeport, successful seasons started almost right away. During the football seasons from 1988-1997, the Aurora Central Chargers made the state playoffs seven different times, advancing to the “Final Four” in 1991. Until ACC opened its new campus in 1995, the school was still in its old Root Street building with its field still on Farnsworth Avenue — a medium difficult situation.

“Football became popular and exciting during those years,” Curry said. “It was fun to get up and go to work. We had good kids, good coaches and supportive parents. We had talented players, and more of them.”

His successful coaching philosophy remained the same over the years.

“I always believed that passing the ball was a lot easier than running it with small linemen,” Curry said. “I thought that you beat teams by using quickness, agility and speed, and adjusting your line according to your personnel.”

Although ACC’s last trip to the state football playoffs was in 1997, Curry remained as its head coach until 2009, and as a teacher at the school until 2019. He served as athletic director during two different stints, and also as head of the Social Studies Department. He is a member of the ACC Hall of Fame, and was inducted into the Illinois Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2007.

His career as a head coach spanned 32 years and included 169 victories, the second highest total of all head coaches in Aurora’s history. He also became an assistant coach at the University of St. Francis in Joliet from 2009 to 2016. He coached there with his son Joe, who now serves as head coach at that school.

Mike Curry also spoke of his wife Liane’s support during his long career.

“She was always supportive. It was hard when dad was gone a lot and got home late a lot,” he said. “My wife took care of everything and also worked. I couldn’t have done it without her loyalty. She shares in my success as a coach.”

I asked Coach Curry if he had a final thought as he looked back over 45 years as an educator.

“I loved my job and couldn’t wait to get to school,” he said. “I loved it and I loved teaching — I loved the kids.”

Tom Strong is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/15/column-former-aurora-central-catholic-football-coach-mike-curry-looks-back-on-his-years-of-success-i-loved-the-kids/ 

The Aurora Police Department plans to be part of the city’s wreath-laying ceremony on Sunday afternoon to mark the seventh anniversary of the day a disgruntled Henry Pratt employee shot and killed five co-workers and injured five responding police officers in Aurora.

Those who died on Feb. 15, 2019 – Clayton Parks, Trevor Wehner, Russell Beyer, Vicente Juarez and Josh Pinkard – will forever be tied to the legacy of this department, which will remember their names as a permanent reminder of both tragedy and the duty to serve.

While the community grieved, it also rallied around the APD. And for the next year its law enforcement members were hailed as heroes for their efforts that prevented a horrible situation from becoming even worse. They certainly deserved those accolades as this shooting impacted the department in ways that will stay with most of them for the rest of their lives.

When Valentine’s Day rolls around each year, retired Aurora Police Chief Keith Cross, who was deputy chief in 2019, says his thoughts are not on chocolate and roses but on memories of that day that continue to haunt him.

“There are really no words to describe it,” he said, recalling “a sense of confusion” waiting outside Lutheran General Hospital as one of his seriously wounded officers was being treated, also knowing another was struggling for life at Mercy Medical Center.

“I’ve been in many situations throughout my career, but never felt what I felt that night,” Cross continued. “It was a heavy, heavy weight.”

What helped the department through this trauma was the outpouring from the community – indeed, from the country and beyond – which wrapped supportive and grateful arms around the APD.

Then came the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis.

Just like that, those same badges celebrated a year earlier were being scrutinized under the harsh glare of a national outcry over policing. Protests that broke out across the nation spilled into downtown Aurora, where buildings were vandalized and tear gas filled the air as the APD worked to disperse crowds.

Though authorities were attempting to restore order, the images and headlines deepened public scrutiny and mistrust. And police officers, even those who had been wounded in the Pratt shooting, were now facing vitriol from the same people who had lauded them a year earlier for their sacrifice and service.

While tensions eased with time, residual remained, emerging again amid national protests over ICE raids. On Feb. 9, around 1,500 students, mostly from East Aurora High School, walked out of class in protest of the federal immigration enforcement operations. According to an official statement from police, as the APD tried to manage the situation, some students moved into active traffic, blocked vehicles and ignored officers’ directions, which an official statement said “created public safety concerns.”

Those included water bottles thrown at police, fights breaking out among students and reckless driving going on too close to the crowd, police said. When police intervened, multiple arrests were made, including a student who allegedly punched an officer, which required staples in the officer’s head to treat, according to police.

What followed were online videos of an officer tackling a student, and many rushes to judgement, including from those criticizing cops for excessive force and demanding accountability. And so, as the city draws together to remember the victims of the Pratt tragedy and the heroism of the cops who responded to it, the APD once more is under the glare of a negative spotlight.

“It is discouraging and impacts morale,” admitted Aurora Police Sgt. Marco Gomez, whose “children were minutes away from losing their father” after a bullet from the Pratt gunman severed the femoral artery in his right leg.

At the same time, both Gomez and Cross understand that, whether the APD is considered the good guys or the bad, scrutiny comes with the job.

Law enforcement should not be immune to criticism or accountability, the former chief noted. But fairness matters. And in an era of viral video and instantaneous judgement, the court of public opinion often convenes long before all the evidence is in.

Plus, shifts in attitude toward police are not always about single acts but about the weight of national controversies placed on their shoulders, Cross pointed out.

“When officers are put in difficult situations, people often don’t understand the process or procedures,” he said. “The public sees a 10-second clip of a person getting tackled, and when all the information is not allowed to be released” they immediately form opinions.

“It can be frustrating at times,” Cross admitted. “But we try to quiet the noise and keep the focus on where it needs to be: keeping a community safe,” even if it means running into a building while facing the bullets of a desperate gunman.

Feb. 15, 2019, was “the saddest day in the city’s history and the next day was the best because people came together. There were no politics in Aurora Strong,” said Gomez, referring to the mantra that united the community in its grief and pride.

Both he and Cross believe that, because the pendulum of public opinion rarely rests, the critical spotlight now on the APD will again dim.

“After ’20-’21 we did not think we’d come out of it, but we did,” said Gomez, saying Aurora’s department is considered one of the most respected and highly trained departments in the country.

“We will be there for the community, whether we have their support or not,” he continued. “We can’t pick and choose what person we help. We are willing to help anyone in the community, including those throwing rocks at us.”

That being said, neither Gomez nor Cross want the current controversy to overshadow what is really important on this seventh anniversary of the Pratt mass shooting.

“I don’t want all this chaos to take away from those who were lost or their families,” said Gomez. “This week should be about them.”

dcrosby@tribpub.com

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/15/column-remembering-pratt-and-the-weight-of-the-badge-today/ 

The week after the Super Bowl is generally considered the worst time of the year for a sports columnist in Chicago.

The NBA is holding another All-Star Game on Sunday that no one really cares about, and with no Chicago Bulls players selected, it’s that much easier to ignore.

The NHL is on hiatus thanks to the Milan Cortina Winter Games, but Connor Bedard was snubbed for a spot on the Canadian team, making Finland’s Teuvo Teräväinen the only Blackhawks representative.

Cubs and White Sox pitchers and catchers are working out in Arizona at the start of spring training, but unless Sox general manager Chris Getz says something erroneous again, nothing much is expected to happen until the Cactus League schedule begins Friday.

Bears stadium search? Wake us up when there’s a deal. 

There are a few interesting stories on the internet, such as ESPN shouter Stephen A. Smith’s latest threat to run for president in 2028, another sign that civilization is ending. But everyone knows politics and sports don’t mix on the sports page because it causes people’s heads to explode if they’re on the wrong side of history.

In lieu of any local angle or a national controversy to get outraged over, what’s a sports columnist to do to fill space on a lazy sports Sunday in the middle of February?

With nowhere else to turn, I checked out the Tribune archives to see what Ring Lardner would’ve done if he had nothing important to say.

Lardner was one of the original occupants of the “In the Wake of the News” column, which dates to 1907 and remains the longest running sports column in America. He eventually became a world-renowned writer as a satirist and author of short stories but wrote the “Wake” column from 1913-1919, when the format was a little different. Back in Lardner’s days he’d sometimes include poems, quips from readers and items that often had nothing to do with sports.

Sometimes he wrote pure fiction. When Game 3 of the 1917 World Series between the White Sox and New York Giants was rained out, Lardner was in New York and wrote a fictional column pretending the game had actually been played. In the fictional game, a 9-3 Giants win, Lardner wrote that Sox third baseman Buck Weaver threw home during a nine-run first inning “thinking there was still a man left on third from yesterday’s game.” He noted that the New York reporters “rushed on the field and threw their arms around” Giants manager John McGraw after the first inning rally, adding: “He blushed painfully.”

White Sox players Eddie Cicotte, from left, Joe Jackson and Claude Williams appear in court during the Black Sox trial in 1921. (Chicago Tribune archive)

That year would mark the last World Series championship for the Sox until 2005, and it was two years before the 1919 Black Sox scandal that Lardner also covered, which was depicted in the movie “Eight Men Out.” Director John Sayles played Lardner in the movie, which included a memorable scene of Lardner mocking Sox players on a train by singing “I’m forever blowing ballgames,” parodying the song “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.”

While reading about that 1919 season, I discovered another gem Lardner wrote from a train on April 25, 1919, when the Sox were playing the Browns in St. Louis in the season-opening series. Lardner and Tribune baseball writer I.E. Sanborn were both covering the afternoon game — a 7-2 Browns win that played in 1 hour, 42 minutes at Sportsman’s Park.

Much like his classic “You Know Me Al” short stories, Lardner’s column was written in the form of a letter to a friend named Harvey. His writing style followed no rules and paid little attention to grammar or punctuation. Presumably the Tribune copy editors knew to let him go without corrections.

The column began with Lardner complaining to Harvey that the “H” on his typewriter was stuck, and by the time he got it unstuck he had forgotten what he was writing about.

“Well Harvey, I don’t suppose that makes much diff as I didn’t have any train of thought to start with and Mr. Sanborn is covering the baseball game if you could call it that and he knows what the score was which has got a whole lot on me because it was a question of either staying there and freezing to death or walking out on the ball game and I decided in favor of walking out for selfish reasons, though I suppose it would of been pro bono publico to set there and die.”

Lardner admitted he left with the Browns leading 6-2, adding: “I suppose they finally won because if they couldn’t win that game they couldn’t win any game.” He briefly mentioned Browns first baseman George Sisler “finally got himself a real hit” and Sox outfielder “Shoeless” Joe Jackson “got himself a home run and a double.”

That was merely to let readers know he paid some attention, even though he was freezing and wanted to leave. He then continued.

“But as I say I walked out with Mr. Jackson’s hitting on my mind and I was thinking to myself, how dangerous it must be to play the outfield, or the infield against him as you are always liable to get murdered and I was going along on that train of thought till I got a taxi cab and come back to town, and by the time I was half way to town I was wondering which was more dangerous to ride in a St. Louis taxi can or play outfield or infield against Mr. Jackson, because you are bound to get killed sooner or later either way.”

Lardner then came to the decision that “the way to not ride in a St. Louis taxi cab is to get out of St. Louis,” so he told the cab driver to take him to a train station to buy a ticket on the Chicago and Eastern Illinois railroad.

“So I suppose I will get home one way or other, though it won’t be the only way,” he continued. “So I thought before I left I had better get some inside baseball so asked Mr. Gleason (White Sox manager Kid Gleason) whom was going to pitch tomorrow and he said, “Why, one of the St. Louis pitchers, I suppose.”

He signed off with: “Respy, Ring W. Lardner.”

No one did it better. More than a century ago, he taught us how to cover a baseball game without really covering a baseball game.

And the next time I’m freezing in the Wrigley Field press box and wondering whether to leave early, I’ll ask myself: “What would Ring do?”

The answer, my friend, is obvious.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/15/ring-lardner-wake-of-the-news-column/ 

MILAN — Kristi Yamaguchi thought she had done enough to win the gold medal at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France.

Even the dress she was wearing that night was accented with gold.

But it wasn’t until Yamaguchi heard her scores while sitting in the kiss-and-cry area just off the ice inside Halle Olympique, longtime coach Christy Ness by her side, that everything became real. First came solid technical marks in the old 6.0 scoring system, then came huge artistic scores of almost 5.9 across the board, catapulting Yamaguchi out of her seat to wave at the fans.

“It was just such an incredible moment,” she recalled.

Showcasing such moments — the unscripted exuberance and unbridled joy — is a big reason why the kiss-and-cry exists. So are those cute, endearing moments, like when Yamaguchi accidentally sat back down on a big stuffed teddy bear.

Then there is the opposite end of the competitive spectrum, moments that put on display skaters at their lowest. That was what Ilia Malinin endured on Friday night, when his disastrous free skate ruined his chances for gold. The world watched as the heavy favorite to triumph at the Milan Cortina Games sat through several agonizing minutes of dejection.

It raises the question: As more emphasis is placed on the mental health of athletes, should the sport of figure skating continue such a voyeuristic practice of having scores revealed to them — the good, yes, but especially the bad — in such a nakedly public way?

“I guess it’s just always been part of the sport. I wouldn’t know it without it,” Yamaguchi told The Associated Press. “You are always going to have that element of tension while you’re waiting for the scores to come up. TV is all about getting good TV moments, so why not create a place where you showcase the emotions of the athletes in the moment?”

Showcasing the best and worst

It makes sense for those moments of sheer happiness.

At the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, Canadian ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir shared a moment of serene joy as they learned they had won on home soil. Over the years, French skater Kevin Aymoz has become famous for his kiss-and-cry celebrations, including one where he broke down in tears upon taking over first place at the 2023 world championships in Japan.

“It’s thrilling,” Aymoz said, “when you see those scores come up.”

Yet there have been just as many cringe-worthy moments in figure skating, too.

At the 2014 Sochi Games, Yuna Kim of South Korea looked positively deflated the moment she learned her bid for back-to-back titles had ended with a silver medal. Four years later, at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, Gabrielle Daleman could only bury her face in her hands after the Canadian’s disappointing free skate, her painful reaction beamed to a global audience.

She no doubt would have preferred sitting backstage when her scores were read.

The subject of the kiss-and-cry is not such a debate at the senior level, where athletes are essentially professionals. They understand that the drama created by the moment is good for the sport, and good for their own brands. It humanizes them to fans watching in the stands or at home, creating a sort of emotional bond that can pay long-term dividends.

Safeguarding athletes

But what about junior- and novice-level skaters, including those not even teenagers yet, who may get to revel in the soaring highs of hearing a good score but must also suffer through the soul-crushing lows of hearing a poor one?

After all, the International Skating Union pointed to mental health as one of the primary reasons following the 2022 Beijing Games for increasing the age limit for senior-level skaters from 15 to 17 in time for the Milan Cortina Games.

“In our Congress in 2018 this was a topic, a heated discussion, pros and cons — ‘Do we want the best skaters or do we want to pay more attention to the well-being of an athlete?’” ISU president Jae-youl Kim said. “Then at our last Congress in ’24, we invited Gracie Gold, and we devoted a whole session to safeguarding young athletes.”

Gold, the former two-time U.S. champion, has been an outspoken proponent for the mental health of skaters. She laid out her own struggles in her 2024 memoir, “Outofshapeworthlessloser: A Memoir of Figure Skating, F(asterisk)cking Up, and Figuring It Out.”

Yet the ISU has rarely discussed the propriety of the kiss-and-cry, so ingrained is it in the sport of figure skating.

Instead, it seems to have doubled-down on the drama.

High-pressure ‘hot seat’

During last year’s world championships, the ISU introduced a “hot seat,” where the current leader must sit in sight of the crowd until someone beats them. For the Olympics, there is not only a hot seat but a “podium box” where second and third must sit.

“It’s a high-pressure environment,” acknowledged Amber Glenn, who helped the U.S. win team gold earlier in the Winter Games, and who will compete in the individual event next week. “I think we are getting to the point where we are kind of trying to find a balance of what is good for the sport and what is good for the athlete.”

In the meantime, the kiss-and-cry will remain centerstage for some of the most emotional moments of the Olympics.

“It is the good and bad,” Yamaguchi said. “I think everyone has just accepted that’s part of the sport.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/15/kiss-and-cry-figure-skating/ 

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — They’re both in their 40s. They’re both moms. Elana Meyers Taylor has five Olympic medals already, the most by any Black woman in Winter Games history. Kaillie Humphries Armbruster has three Olympic gold medals, more than any female bobsledder ever.

Their legacies were secured long ago.

Yet here they are, at the Milan Cortina Games — certainly capable of finding their ways to the medal stand once again. They’ll be two of the three U.S. bobsledders in the women’s monobob event that starts Sunday, and when they hit the starting line they’ll become the first 40-somethings to compete in women’s bobsled at any Olympics.

Meyers Taylor is 41, Humphries Armbruster is 40. They’ve both competed in four previous Olympics, and they’ve both come home with at least one medal every time. Keeping that streak alive in this week isn’t out of the question.

“It’s something that I’m very proud of, that I’ve been able to do it for this long, at this level,” said Humphries Armbruster, who has officially been named to six Olympic teams — she was with Canada in 2006 but didn’t compete in those games.

“When I got involved in bobsled early on, when I was 17, 18, I could have never imagined. I was lucky to even go to one. … To walk away with medals, to be the best in the world, to have competed at a home Olympics, it just means so much to me personally to be able to be the best version of myself and to have that opportunity as a female athlete to do it.”

Their numbers are ridiculous. They’ve combined for 58 World Cup monobob and two-woman race wins — 37 for Humphries Armbruster, 21 for Meyers Taylor — and 130 World Cup medals. They’ve got a combined 18 world championships medals (Humphries Armbruster leads 10-8) and nine Olympic medals (Meyers Taylor leads 5-4).

They’ve done all that while missing time to become mothers. Meyers Taylor has two children, Humphries Armbruster one. They have been both friends and rivals, and when Humphries Armbruster obtained her U.S. passport in time to start racing with the Americans before the 2022 Beijing Games, they became teammates as well.

“The sense of history hasn’t sunk in, I think, because I’m still in it, because I am still fighting every day to try and win these medals,” said Meyers Taylor, whose two medals as a 37-year-old in Beijing made her the oldest medal winner in women’s Olympic bobsled history — a record she’d like to break this week. “It hasn’t sunken in, what it means and what it will mean to me. Every time I hear the stats, I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’ It doesn’t even register sometimes because you’re so focused on the day-to-day, so focused on what’s next and what you’re trying to do.”

The U.S. women’s bobsled lineup is loaded. Along with Meyers Taylor and Humphries Armbruster, there’s a third pilot in Kaysha Love — who is only the reigning world monobob champion. Love pushed for Humphries Armbruster at the Beijing Games, then moved into the front seat after that season and has made that transition, which isn’t easy, look very easy.

Those three pilots teamed up to win nine medals in this World Cup season, more than any other nation — other than juggernaut Germany, which won 60 — in both men’s and women’s bobsledding combined.

And for Humphries Armbruster, there is a certain irony that she’s still racing. Her first Olympics were the Turin Games in 2006, when she came to Italy expecting to race — she was a push athlete then — only to find out a few days before the event that she wouldn’t be in a sled.

“Things always work out for the better and the 2006 Olympics was a prime example,” Humphries Armbruster said. “I was ready to walk away from the sport. I was an alternate at those games. Four days before the event, I thought I was racing and then, bam!, I’m not racing. I walked into an opening ceremony, I was going ‘I’m an Olympian, I did it’ and then fast forward 10 days later I’m not racing. I thought my world was over.”

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Turns out, it was just getting started. She became a legend. So did Meyers Taylor. They are GOATs in their sport, mentors to many, and if all that wasn’t enough the monobob race that they and 23 other women will drive in at these Olympics exists largely because of their efforts.

It was about a decade ago when they pushed for four-woman bobsled to be added, so women — who only had the two-person event — could have two medal events like their male competitors. It wasn’t feasible, but from the four-man idea the monobob idea really began picking up steam.

Humphries Armbruster won the inaugural Olympic monobob gold at Beijing four years ago. Meyers Taylor was second. And on Sunday, they’ll open the quest to add to their medal collections.

“I’ve been extremely privileged to be able to come out here and do this, and come out and do what I love,” Meyers Taylor said. “At the end of the day, I’m a kid sliding down a hill. I absolutely love it, and the fact that I’ve been able to win medals doing it, it’s crazy. Like, who does this?”

They do.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/15/us-bobsledding-olympics/ 

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — The NBA is trying its fourth All-Star Game format in four years this weekend as it attempts once again to answer one of the bigger existential questions in professional basketball.

How do you get both the players and their fans to care about this midseason showcase?

The newest scheme appears to be the most promising yet, at least according to players such as Victor Wembanyama, who still believe this game should matter. A team of veteran American All-Stars, a team of younger U.S. players and a third team representing the rest of the world will play a round-robin tournament of 12-minute games Sunday, with the top two meeting again in the final.

It’s bold and different, but will it make the All-Stars give more effort than they’ve provided in these glorified pickup games over the past two decades? And will this setup draw in TV viewers who are already in a nationalistic mood from watching the Winter Olympics?

“I think it definitely has a chance to, and the reason is simple, in my opinion,” Wembanyama said Saturday. “We’ve seen that many of the best players have been increasingly foreign players, so there is some pride on that side. I guess there is some pride also on the American side, which is normal. So I think anything that gets closer to representing a country brings up the pride.”

Others aren’t so sure, to put it bluntly.

“With the teams split up, you don’t really know who you’re playing with or what the score is,” Clippers guard Kawhi Leonard said. “I’d rather it just be East and West, and just go out there and compete and see what the outcome is. I don’t think a format can make you compete.”

“Yeah, it is what it is at this point,” Anthony Edwards said with a smirk.

This new concept is debuting in the NBA’s newest arena: Intuit Dome, the futuristic $2 billion basketball shrine opened in 2024 by Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer. All-Star Saturday featured Damian Lillard’s third career victory in the 3-Point Contest, followed by Miami’s Keshad Johnson winning the Slam Dunk title.

While the players got a welcome weekend in the Southern California sun, the league is optimistic they’ll also provide a more entertaining product on Sunday.

“I’ve had conversations with our guys … and our guys are coming to play,” said the Detroit Pistons’ J.B. Bickerstaff, who will coach the younger American team. “They’re going to set a tone. I know that for sure, and I know that the group we have is a group of competitors. So I think the new format is going to help. It’s going to raise the level of competition and put some pride in the game, and then you’ll see the stars that are here being the best of themselves.”

The distinctions on these rosters are more than a bit fungible. The younger American team is called the “Stars,” and the older players are “Stripes,” but injury dropouts have blurred the lineups.

The World team has a powerhouse lineup with Wembanyama, Luka Dončić and Nikola Jokić — but it also includes Norman Powell, a born-and-raised Californian who plays for Jamaica internationally, and Karl-Anthony Towns, a New Jersey native who represents his mother’s Dominican Republic.

The NBA has repeatedly changed its All-Star format in the past decade while the sport wrestles with declining interest from both television audiences and the players themselves. The NBA ditched the long-standing East-vs.-West conference battle in 2018 to allow captains to pick their teams for six seasons, only to go back to the East-vs.-West format for a year before introducing a four-team tournament last year in San Francisco.

That tournament drew decidedly mixed reactions while Stephen Curry won the MVP award in his home arena. The NBA liked the mini-tournament format enough to bring it back for another year but with the added twist of nominally dividing the players by nationality.

With this iteration, the league is hoping that national pride and novelty will lead to entertaining hoops — but injuries have taken a toll even before the ball is tipped.

Curry won’t be playing for only the third time in the last 13 years, while the World team will be without Giannis Antetokounmpo and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, two former league MVPs. But Leonard will represent the hosts, while Dončić and LeBron James will play despite injury concerns.

James is appearing in his record 21st All-Star Game after being selected for the 22nd time in his unprecedented 23-year career.

The changes could spark excitement, but they’re also a bit confusing to fans who grew up watching the East take on the West each winter. That includes Pistons guard Cade Cunningham, who doesn’t think he’s really had the true All-Star experience yet.

“I grew up just wanting to be in the All-Star Game, (and) my only two years now, it’s been these different formats,” Cunningham said. “I would like to experience the East versus West. I want to be able to experience what all the greats played in, but I’m just playing the cards I was dealt. I’m sure it will come back eventually.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/15/nba-all-star-game-new-format/ 

A Month After Mass Amnesty For Illegals, Spain Urges Brussels To Take Migrants Off Its Hands

Tyler Durden
Sun, 02/15/2026 – 07:00

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/month-after-mass-amnesty-illegals-spain-urges-brussels-take-migrants-its-hands 

A British publication recently affirmed what Chicago Symphony Orchestra audiences already know: the City of Big Shoulders is home to a just-as-hard-working orchestra.

Bachtrack, a classical music online publication, placed the CSO atop its 2025 list of the world’s “busiest orchestras,” counting 140 performances by the orchestra last year. The publication also rounded up the year’s “busiest performers” and “busiest conductors,” with CSO music director designate Klaus Mäkelä placing fourth in the latter list.

The CSO has topped Bachtrack’s list once before, in 2015. Over the 16 years Bachtrack has tracked these calendars, the orchestra typically ranks among its top 5 “busiest” orchestras (also coming in at No. 4 in 2024 and No. 2 in 2023). Mäkelä has also been a routine inclusion since 2022, becoming Bachtrack’s “busiest” and “second-busiest” conductor in 2024 and 2023 respectively.

Bachtrack editor Lawrence Dunn said that the CSO is one of about 50 global arts presenters whose performance calendar is tracked by the website, in an email to the Tribune explaining the list’s methodology. Others — like the Hallé orchestra in Manchester where Dunn lives — share their calendars with Bachtrack directly. In comparison, the Hallé self-reported 69 concerts, half as many concerts as were tracked at the CSO.

“In a broad sense, the rate of performance is a clear indication of orchestral activity and budgeting,” Dunn wrote.

Indeed, if anything, Dunn noted that orchestras “perform a great deal more” than Bachtrack’s annual rankings indicate — which means its findings are generally illustrative, but far from precise. For example, a performance may be omitted if an orchestra is credited under a different name, performs “in a Pops formation,” or only features a subsection of its membership.

When presented with the Bachtrack listing, CSO representatives on both the musician and management side agreed that the ensemble is very, very busy, as far as orchestras go. But their reactions were tempered by some skepticism.

“It is really hard to compare orchestras in this way,” says Vanessa Moss, the CSO’s vice president of orchestra and building operations. “It reminds me of when Chevy Chase was still on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ and he would give baseball scores and say, ‘Yankees, one,’ then not say what the other scores were. You don’t know what the numbers are, or how close they are.”

CSO bassoonist Bill Buchman, who chairs the orchestra’s members’ committee, agrees that the comparison is flawed. He notes that the CSO’s Bachtrack stats includes non-subscription series like CSO for Kids, which feature just a subset of full-time CSO musicians. By the same token, it excludes some forthcoming chamber music performances, which likewise use a small subset of the orchestra. It also leaves off any closed-door engagements, like school concerts.

“Does that literally mean a member of the (CSO) does more concerts than a member of one of these other orchestras? It’s a little hard to say,” Buchman says.

Lists like Bachtrack’s aren’t infallible, but they can capture and quantify larger issues.

Overwork is a perennial sticking point in orchestral contracts, particularly in the United States, where sections are led by one principal player who is expected to play the vast majority of concerts. European peers like the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics — just behind the CSO in 2025 at No. 2 and No. 3, respectively — have multiple co-principals who can share the workload.

“I think that was one of the attractions when (principal flutists) Mathieu Dufour and now Stefán Höskuldsson left the Chicago Symphony to go to the Berlin Philharmonic. Even though the pay is slightly lower, the workload is also lower than what is expected of a principal wind player in an American orchestra,” Buchman says. “We are very well compensated for what we do, but we do work very hard for that compensation.”

That workload can also increase the risk of injuries — a going concern for any orchestra with demanding seasons, but particularly in the CSO, which, despite recent string hires, still faces nearly 20 vacancies. Buchman says the CSO’s staffing shortfall keeps its current membership on the clock more often than it had been in seasons past, when musicians more easily rotated off concert cycles.

“There’s a number of reasons why, especially for the string players, it’s become quite an exhausting job. … You need recovery time when you’re doing something that physical, and with a very dense calendar, there’s very little opportunity for recovery time,” he says.

Speaking on behalf of CSO management, Moss tells the Tribune that “the contract is carefully developed to protect musicians from playing too much or not giving them sufficient time off to recover between weeks.” Indeed, some clauses in the CSO musicians’ contract specifically address overwork. The concert loads of second-seat wind and brass players — who, by dint of their roles, are contracted for more services than even principal players — led the orchestra to allow those musicians to take more youth concerts off than their peers.

CSO musicians and management will meet at the negotiating table later this year; the musicians’ current contract expires in September. Data like Bachtrack’s can be provocative fodder for labor negotiations. Buchman says that a colleague already sent him the Bachtrack listing, just hours after it had been published.

“The natural way that someone on the musician side would want to use a statistic like that is to say, ‘Look, we work harder than any other orchestra, and that’s why we should be paid more than any other orchestra,’” he says.

But both Buchman and Moss caution against taking the ranking at face value. Should it be cited in forthcoming negotiations, they said they would seek out their own data: identifying the CSO’s actual service count, then comparing it directly to peer orchestras.

“Any aspect of employment is fair game for discussion and negotiation, including workload,” Moss says. “But I think it’s always important to step back and understand how much time off a musician needs, and what the mechanisms are that a musician is able to get that time off. As long as we’re accomplishing that — safeguarding people’s longevity — then that’s the argument; that’s the real issue at hand.”

Hannah Edgar is a freelance critic.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/15/cso-busiest-orchestra/