Category: News
Community news: SEASPAR lauds volunteers, staff, participants and donors, and more
SEASPAR lauds volunteers, staff
The annual Believe & Achieve recognition banquet held recently by SEASPAR at Carlisle Banquets in Lombard brought together volunteers, staff, supporters and program participants for dinner, a dance party and awards.
SEASPAR, the South East Association for Special Parks And Recreation, aims to enrich the lives of people with disabilities through recreation. It serves Brookfield, Clarendon Hills, Darien, Downers Grove, Indian Head Park, La Grange, La Grange Park, Lemont, Lisle, Western Springs, Westmont, Willowbrook and Woodridge.
True Balance Karate, of Downers Grove, was named Donor of the Year, after providing instruction for the organization’s karate program for 15 years and holding a tournament to benefit SEASPAR.
Naberhaus Volunteer of the Year was Gina Graf, of Countryside, who received the award from her son, Austin, a recreation specialist at SEASPAR. Two part-time staff were recognized: two-year employee Bill Lyones, of La Grange Highlands, and eight-year employee Sandy Greco, of Woodridge.
Participants earning awards were Athlete of the Year to Blaine Sharenow, of La Grange Park, who trains in Special Olympics bowling, flag football, volleyball, basketball and softball; Shining Star Award for an outstanding participant in teen and adult programming to Hope Murphy, of Western Springs, who participates in Special Olympics training, weekly programs and the EAGLES adult day program; Cultural Artist of the Year to Jackson Mangan, of Downers Grove, who shines in the musical theater program, including at the 2025 Holiday Spectacular talent showcase; and the Rising Star Award for a participant in youth programming to Nile Naff, of Woodridge, who does Special Olympics training, weekly programs and special events.
Cook County clerk seeks election judges, technicians
The Cook County Clerk’s Office seeks election judges for the March 17 gubernatorial primary election.
Suburban Cook County residents can apply to be an election judge or polling place technician, especially those who live in southwest communities, such as Palos, Lemont and Lyons townships, as well as Elk Grove and Leyden townships in northwest Cook County.
Judges, who are paid $250, greet and sign in voters. Technicians, who are paid $400, work with the judges to monitor supplies and equipment and help with setup, breakdown and maintenance of electronic equipment; they receive some training.
In addition, bilingual judges are needed for districts that have large numbers of people who may not be proficient in English, so those who speak Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Polish, Spanish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Gujarati, Korean and Tagalog are urged to apply.
Election judges must be a registered Cook County voter or eligible college or high school student. Applications should be submitted soon to allow for a required training class. Do so at www.cookcountycoerk.com/work.
Educator shares drama of Lincoln’s assassination
Nationally known storyteller Barry Bradford brings to life the events surrounding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Feb. 25 at The Community House, 415 E. Eighth St. in Hinsdale.
The Chicago educator’s one-man show brings history to life. Refreshments and lunch are included in the $20 ticket fee. Sign up by Feb. 19 at www.thecommunityhouse.org or call 630-323-7500.
Leyden students named Chick Evans Scholars
Antonio Herrera, who attends East Leyden High School, and Mohamed El-Hindi, who attends West Leyden High School, have received Chick Evans Scholarships.
The scholarships pay for housing and tuition at colleges and universities. The competitive scholarships, available for youths who caddie at golf courses, require excellent academics, financial need and outstanding character. They are worth more than $125,000 over four years.
Chicago museum seeks artists for interactive display
March 2 is the last day for artists to submit proposals for temporary, immersive installations for six months at WNDR Museum, 1130 W. Monroe St. in Chicago.
The Artist Showcase program for 2026, led by the museum’s studio team, “invites artists to install hands-on experiences that celebrate exploration, curiosity, and creative discovery while engaging thousands of visitors in a high-traffic, interactive environment,” per a news release.
Individual artists and team artists will be paid a commission of $12,000 per installation, which covers artist fees, fabrication and design, and material and supplies.
Proposals can be submitted at pages.wndrmuseum.com/artistcall. Artists chosen for the program will be announced in March, and the installation will be put up in May.
“We’re so thrilled to be kicking off this initiative and furthering our mission to highlight local artists in the Chicago community,” Director of Studio, Steven Krejcik shared via the release. “As we continue to innovate the WNDR experience for our future and returning guests, we see great value in providing this kind of exposure and opportunity for emerging artists.”
Franklin Park hosts parent-child events
Parents can spend a little one-on-one time with their children, thanks to the Park District of Franklin Park.
A mother-son night out is set for 6:10 to 8:10 p.m. Feb. 21 at the Franklin Park Ice Arena, 9711 Waveland Ave.. Mothers and sons can enjoy pizza and lemonade, music, photo opportunities and a treat while skating. Skate rental is included. The cost per couple is $38 for residents and $48 for nonresidents. Extra siblings cost $16 for residents and $21 for nonresidents.
A daddy-daughter dance takes place 6 to 8 p.m. Feb. 28 at Centre at North Park, 10040 Addison Ave. The winter wonderland event includes music, dancing, dinner, flowers, a photo opportunity and a treat. Space is limited. The cost per couple is $54 for residents ($27 for each additional sibling) and $68 for nonresidents ($34 for each additional sibling).
Sign up for either event by visiting fpparks.org or by calling 847-2852.
Send news to pioneerwest@tribpub.com.
Mainstream Media Silent As Alleged Hate Crime Hoax Leads To Major Civil Award
Mainstream Media Silent As Alleged Hate Crime Hoax Leads To Major Civil Award
There is a major verdict out of Texas where a mother and an attorney were ordered to pay millions for perpetuating an alleged hate crime hoax that was eagerly spread by the mainstream media.
Asher Vann, a minor at the time, was labeled a racist maniac who tortured SeMarion Humphrey, his black classmate, with other classmates.
After the jury found that the allegations constituted the intentional infliction of emotional distress, the same media that spread the story remained conspicuously silent.
Crickets.
Major media outlets from NBC to CBS to the Daily Mail published the account of how Humphrey was tortured, shot with BB guns, and forced to drink urine during a sleepover.
The NAACP and Black Lives Matter protested the lack of action from officials ignoring the alleged racist attack.
Good Morning America aired a segment featuring ABC host Linsey Davis, who promoted a GoFundMe account that raised approximately $120,000 for “therapy and private schooling.”
In her interviews, Humphrey’s mother, Summer Smith, called Vann “evil” and described his depravity to enabling reporters like Linsey Davis.
Some, however, were not convinced.
Washington Free Beacon reported that Smith spent less than $1,000 of the donated funds toward her son’s schooling while spending funds on items including a designer dog, dining, travel, beauty products, liquor and vapes.
Parents rallied around the Humphrey family and held events at the school.
Eventually, the case against Vann was submitted to a grand jury, despite later testimony by Plano Police Department officer Patricia McClure that she did not believe there was probable cause for any charge. Given the pressure campaign, it was given to a grand jury anyway. The grand jurors then refused to indict.
Vann sued and testified that the alleged racist act occurred at a camp that was caught in a snowstorm. Unsupervised, the teenagers engaged in dumb games and pranks. He said that, after unsuccessfully searching for small game, they decided to shoot each other. All of the kids were wearing thick clothing and shot each other with the BB guns for fun.
He testified that Humphrey participated in the game with everyone else in both being shot and shooting others.
The urine was described as a prank that was played on various boys, according to Vann, but no one actually drank from the cup.
Under the common law, the elements of the tort of an intentional infliction of emotional distress require a plaintiff to show that the defendant “(a) intentionally engaged in some conduct toward the plaintiff considered outrageous and intolerable in that it offends the generally accepted standards of decency and morality; (b) with the purpose of inflicting emotional distress or where any reasonable person would have known that such would result; and (c) that severe emotional distress resulted as a direct consequence of the defendant’s conduct.”
A racially diverse jury handed down a verdict against Humphrey’s mother and the family attorney, Kim Cole. The inclusion of the lawyer in the verdict makes this a relatively rare case.
Smith and Cole were ordered to pay $3.2 million in damages to Vann, now an adult in college. Both the mother and the lawyer were ordered to pay $1,599,000.00.
The case raised obvious analogies to other cases that were eagerly promulgated by the media but later disproven, such as the Jussie Smollett hoax.
The Smollett story of MAGA-associated racists roaming the streets of Chicago was irresistible as politicians like Nancy Pelosi and others piled on. ABC’s Robin Roberts gave Smollett an interview that was breathtaking in its lack of substantive questions or even curiosity about glaring red flags in his account. Roberts described Smollett as “bruised but not broken” and nodded as he described his narrow escape from being lynched in America. She concluded the interview with “Beautiful, thank you, Jussie.”
The Texas case followed the same trajectory as the media built up the story and then went silent as countervailing facts were produced by the family.
Once again, the role and liability of counsel Cole is particularly interesting. We discussed a claim of defamation by counsel in the Depp-Heard case.
Attorneys are protected by absolute privilege in court in making harmful and even false statements. This privilege is best stated in the Restatement of Law (Second) of Torts section 586 “to publish defamatory matter concerning another in communications preliminary to a proposed judicial proceeding, or in the institution of, or during the course and as part of, a judicial proceeding in which he participates as counsel, if it has some relation to the proceedings.”
However, it also means that “statements made during an occasion outside a judicial proceeding are not covered.” Thus, while “[t]he duties and actions of a lawyer in representing a client are not confined to judicial proceedings,” the court ruled that interviews with a reporter would fall outside of the privilege. Most courts reject the notion of an absolute privilege while considering a more limited possible privilege for out-of-court statements. See Kennedy v. Cannon, 229 Md. 92, 182 A.2d 54, 58 (1962) (the “absolute privilege will not attach to counsel’s extrajudicial publications, related to the litigation, which are made outside the purview of the judicial proceeding”).
Likewise, actions by counsel can be deemed as the intentional infliction of emotional distress as well as privacy violations. This can be a dangerously fluid line, since all litigation causes some degree of emotional distress, particularly in tort cases, where reputations are attacked. Moreover, lawyers often assist clients in seeking donations to GoFundMe accounts, which may help defray legal fees. Such public advocacy, however, entails a greater risk of liability.
The key in this case was the actions taken outside of the court as well as the alleged falsity of the underlying representations.
The targeting of a minor is particularly notable in this case and raises memories of the disgraceful media attacks on Nick Sandmann, who was falsely accused of abusing a Native American activist in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
Despite various media organizations correcting the story and some settling with Sandmann, some in the media continued to attack him.
The Vann case is likely to be reviewed by many lawyers outside Texas.
It is a case that could be replicated in future cases involving lawyers accused of fueling reckless or inflammatory public claims.
The fact that the damages were evenly divided between the mother and the lawyer shows the level of culpability that the jury assigned to the role of the lawyer.
Here is the jury verdict form: Jury-Verdict
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/13/2026 – 17:40
‘Quad God’ Ilia Malinin falls twice in Olympic disaster and tumbles to 8th place: ‘I blew it’
MILAN — American figure skating sensation Ilia Malinin fell twice in a disastrous free skate that sent him tumbling all the way off the podium at the Milan Cortina Olympics on Friday night, allowing Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan to claim a stunning gold medal.
The self-styled “Quad God,” who led by a comfortable margin after the short program, merely had to deliver a mediocre performance to add individual gold to his team gold medal. Instead, the 21-year-old Malinin was trying to fight back tears after one of the worst nights of his career, one that left a star-packed crowd inside Milano Ice Arena sitting in stunned silence.
“I blew it,” Malinin said. “That’s honestly the first thing that came to my mind.”
Shaidorov finished with a career-best 291.58 points to give his nation its first gold medal of the Winter Games, while Yuma Kagiyama earned his second consecutive Olympic silver medal and Japanese teammate Shun Sato took bronze.
Then there was Malinin, who fell all the way to eighth place. He finished with 264.49 points, ending a two-plus-year unbeaten streak that covered 14 full competitions, including two consecutive world championships that he won with ease.
“Honestly, yeah, I was not expecting that,” he said. “I felt going into this competition I was so ready. I just felt ready going on that ice. I think maybe that might have been the reason is I was too confident it was going to go well.”
Much of Malinin’s journey in Milan had felt a little bit off.
He was beaten by Kagiyama in the short program of the team event, later acknowledging that the pressure of competing in the Olympics had started to get to him. And he still wasn’t quite his dominant self despite a head-to-head win against Sato in the team free skate, which clinched the second consecutive gold medal for the Americans in the event.
But by the time of his individual short program Tuesday night, Malinin’s fearless swagger and unrivaled spunk was back. He took a five-point lead over Kagiyama and Adam Siao Him Fa of France that seemed insurmountable going into Friday night.
Malinin decided to practice early in the day at U.S. Figure Skating’s alternate training base in Bergamo, just outside of Milan, allowing him to escape the Olympic bubble and avoid having to sit in the arena all night. And he was the picture of calm throughout his warmup, never once falling in all of his practice jumps while wearing his glittering black and gold ensemble.
Then came a performance that might well haunt Malinin for the rest of his career.
He opened with a quad flip, one of a record-tying seven in his planned program, then appeared to be going after the quad axel only he has ever landed in competition but had to bail out. He recovered to land a quad lutz — and then the problems really began.
Malinin only doubled a planned quad loop, throwing his timing off. He fell on a quad lutz, preventing him from doing the second half of the quad lutz-triple toe loop combination that would have earned him big points. And in his final jumping pass, which was supposed to be a high-scoring quad salchow-triple axel, Malinin could muster only a double salchow — and he fell on that.
By the time the music stopped, Malinin was left trying to mask the sorrow for a crowd that included Nathan Chen, the 2022 Olympic champion; seven-time Olympic gold medalist gymnast Simone Biles; and actor Jeff Goldblum and his wife, Emilie.
Shaidorov was just as shocked as everyone as the realization hit that he had won the gold medal.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/13/olympics-ilia-malinin-falls-twice-no-medal/
Photos: The best images from Day 7 of the 2026 Winter Olympics
United States’ Ilia Malinin reacts after competing in the men’s single skating after falling at the Olympics at Milano Ice Skating Arena on Feb. 13, 2026, in Milan, Italy. (Sarah Stier/Getty)
Australia’s Josie Baff (17) celebrates her gold medal win past bronze medalist Italy’s Michela Moioli (6) and Switzerland’s Noemie Wiedmer (3) compete during the women’s snowboard cross finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy, Feb. 13, 2026. (Lindsey Wasson/AP)
Vladimir Semirunniy of Poland competes in the men’s 10,000 meters speedskating race at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Feb. 13, 2026. (Ben Curtis/AP)
Britain’s gold medalist Matt Weston, left, celebrates as he arrives at the finish during a men’s skeleton run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Feb. 13, 2026. (Aijaz Rahi/AP)
Skaters warm up prior to competing in the men’s 10,000 meters speedskating race at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Feb. 13, 2026. (Ben Curtis/AP)
Mario Matikanov, of Bulgaria, walks away from the finish line area after completing the cross country skiing men’s 10km interval start free at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Tesero, Italy, Feb. 13, 2026. (Evgeniy Maloletka/AP)
Sebastian Samuelsson, of Sweden, reacts in the finish area of the men’s 10-kilometer sprint biathlon race at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Anterselva, Italy, Feb. 13, 2026. (Mosa’ab Elshamy/AP)
Sweden’s Hilda Svensson (8) and Shea Johansson (23) celebrate after Svensson scored an empty-net goal against Czechia during the third period of a women’s ice hockey quarterfinal match at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Feb. 13, 2026. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)
Donovan Carrillo of Mexico kisses the ice after competing during the men’s free skate program in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Feb. 13, 2026. (Francisco Seco/AP)
Slippers smooth the halfpipe before the men’s snowboard halfpipe final during the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in Livigno, Italy, on Feb. 13, 2026. (Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times)
China’s Zhao Dan slides down the track during a women’s skeleton run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Feb. 13, 2026. (Aijaz Rahi/AP)
United States’ Austin Florian reacts as he arrives at the finish during a men’s skeleton run at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Feb. 13, 2026. (Alessandra Tarantino/AP)
Maxim Naumov, of United States, falls in the Men’s single skating at the Olympics at Milano Ice Skating Arena on Feb. 13, 2026 in Milan, Italy. (Jared C. Tilton/2026 Getty)
Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo of Norway competes in the men’s 10km interval start free at the Olympic games at Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium on Feb. 13, 2026, in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Alex Slitz/Getty)
Christopher Grotheer, of Germany, competes during men’s skeleton heat Four at the Olympics at Cortina Sliding Centre on Feb. 13, 2026, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. (Al Bello/Getty)
Yu-Hsiang Li of Taiwan competes in the men’s figure skating free skate program during the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, Feb. 13, 2026. (Vincent Alban/The New York Times)
Vladimir Samoilov of Poland competes during the men’s free skate program in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Feb. 13, 2026. (Natacha Pisarenko/AP)
A judge says she’ll rule that the US still cannot force states to provide data on SNAP recipients
President Donald Trump’s administration cannot force states to hand over detailed information on people who have applied for or received aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a judge said in a tentative ruling Friday.
San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney last year blocked the U.S. Department of Agriculture from requiring states to provide the data, including on the immigration status of people who receive benefits and applicants, after 22 states sued over the policy.
The department kept pushing for it, telling states in December that it would stop paying state administrative costs for the program if they didn’t comply. It also issued new protocols for securing the data, which the states rejected.
The federal government said the previous ruling did not apply to its latest demands.
Chesney said during a hearing Friday that she intends to issue an order that says the federal government cannot act on its letters to the states from last year.
The Trump administration contends that the information is needed to stamp out fraud and waste, which it asserts is a major problem in the nation’s biggest food aid program.
The states argued that the Agriculture Department could share the data with immigration enforcement authorities, which they say would be illegal.
SNAP is a major part of the U.S. social safety net, helping about 42 million Americans, about 1 in 8, buy groceries. People in the country illegally are not eligible for benefits.
Most states, including one that sued — Nevada — have complied with the federal government’s request. Kansas has not complied, but also has not joined the lawsuit. All the states involved in the lawsuit, besides Nevada, have Democratic governors.
The administration has not released detailed information on the data submitted by states, but says it shows higher levels of fraud than previously believed.
The battle over SNAP records is one of several areas where the administration has sought to cut off some federal funding to states led by Democrats, often in the name of preventing fraud.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/13/judge-snap-recipients-data/
NYPD Told To Stop Ejecting Homeless From NYC Subways Due To Freezing Temperatures
NYPD Told To Stop Ejecting Homeless From NYC Subways Due To Freezing Temperatures
NYPD officers were ordered to stand down on enforcement in the subway system during last weekend’s deep freeze, halting removals and holding off on cracking down as windchills dropped below zero, according to ABC.
“We put a complete stop to all ejections, even people who could potentially be causing problems in the subway system,” said Alex Crohn, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Strategic Initiatives.
That decision emerged during a City Council oversight hearing examining how the Mamdani administration managed more than two weeks of snow and dangerous cold. Eighteen people died outside during that stretch, at least 15 of them believed to be from hypothermia.
Council members pressed officials on why more people weren’t compelled to seek shelter.
“How can a person refusing to come indoors in freezing weather where they are obviously at great risk of potentially dying, not be assessed to be a danger to themselves?” asked City Council Speaker Julie Menin.
Department of Social Services Commissioner Molly Wasow Park said the legal threshold is specific and was followed, adding that 52 people were taken indoors against their will.
“Are they exhibiting signs of mental illness and are they a danger to themselves or others? Right. So, if an individual is completely lucid, they are dry, they are wearing enough layers of clothing and they do not want to come inside. They have the right not to come inside,” Park said.
She also told lawmakers the cold intensified quickly over a weekend, leaving many caught off guard.
“We had this very dangerous situation happening very quickly on a weekend and I think it caught people by surprise,” Park said.
Advocates acknowledged some of the city’s efforts but highlighted breakdowns, including a case described by Coalition for the Homeless leader David Giffen.
“We saw one individual who was discharged from a city hospital out to the streets. And that person a few hours later was found dead,” Giffen said. “That never should have happened. Hospitals should not be releasing people or discharging them if they’re inpatients, out to the streets.”
City officials testified that about 600 outreach workers are assigned to engage people living outside, though 10 to 20 deaths linked to extreme weather still occur each year. Several council members suggested that boosting staffing levels could reduce that toll.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/13/2026 – 17:20
Donald Trump says change in power in Iran ‘would be the best thing that could happen’
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday that a change in power in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen” as the U.S. administration weighs whether to take military action against Tehran.
Trump made the comments shortly after visiting with troops at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, and after he confirmed earlier in the day that he’s deploying a second aircraft carrier group to the Mideast.
“It seems like that would be the best thing that could happen,” Trump said in an exchange with reporters when asked about pressing for the ouster of the Islamic clerical rule in Iran. “For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking.”
The president has suggested in recent weeks that his top priority is for Iran to further scale back its nuclear program, but on Friday he suggested that’s only one aspect of concessions the U.S. needs Iran to make.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who traveled to Washington this week for talks with Trump, has been pressing for any deal to include steps to neutralize Iran’s ballistic missile program and end its funding for proxy groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
“If we do it, that would be the least of the mission,” Trump said of targeting Tehran’s nuclear program, which suffered significant setbacks in U.S. military strikes last year.
Iran has insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Before the June war, Iran had been enriching uranium up to 60% purity, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels.
Trump said the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, is being sent from the Caribbean Sea to the Mideast to join other warships and military assets the U.S. has built up in the region.
The planned deployment comes just days after Trump suggested another round of talks with the Iranians was at hand. Those negotiations didn’t materialize as one of Tehran’s top security officials visited Oman and Qatar this week and exchanged messages with U.S. intermediaries.
“In case we don’t make a deal, we’ll need it,” Trump told reporters about the second carrier. He added, “It’ll be leaving very soon.”
Already, Gulf Arab nations have warned any attack could spiral into another regional conflict in a Mideast still reeling from the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, Iranians are beginning to hold 40-day mourning ceremonies for the thousands killed in Tehran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests last month, adding to the internal pressure faced by the sanctions-battered Islamic Republic.
The Ford, whose new deployment was first reported by The New York Times, will join the USS Abraham Lincoln and its accompanying guided-missile destroyers, which have been in the region for over two weeks. U.S. forces already have shot down an Iranian drone that approached the Lincoln on the same day last week that Iran tried to stop a U.S.-flagged ship in the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump in exchanges with reporters on Friday still offered measured hope that a deal can be struck with Iran.
“Give us the deal that they should have given us the first time,” Trump said about how U.S. military action can be avoided. “If they give us the right deal, we won’t do that.”
Ford had been part of Venezuela strike force
It would be a quick turnaround for the Ford, which Trump sent from the Mediterranean Sea to the Caribbean last October as the administration built up a huge military presence in the lead-up to the surprise raid last month that captured then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
It also appears to be at odds with the Trump administration’s national security and defense strategies, which put an emphasis on the Western Hemisphere over other parts of the world.
In response to questions about the movement of the Ford, U.S. Southern Command said U.S. forces in Latin America will continue to “counter illicit activities and malign actors in the Western Hemisphere.”
“While force posture evolves, our operational capability does not,” Col. Emanuel Ortiz, spokesperson for Southern Command, said in a statement. U.S. “forces remain fully ready to project power, defend themselves, and protect U.S. interests in the region.”
The Ford strike group will bring more than 5,000 additional troops to the Middle East but few capabilities or weapons that don’t already exist within the Lincoln group. Having two carriers will double the number of aircraft and munitions that are available to military planners and Trump.
Given the Ford’s current position in the Caribbean, it will likely be weeks before it is off the coast of Iran.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to use force to compel Iran to agree to constrain its nuclear program and earlier over Tehran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests.
Iran and the United States held indirect talks in Oman a week ago, and Trump later warned Tehran that failure to reach an agreement with his administration would be “very traumatic.” Similar talks last year ultimately broke down in June as Israel launched what became a 12-day war on Iran that included the U.S. bombing Iranian nuclear sites.
Asked by a reporter about the new negotiations, Trump said Friday that “I think they’ll be successful. And if they’re not, it’s going to be a bad day for Iran, very bad.”
Long carrier deployments affect crews and ships
The USS Ford, meanwhile, first set sail in late June 2025, which means the crew will soon have been deployed for eight months. While it is unclear how long the ship will remain in the Middle East, the move sets the crew up for an unusually long deployment.
The Navy’s top officer, Adm. Daryl Caudle, told reporters last month that keeping the Ford longer at sea would be “highly disruptive” and that he was “a big non-fan of extensions.”
Carriers are typically deployed for six or seven months. “When it goes past that, that disrupts lives, it disrupts things … funerals that were planned, marriages that were planned, babies that were planned,” Caudle said.
He said extending the Ford would complicate its maintenance and upkeep by throwing off the schedule of repairs, adding more wear and tear, and increasing the equipment that will need attention.
For comparison, the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower had a nine-month deployment to the Middle East in 2023 and 2024, when it spent much of its time engaged with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The ship entered maintenance in early 2025 as scheduled, but it blew past its planned completion date of July and remains in the shipyard to this day.
Caudle told The Associated Press in a recent interview that his vision is to deploy smaller, newer ships when possible instead of consistently turning to huge aircraft carriers.
Madhani reported from West Palm Beach, Fla., and Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writer Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/13/trump-change-in-power-in-iran/
Modrić salva al AC Milan con gol tardío de la victoria 2-1 ante Pisa
PISA, Italia (AP) — Luka Modrić marcó el gol de la victoria en la recta final del partido para que el AC Milan venciera el viernes 2-1 a Pisa y achicar a cinco puntos la brecha con el líder Inter de Milán en la Serie A.
El Inter se enfrentará al cuarto Juventus el sábado.
El Milan venía de empatar en tres de sus últimos seis partidos, incluidos los disputados contra los atribulados Fiorentina y Genoa, y le costó más de la cuenta un encuentro ante el último tabla y que apenas ha ganado un duelo de liga en toda la temporada.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek abrió el marcador justo antes del descanso, cuando se elevó sin marca para rematar de cabeza un centro desde la derecha, y Niclas Füllkrug falló un penal.
Sin embargo, Pisa sacudió a los Rossoneri cuando el volante chileno Felipe Loyola empató de tiro libre a los 71 minutos.
Modrić, el ex centrocampista del Real Madrid, acudió al rescate de Milan a seis minutos del final, cuando se coló en el área y empujó a la red el tanto del triunfo.
El Milan acabó con 10 hombres por la expulsión del volante francés Adrien Rabiot.
Pisa está igualado en puntos con Verona. Fiorentina tiene tres más que ambos equipos y Lecce estaba otros tres puntos por encima.
Los equipos de Milán medirán en el derbi de la ciudad en San Siro el 8 de marzo.
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Deportes AP: https://apnews.com/hub/deportes
Midterm Palpitations
Midterm Palpitations
Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,
Recent regional special elections have seen Democratic candidates win a number of special election races.
Now energized left-wing politicos remind the nation daily that every incumbent president, except three over the last century, has suffered substantial midterm losses in Congress.
Polls show Trump suffering an average 11-point negative unfavorability rating.
So Democrats promise to soon stop all new legislation and end Trump and his counterrevolution itself.
But the left will never offer any alternative agenda on the economy, the border, crime, or foreign policy.
Instead, the new Democrat-Socialist Party views the Biden disaster of 2021-2024 not as a result of his puppeteers’ toxic policies of open borders, 21 percent aggregate inflation, dead-end green energy subsidies, DEI mandates, trans fixations, and an appeasing foreign policy that led to wars abroad and emboldened China.
Instead, they now blame those catastrophic years on Biden’s own enfeebled state—as if he were merely a hapless, debilitated messenger for their otherwise superb radical message.
So absent a positive agenda, Democrats will simply run all their state and federal campaigns as if Trump, their Satanic monster, is on every ballot.
Their Trump obsessions result in three now well-worn strategies.
The first, of course, is still more chaos.
The left believes that the unending 2020 riots cost Trump the election.
Ever since, they have sought to concoct a nihilist replay—whether the Tesla hysterias, the perpetual threats of government shutdowns, tough-guy talk of open insurrection against the federal government, or the current, performative-art, anti-ICE violence in Minneapolis.
They concede most Americans still support Trump’s closed borders and legal-only immigration, but hope they want a return to “normalcy” even more.
The more violence, Nazi-invective, and sheer craziness the left can instill—storming church services, ramming ICE vehicles, taking over the streets, or boasting of armed resistance—the more they believe that voters will blame not them, the instigators, but Trump, the target of their insurrectionary madness.
In Democrats’ blinkered reckoning, voters supposedly would prefer 10,000 illegal aliens methodically and daily swarming the border instead of seeing Minneapolis in utter neo-Confederate revolt.
Second, Democrats seize on every Trump art-of-the-deal excess or coarse putdown.
They scream that narcissistic Trump’s new ballroom has wrecked the White House. Or madman Trump was on the verge of fighting our NATO brethren in Greenland. Or cruel Trump wrecked our relationship with the lovable and blameless Canadians.
Democrats grant that voters sincerely like Trump’s secure border, the new trade agreements that correct past asymmetries, a rearming NATO, a defanged Iran, and the end to Maduro’s communist thugocracy—but not Trump’s messy art-of-the-deal means to achieve those desirable ends.
They scream that Trump talked crazily of making Canada a 51st state, not that it was finally shocked into promising to pay what it owed back in NATO contributions, securing its side of the border, and addressing its massive trade surpluses with the US.
So, Trump needs to avoid the very melodramas the left wants to exploit, which detract from his own undeniable accomplishments and the Democrats’ previous disastrous record.
Third, Democrats still rely on their ossified partnerships with the media, academia, and popular culture to mouth the old talking points.
So we are told ad nauseam that Trump caused the “affordability” crisis.
Or Trump is still Putin’s puppet.
Or Trump was an Epstein groupie.
Or Trump’s trade war crashed the economy.
Behind this stale Democrat boilerplate lies a deep fear that the Nietzschean Trump, just as he beat all their lawfare ambushes, will also do the impossible and avoid losing the Congress in November.
And they should fear.
Trump’s catalysts for a booming 2026 economy are already in place.
No one can now stop massive deregulation, new tax cuts and incentives, recalibrated tariffs, unprecedented foreign investment, record energy development, and the new emerging technologies.
All that is needed before the midterms is not controversial new initiatives, but more focus on the current boom in GDP, lower inflation, and increased purchasing power—all in contrast to Biden’s inflation disaster.
Voters still support closed borders and deportations of criminals and the millions who swarmed in under Biden.
But the best way to remind them of a secure border is to concentrate on partnering with red and purple state and local law enforcement for the next few months.
Each week, the thousands of systematically deported criminals in these jurisdictions will contrast with the thousands of violent offenders who are sanctuaried and protected in failed blue states.
And without the smokescreen of the ICE psychodramas, there are a lot of Democrat fears—like the vast Somali fraud in Minnesota, the even greater welfare scandals emerging in California, and the antics and verbiage of the hard left, like Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and the herky-jerky Gavin Newsom, who turned California’s natural paradise into a manmade purgatory.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/13/2026 – 17:00
LeBron James vuelve para su 21er Juego de Estrellas y sigue en el foco de la NBA a los 41 años
Por GREG BEACHAM
INGLEWOOD, California, EE.UU. (AP) — Durante dos sólidas décadas, LeBron James fue un gran atractivo en cada fin de semana del Juego de Estrellas de la NBA.
Fue titular con 20 años en su debut en el Juego de Estrellas en 2005, y se convirtió en el Jugador Más Valioso más joven del partido un año después. Sin pedir nunca quedar fuera por lesión o agotamiento mientras sus compañeros de menor cartel se deleitaban con sus descansos del trajín de la temporada regular, James cumplió con su comparecencia en cada vitrina de mitad de temporada hasta 2025, cuando su cuerpo de 40 años sencillamente no le permitió jugar.
Resulta que aquel fin de semana en San Francisco no fue el final de una era, después de todo.
James, ahora de 41 años, regresará este fin de semana para el Juego de Estrellas en el Intuit Dome, al sur del centro de Los Ángeles, y pasará otro domingo de febrero bajo los reflectores mientras amplía sus récords de más selecciones al Juego de Estrellas (22) y más apariciones (21) en la historia de la NBA.
James, el máximo anotador en la historia de la NBA y en la historia del Juego de Estrellas, claramente no considera el All-Star una obligación onerosa, incluso cuando ha tenido que volar por todo el país para cumplir con sus apariciones. Sin embargo, la estrella de los Lakers de Los Ángeles también está encantada de que este fin de semana del Juego de Estrellas lo pasará en su propia casa, donde puede concentrar sus horas libres en aprovechar al máximo el tiempo que le queda, tanto en esta temporada como en su incomparable carrera.
“Tratando de ver cómo descansar un poco. Obviamente, el domingo será domingo. Súper agradecido por eso, por ser parte del fin de semana del Juego de Estrellas y por ser parte del gran partido. Y luego (voy a) tratar de encontrar algo de descanso”, comentó James el jueves por la noche, cuando le preguntaron por sus planes para el fin de semana.
James llegó al receso con una actuación que ejemplificó por qué su más reciente selección al Juego de Estrellas no fue una reverencia a una leyenda del baloncesto —incluso a una que ya se ha perdido 18 partidos por lesión esta temporada, lo que lo descalifica para ser considerado para una 22da selección consecutiva como All-NBA.
Durante la victoria de los Lakers por 124-104 sobre los Mavericks de Dallas el jueves por la noche, James se convirtió en el jugador de mayor edad en conseguir un triple-doble. Sumó 28 puntos, 12 asistencias y 10 rebotes para el triple-doble número 123 de su carrera y una de sus mejores actuaciones de la temporada con los Lakers (33-21).
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Deportes en español AP: https://apnews.com/hub/deportes
