GLENDALE, Ariz. — Hagen Smith isn’t setting any expectations in regard to the possibility of making his major-league debut at some point this season.

“Go out there and compete, that’s all I’m going to do,” Smith said Tuesday at Camelback Ranch.

The 2024 first-round pick is part of the next wave of Chicago White Sox prospects, along with fellow left-hander Noah Schultz. Smith and Schultz — a first-round pick in 2022 — are at Sox camp as nonroster invitees.

“We know they’re getting closer, just want to make sure they’re establishing all the things in the weight room, in the training room and that we’re able to support their continued growth knowing that they’re going to be coming here at some point,” manager Will Venable said of Smith and Schultz on Tuesday. “When that is, we’ll see but really just about establishing the foundation for them to carry their performance throughout the year.”

Column: Spring training renews optimism for the Cubs and White Sox — no matter where you’re watching

Smith, 22, went 3-3 with a 3.57 ERA in 20 starts for Double-A Birmingham last season. He had 108 strikeouts and 56 walks in 75 2/3 innings. Smith also participated in the Arizona Fall League, compiling a 2.57 ERA, 21 strikeouts and six walks in 14 innings over five starts. He recently was ranked the No. 72 prospect in baseball by MLB.com.

“I feel like I got a lot better this offseason and I want to prove it,” Smith said.

Schultz, 22, went 4-5 with a 4.68 ERA in 17 starts between Birmingham and Triple-A Charlotte. The Oswego East product had 76 strikeouts in 73 innings. MLB.com ranked Schultz as the No. 49 prospect in baseball.

Schultz said he has a ton of goals for the season, with staying healthy the top priority. Overall, Schultz is focused on “getting better every day, getting 1% better.”

This is the second spring invite for Schultz and Smith. Going through the process last year was helpful.

“Last year was new,” Schultz said Tuesday. “It’s cool a lot of the guys are returning, it’s good to see them.”

White Sox pitcher Hagen Smith, center, walks with other pitchers after running during spring training at Camelback Ranch on Feb. 15, 2025, in Glendale, Ariz.(Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)

This spring, the Sox want to see the two continue to build up.

“Obviously, they’re going to start most likely in Triple A, and so we want to make sure that they’re on their path,” Venable said Wednesday. “Hagen is a little bit behind because of the Fall League — and so his ramp-up will be thoughtful, and we’ll make sure that he’s in a good spot to get going in his Triple-A season to be pitching every fifth day and eventually with us in Chicago.

“He’s in a good spot, and if it was up to him, he’d be full-bore. But he’s just maybe a week or two behind where the other guys are with the ramp-up.”

Erick Fedde, back with the Chicago White Sox, aims to return ‘brick by brick’ to his 2024 form

While Smith and Schultz are working their way through the Sox minor-league system, right-hander Drew Thorpe is working his way back from Tommy John surgery.

“Feel all right,” Thorpe said Thursday morning. “Hit some road bumps, so slowed down a little bit. Every surgery is different, so taking it day by day and we’ll get there when we get there.

“Some pain in there building up, slowed it down.”

Thorpe is hoping to throw off the mound in “the next three weeks or so.”

“I don’t think it’s worry,” Thorpe said. “I think it’s just every surgery is a little bit different. You can’t really look at other guys and say ‘Why am I not in that position?’ The body heals differently.

“I don’t think it’s worry. Just a slower pace, which sucks, but at the end of the day I would rather slow it down and be fully ready to go when I’m ready instead of trying to push through it and have some problems once we get closer off the mound.”

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Thorpe went 3-3 with a 5.48 ERA in nine starts for the Sox in 2024 after being acquired as part of the trade that sent Dylan Cease to the San Diego Padres.

Late last March, the Sox announced that Thorpe would undergo surgery — costing him the 2025 season. Thorpe said he had been throwing at 120 feet and “was feeling it a little bit, so went and saw (Dr. Keith) Meister last week.”

“Said the ligament looks good, everything looks good in there,” Thorpe said. “Dealing with some flexor stuff so slowing it down a little bit. We’ll see how the next couple of weeks go.

“It is tendonitis. Nothing structurally wrong in there. Everything looks good in there. So, obviously a good sign. It just slows me down a little bit which is frustrating but day by day we’ll get there.”

Thorpe, 25, is eager to take the next step.

“You think about it every day,” he said. “But not much you can do about it. Just have to slowly keep pushing forward.”

Spring broadcast schedule

The Sox released their spring broadcast schedule Thursday, including nine games on CHSN and 10 on WMVP-AM 1000 (ESPN Chicago radio).

The list of games are: Feb. 20 at Cubs (ESPN Chicago), Feb. 21 vs. Athletics (CHSN and ESPN Chicago), Feb. 22 vs. Milwaukee (CHSN), Feb. 27 vs. Texas (ESPN Chicago and whitesox.com), Feb. 28 at Cleveland (CHSN — Guardians broadcast), March 1 at Cubs (ESPN Chicago), March 2 vs. San Francisco (ESPN Chicago and whitesox.com), March 7 at Seattle (CHSN — Mariners broadcast and ESPN Chicago, March 8 vs. Kansas City (ESPN Chicago and whitesox.com), March 13 vs. Cubs (CHSN and ESPN Chicago), March 14 vs. Dodgers (CHSN and ESPN Chicago), March 19 at San Diego (CHSN — Padres broadcast), March 19 vs. Arizona (ESPN Chicago), March 21 vs. Dodgers (Spring Breakout Game, CHSN) and March 22 vs. Seattle (CHSN).

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/12/chicago-white-sox-hagen-smith-noah-schultz/ 

Fifty years ago, Highland Park native Jeff Perry was one of a group of young people who decided to start a theater company in the basement of a church in Highland Park. That humble beginning was the opening act for the internationally acclaimed Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

Perry is in town helping the company celebrate its landmark fiftieth season by playing the role of Captain in Conor McPherson’s adaptation of August Strindberg’s “The Dance of Death.”

Highland Park native Jeff Perry is a cofounder of Steppenwolf Theatre Company, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary season. (Sandro Miller)

Shortly after the opening night, Perry, who has acted and directed in over 40 Steppenwolf productions, took time to reminisce about the theater company.

“I’m grateful and emotional and sentimental, proud, amazed,” Perry said about Steppenwolf celebrating its 50th season. “In American theater, the experiments of artists gathering together and trying to do their art and govern themselves in a communal way is just as hard as democracy.”

He noted that the Steppenwolf artists have a “strong tendency in our group DNA” to want to focus on marginalized people.

Perry indicated you can observe that in the theater company’s choice of plays, such as “The Glass Menagerie” or “The Grapes of Wrath.” He added that they also often focus on dysfunctional families, as in “August: Osage County” and “Purpose.”

For a theater company to exist a long time, several factors are in play, he indicated.

“You have to have a lot of luck when it comes to the chemistry of the people, when it comes to the tenacity or stubbornness,” Perry said.

The actor playfully suggested that when they started the theater company, their goal was “to change the face of American theater.”

In a more serious vein, Perry said that, in the beginning, “all we knew was that we found out in school that we loved being together. We got a kick out of picking plays together, putting them on, and directing each other, and trying to get better.”

They were serious about their art but took time to have fun.

Perry reported, “Just to burn off energy, we’d stay after play rehearsal in the basement in Highland Park and turn on ‘Blinded by the Light’ at the impossible decibel level and just bounce off the walls and pretend to play air guitar.”

He noted that Laurie Metcalf enjoyed trying to get the other actors to lose their concentration onstage.

“She would place herself facing upstage, having just drawn a giant eyebrow from one side of her face to the other side, knowing that one of her buddies, say Tom Irwin, might have to launch into a monologue while looking at her,” Perry recalled.

They left that basement for Chicago in 1980 and built their current space at 1650 N. Halsted in 1991. Their company has grown and now consists of 49 ensemble members. Steppenwolf has won numerous awards, including Tony Awards, the National Medal of Arts, and the 2025 Pulitzer Prize, and has gained acclaim throughout the world.

With 40-plus Steppenwolf plays on his resume, it was nearly impossible for Perry to choose a favorite.

“There were so many beautiful ones,” he declared. Perry, however, was particularly proud of a production of “The Glass Menagerie,” in the company’s second or third year that was directed by H.E. Baccus.

“If you’re going to do something that well known, you had a good reason,” Perry said. He observed that the play by Tennessee Williams is actually autobiographical, and Baccus’s vision drew elements from the actual experiences of Williams’ characters.

“There was a great love for the story but also a great kind of search for its authenticity,” Perry said.

Another Perry favorite was directed by Tina Landau, who Perry said, was able to “unearth all the beauties of William Saroyan’s ‘The Time of Your Life.’”

Although Perry is obviously pleased to perform during the company’s 50th season, he declared, “I’m ready to return to Steppenwolf any season, whether it’s the 49th or the 51st season.”

He praised “The Dance of Death” as “remarkably funny.”

As for his character, a Captain named Edgar, “Edgar has a great big fearful kind of victimhood,” Perry said. The character is also, “somewhat loving, affectionate, somewhat witty. His biggest strengths are narcissism and trying to monopolize conversation. That’s what Edgar does really well.”

“The Dance of Death” runs through March 22 at Steppenwolf’s Downstairs Theater, 1650 N. Halsted St. Tickets are $20-$148.50. For reservations, call (312) 335-1650 or visit steppenwolf.org.

Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/12/highland-park-jeff-perry-steppenwolf-theatre/ 

The city of Aurora will hold a wreath-laying ceremony on Sunday to honor those who lost their lives in the mass shooting at the Henry Pratt Co. facility in the city seven years ago.

On Feb. 15, 2019, at the Henry Pratt Co. manufacturing plant in Aurora, an employee who had just been fired pulled out a pistol, which he was not legally allowed to own, and began shooting. He killed three people who were in the meeting with him and two others elsewhere in the plant, according to past reporting.

In addition to the five Pratt employees he killed, the gunman also wounded six people — five police officers and another Pratt employee — before he was killed in a shootout with the police. The manhunt through the factory took 66 minutes, with up to 300 officers and eight SWAT teams responding to the incident.

Aurora’s wreath-laying ceremony will take place Sunday at 1 p.m. at City Hall, 44 E. Downer Place in downtown Aurora. Taking place on the seventh anniversary of the mass shooting, the ceremony is for residents to come together in solemn remembrance of those lost during the tragedy, according to an Eventbrite webpage for the ceremony.

Those interesting in attending can reserve a spot at: eventbrite.com/e/we-remember-wreath-laying-ceremony-on-the-7th-anniversary-of-henry-pratt-tickets-1982455990233

The five victims to be honored at the ceremony are Russell Beyer, Vicente Juarez, Clayton Parks, Josh Pinkard and Trevor Wehner.

Beyer was a mold operator and a union leader, whose father said had gone to bat many times for the man who ended up killing him.

Juarez was a stockroom attendant and forklift operator who is remembered as a beloved father and grandfather.

Parks was the human resources director, a loving husband and the father of a young child.

Pinkard was the plant manager and a family man who, after being shot, texted his wife that he loved her.

Wehner was a college student and a human resources intern who was killed on his first day at the job.

“They will always be the lights that endure beyond the loss,” city officials said of the victims on the Eventbrite webpage for the ceremony.

Aurora has held a remembrance event yearly on the anniversary of the mass shooting. Last year, city officials said that the ceremony was held at City Hall and not near the Pratt site, per the surviving family members’ request, because people don’t want to relive the memories at the site.

The site of the former Henry Pratt Co. manufacturing center, located at 401 S. Highland Ave., is now a distribution center for recycling company Terracycle.

rsmith@chicagotribune.com

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/12/henry-pratt-mass-shooting-seven-years-later/ 

LIVIGNO, Italy — Chloe Kim fell short in her bid to become the first Olympic snowboarder to win three consecutive gold medals, finishing second to Choi Gaon of South Korea in the women’s halfpipe Thursday.

The 17-year-old Choi dethroned the two-time defending champion with a score of 90.25 on her final run.

Kim had one more shot to get back on top, but the 25-year-old American wiped out on her last of three runs to settle for silver. Japan’s Mitsuki Ono claimed bronze.

Choi took a hard tumble on her first run before stunning Kim and the rest of the crowd gathered on a snowy night in the Italian Alps. Choi slammed into the incline of the halfpipe and slid to the middle of the course, where she remained for several minutes. After being attended to by medical staff, she rode off the course unassisted.

It wasn’t clear that she would even come back for her second run, but she did and got it down. Then came her turn down the halfpipe that was good for gold.

Choi became the youngest X Games winner in 2023 at age 14. Now the first-time Olympian is the first non-American woman to win gold in snowboarding’s premier event since Torah Bright of Australia in 2010. Kaitlyn Farrington won for the U.S. in 2014 at the Sochi Olympics, and Kim triumphed in Pyeongchang and Beijing.

Kim is not alone in letting the milestone of golds in three consecutive Winter Olympics slip away at these Games. Czech Ester Ledecka fell short in Alpine snowboarding’s parallel giant slalom, as did Austria’s Anna Gasser in big air. Both were two-time defending champions.

American snowboarding great Shaun White won three gold medals on the halfpipe but not consecutively. He won in 2006, 2010 and 2018 and finished fourth in 2014.

White was in the crowd Thursday and cringed after Kim fell on her final run. Kim’s boyfriend, Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett, was also in her cheering section, along with Snoop Dogg.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/12/olympics-chloe-kim-silver-medal-halfpipe/ 

A major benefactor of Northwestern University, Josephine Louis owned and ran Eximious, a specialty gift catalog and retail store, for a quarter century, connecting consumers with rare treasures from the United Kingdom and elsewhere.

Josephine, right, and John Louis, former U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, climb the steps to the grand ballroom at the Chicago Hilton and Towers for the Consular Ball on Oct. 31, 1987. (John Bartley/Chicago Tribune)

Louis, the wife of the U.S. ambassador to the U.K.  in the early 1980s, was known for her generosity and graciousness across all her interests and activities, said friends and family members.

“Jo was serious, passionate and completely devoted to Eximious,” said Beverly Lang, a longtime friend and Eximious colleague. “She chose product for her customers of Eximious as though they were her family. In that same vein, she treated her employees with respect, kindness and understanding.”

Louis, 95, died of natural causes Jan. 25 at a hospital in Florida, said her son, Jeffry. She was a resident of Winnetka and of Ocean Ridge, Florida. Her family also had a home on Lake Owen in northwest Wisconsin.

Born Josephine Peters in 1930 in Fort Pierce, Florida, Louis was an unabashed tomboy as a youngster, riding a pony and shooting a BB gun at spiders in the trees of their orange grove, her family said.

After graduating from Southern Seminary in Virginia, Louis attended Northwestern University, where she got a degree in theater in 1952. She then worked for a year as a copywriter for an advertising agency before marrying her husband, John J. Louis Jr., in 1953.

Louis and her husband soon settled in Winnetka, where they raised their children.

Louis’ husband first worked in advertising for a family firm and then in international marketing for the SC Johnson & Son household cleaning supplies firm, which his great-grandfather founded. He then oversaw a radio and billboard company, which merged with newspaper company Gannett in 1979, and he joined Gannett’s board of directors.

Louis had served on Northwestern’s women’s board, and as donors to Northwestern, she and her husband helped fund the construction of the university’s Theatre & Interpretation Center, which was built in 1980 and then renamed the Virginia Wadsworth Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts in 2015.

The university named the facility’s 350-seat proscenium theater after Louis, and that space is still known as the Josephine Louis Theater.

Shortly after President Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in 1981, Louis’ husband was tapped to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James — otherwise known as the U.S. ambassador to the U.K.

Louis moved with her husband to the ambassador’s residence in London, a 35-room, Georgian-style mansion known as Winfield House. For the next two years, Louis hosted royalty, politicians and dignitaries at numerous events at Winfield House during what was an eventful time in England.

It was the period when now-King Charles — then the heir apparent to the British throne — married Lady Diana Spencer, as well as an era when two ideologically similar leaders, Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, were at the helms of their respective countries.

“She couldn’t wait to go to London,” said Louis’ daughter Kimberly Stewart. “She grabbed it with both hands. It was the right place and right time for her.”

During her time in London, Louis oversaw renovations of Winfield House’s public rooms — costs underwritten by the U.S. government — and personally funded renovations of the mansion’s private living spaces.

“Redoing the house took quite a bit of time,” Louis told the Tribune in 1982.

Louis also changed the art in the public rooms, telling the Tribune that “we were in desperate need of some nice paintings.”

While in London, Louis had enjoyed shopping at a specialty gift store and catalog house on Halkin Street in London’s Belgravia area. The store was called Eximious, a word meaning “select,” “choice” or “excellent.”

She soon became an investor in Eximious and upon her return stateside in 1983 after her husband had concluded his time as ambassador, she took over the entire business, becoming its chairman and CEO.

She initially began marketing Eximious’ items via catalog, and in 1984, she moved the catalog operation from London to Chicago. The following year, she moved the operation to a warehouse and office in Winnetka’s Hubbard Woods area, and within a week she opened its first U.S. retail store at the warehouse.

“Mom started in the basement of their house and sent out a small number of catalogs at the beginning, and the business eventually got bigger and bigger, and she had a shop on Oak Street downtown, a shop at Hubbard Woods in Winnetka and an outlet at a warehouse in Northfield,” Jeffry Louis said.

Eximious had a royal warrant, a seal of approval issued to those supplying goods to royal personages, from then-Prince Charles. At Eximious, shoppers might encounter monogrammed leather and desk accessories, decorative pillows, hand-painted enamel boxes, objects for house parties and even some larger antiques with a British theme to them.

To source new items, Louis would attend trade shows and also join employees in visiting various countries looking for appropriate products. Louis also would “invent” products, dreaming up an idea and then asking a manufacturer to create it, Stewart said.

Another daughter, Tracy Merrill, worked with her mother at Eximious and called it Louis’ “passion project after leaving England.”

“Mom loved Eximious,” Merrill said. “It kept her at least as busy as the embassy work — if not busier. I had a few very happy years helping to produce her catalogs. It was a fun job as all of the photography was done in and around London.”

Louis told the Tribune in 1990 that Eximious “pretty much reflects my taste.”

“We try to be unique,” she said.

Louis wound down her business in 2009.

After her husband died in 1995, Louis was asked to serve on the board of Gannett, a role she held until retiring from the publishing company’s board in May 2000.

She also supported organizations aimed at finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, including the Wyoming-based nonprofit group Brain Chemistry Labs, which seeks to find new cures from plants, Merrill said.

In addition to spending time with her family, Louis had numerous interests. She was a member of Winnetka’s Garden Club and she served on the board of the Chicago Botanic Garden.

“Jo’s love of the (Chicago Botanic) Garden went well beyond an appreciation for its beautiful landscapes,” said Chicago Botanic Garden CEO and President Jean Franczyk.

“She had deep curiosity about our plant conservation science work, always wanting to know more about rare plant conservation, plant genetics and prescribed burns in restoration areas,” Franczyk said. “She also knew that time spent in gardens and green space had huge mental and physical health benefits and she was an early champion for our work in this space. ‘Remember accessibility,’ she would often remind us.”

With her husband, Louis also embarked on eight safari adventures across Africa, long before the existence of established camps or tourism. And she was an avid golfer who had not grown up playing the sport but secretly took daily lessons for two years to be able to keep up with her husband. Louis was a member of Shoreacres in Lake Bluff, Indian Hill Club in Winnetka and Glen View Club located in Golf, Illinois.

Louis also enjoyed spending summers at her family’s longtime getaway on Lake Owen in Wisconsin. And she enjoyed playing bridge with friends in Ocean Ridge.

“She was so positive about everything. There was no limit to her generosity of spirit,” said Virginia “Ginny” Adams, a longtime friend and fellow bridge player. “And she was just the hostess supreme. When she hosted, she treated all of us like she would have treated the queen of England. She saw everyone’s needs quietly without anyone knowing.”

In addition to her son and daughters, Louis is survived by 12 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

A celebration of life is being planned for Florida.

Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/12/josephine-louis-eximious-obituary/ 

Hundreds of Portage High School students voiced their protest of Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions Thursday morning, walking out of classes to do so.

The students marched around the football field, chanting slogans including “ICE out,” “No ICE” and “No justice, no peace.”

Students at high schools in Griffith and Munster held protests as well, though late Wednesday, ahead of Munster’s walkout, police and school officials responded to a social media threat to “shoot up the school.”

The students in Northwest Indiana joined a growing movement across the Chicago area. Students at Hammond Central also staged a walkout Monday, as have students at other schools throughout the region.

Some of the students in Portage slipped away from the main group, returning to the school and approaching the front of the school, where passersby on U.S. 6 and Airport Road honked their horns in support.

A pro-Trump flag blew onto the roadway but was picked up by a police officer after at least one person drove over it.

Portage High School students react to a honking car as they march along U.S. 6 as they participate in an anti-ICE walkout on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (Kyle Telechan/for the Post-Tribune)

Among the signs the student protesters held were ones that read, “Immigrants built America,” “We are not savages or animals,” “They blame immigrants so we don’t blame billionaires,” “Catch us at work because you never see us begging for money,” “Hitler started with mass deportation,” “You can’t love the culture but hate the people” and others.

The protest was led and organized by students, Portage Township Schools Communications Director Melissa Deavers said. Not all students participated. The ones who did were marked absent for the classes they didn’t attend.

A large police presence and staff protected the students from any interaction with the public. Journalists were not allowed to interview the students at the scene.

On Wednesday, PHS student Belen Contreras emailed information about the walkout.

“This walkout is being organized to speak out against ICE brutality and to stand in solidarity with immigrant families who are too often silenced, targeted, or ignored. For many students, this issue is not political, it is personal. It affects our families, our friends and our sense of safety in our own community,” Contreras said.

“Students will participate peacefully by holding posters and flags that represent who we are and what we stand for. We will also have microphones so students can share their stories, fears and hopes, and so our voices can be heard beyond our school walls,” the email said.

No personal stories could be heard outside the football field.

Portage High School students march through the school’s football field during an anti-ICE walkout on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (Kyle Telechan/for the Post-Tribune)

“By walking out of class, we are choosing to teach a different lesson, one about humanity, equality and the importance of speaking up when something is wrong. We are hoping to raise awareness, spark conversation, and remind people that students care deeply about justice and the world we are inheriting,” Contreras’ email said.

Portage students participate in the No Place for Hate campaign, begun at Portage Township Schools and later spread to the business community through the Greater Portage Chamber of Commerce. The campaign’s intent is to build character through the critical values of responsibility, fairness, honesty, respect and compassion.

The students aren’t alone in speaking out against ICE. A resistance movement is beginning in Valparaiso following an informational session that drew so many people recently, the room was filled to capacity and many people had to be turned away.

On Thursday, border czar Tom Homan announced the federal immigration agents would phase out operations in Minnesota, where agents in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area arrested more than 4,000 people.

The Trump administration has called the arrested people “dangerous criminal aliens,” but many people with no criminal records, including children and American citizens, have also been detained.

“The surge is leaving Minneapolis safer,” Homan said. ICE agents killed two Americans there amid massive protests and criticism of ICE agents’ tactics.

Griffith

To shouts of “I love you! I love everyone!” at least 100 Griffith High students also staged a short walkout Thursday morning, walking to the south end of the track and soccer field before turning around. School administrators, as well as several Griffith Police officers and a Lake County officer, patrolled the area to make sure everything remained safe.

At least 100 Griffith High School students staged a short walkout Thursday morning, joining other schools in Lake and Porter Counties. (Photo provided)

Griffith Public Schools Superintendent Leah Dumezich said in a statement that students used their lunch and study periods for the walkout, not class time. She commended them for remaining peaceful.

“We respect students’ rights to express themselves in a lawful and peaceful manner while maintaining an orderly learning environment,” Dumezich said. “The event remained peaceful, and school operations continued as scheduled.

“Griffith Public Schools remains committed to providing a safe, supportive, and inclusive environment for all students.”

Kelly Peck, a member of harm-reduction organization Hope Alliance NWI, was leaving a meeting with GPS school officials when the walkout happened. She, too, was impressed by the kids.

“They were using their right to protest. The kids were all respectful, and they proved their point. It was beautiful,” she said.

Munster

Ahead of Munster’s planned walkout on Thursday, administrators and police responded to a social media threat to “shoot up the school.”

Around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, police received word of the threat on Snapchat, according to a Munster Police news release. The student who made the threat was identified and arrested at his home. Police said he was taken to the Lake County Juvenile Detention Center ahead of a scheduled magistrate hearing.

Before the threat, Munster administrators offered students the opportunity to protest indoors — at either the high school fieldhouse or the middle school cafeteria.

Several dozen Munster students left the school to protest ICE in front of the Munster branch of the Lake County Library as well as at the intersection of Ridge Road and Calumet Avenue. (Photo provided)

At least 30 kids left school grounds to demonstrate in front of the nearby Munster library branch on Calumet Avenue.

Carrying signs reading “You can’t love the culture but not the people,” “History is screaming — Listen!” and “ICE puts lettuce and tomatoes on their tacos” while songs like Bad Bunny’s “EoO” played on a portable speaker, students chanted and celebrated supportive honks from passing vehicles. A student who didn’t wish to be named said they exited the high school on the east side since the doors closest to the library were locked.

Parents were on hand to supervise, though some had called their kids out of school due to the social media threats. One parent shared screenshots of the threat along with other racist messages — including a drawing of a Klansman — sent to students at the high school.

School Town of Munster Superintendent Matthew Hicks did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune; freelance reporter Michelle L. Quinn contributed.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/12/northwest-indiana-student-walkouts/ 

Federal Judge Blocks Hegseth’s Censure Of Sen. Mark Kelly

Tyler Durden
Thu, 02/12/2026 – 15:45

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/federal-judge-blocks-hegseths-censure-sen-mark-kelly 

Zelensky Demands ‘Specific Date’ For EU Accession, Spooking Brussels

Tyler Durden
Thu, 02/12/2026 – 15:25

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/zelensky-demands-specific-date-eu-accession-spooking-brussels 

Collaboraction has opened a new, 99-seat black-box theater in the Kimball Arts Center in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood, a flexible venue with a spiffy attached cafe and lounge, ideal for stimulating pre- and post-show gatherings around the work of a progressive theater company with an explicit mission of confronting “Chicago’s most critical social issues” and seeking political change. Collaboraction refers to its theater as a House of Belonging — so you get the vibe.

The first show in the new space, which I caught last weekend, is called  “Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till,” and it is a re-creation of the 1955 trial of J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant for the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi. As most Chicagoans aware of the history of the civil rights movement know all too well, an all-white, all-male jury acquitted the two men of killing the Black teenager from Chicago and dumping his body in the river. The trial, and the subsequent revelation of how only injustice was served, was extensively covered in the seminal documentary “Eyes on the Prize” and, of course, Till’s astonishingly courageous mother, Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley (then known as Mamie Till Bradley), sparked social change of her own by insisting on an open-casket funeral in Chicago for her boy, thus showing the world the violence that was done to his body.

Brave Pullman porters carried the Chicago Defender with coverage of the funeral on trains headed south from Chicago, sparking outrage and igniting a movement.

This immersive re-creation (some members of the audience sit in the jury box) was penned from the trial transcript by G. Riley Mills and Willie Round, and it’s only a little more than an hour. There was a lot more said in that trial, and the simply staged but impressively acted show, which is co-directed by Anthony Moseley and Dana N. Anderson, makes an excellent case for its own expansion, especially one that added outside-the-courtroom context and emphasized Till-Mobley’s actions beyond the trial. Even at this length, it is a very uncomfortable experience, which is of course the intent, although I should note that the theater also goes out of its way to welcome everyone and to use the piece as part of a broader conversation that follows the show. This is not so much a traditional talkback as a constituent part of the experience and you really have to stay, short of walking out in the middle of the artistic intent.

Vintage Chicago Tribune: The death of Emmett Till and his legacy, as reported by the Tribune

I once got to spend the day with Till-Mobley before her death in 2003. (At the time, her memory did not get the local attention it deserved.) I regard that day, which is etched on my memory, as the great gift to my life from my job, as I listened to Till-Mobley, who was far more gracious and kind to me than history suggests should have been the case, talk about her boy and her life. She was at pains to say that the story of him whistling at a white woman in Money, Mississippi, was a lie; her Emmet, she told me, had a stutter and would always whistle as he spoke. She also said he visited her often in the form of a dove, and if I have ever had an experience when I saw something being described to me, that was the experience.

Such was this woman’s moral authority and grace.

This piece, which readers will of course come to based on their own history, was enough to rekindle all of that.

I feel ambivalent about whether this is a piece for young Chicagoans; on the one hand, it is a crucial part of our city’s history, on the other it is inestimably painful, even now.

This hardly was the only such trial of its era, but there is something about the arrogance of everyone involved in the defense of the clearly guilty that crystallized injustice like none other. This cast certainly makes that clear, especially a very striking young performer named Mysun Aja Wade; I hope Mills and Brown build on what they have begun here.

Chris Jones is a Tribune critic

cjones5@chicagotribune.com

Review: “Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till” (3.5 stars)

When: Through March 1

Where: Collaboraction, 1757 N. Kimball Ave

Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes (includes post-show conversation)

Tickets: $25-55 at 312-226-9633 and collaboraction.org

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/12/review-emmett-till-collaboraction/