The following items were taken from Naperville police reports and press releases. An arrest does not constitute a finding of guilt:

A 25-year-old man from Romeoville was arrested on charges of speeding 35 mph or more over the limit, driving under the influence of alcohol and driving without insurance at 6:37 a.m. Feb. 4 at South Naper Boulevard and Orleans Avenue.
A 49-year-old Naperville man was arrested on a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor at 2:45 p.m. Feb. 4 at the police station, 1350 Aurora Ave.
A 29-year-old man from Aurora was arrested on a charge of possession of a controlled substance at 3:43 p.m. Feb. 4 at North Aurora Road and Weston Ridge Drive.
A 54-year-old man from Naperville was arrested on charges of improper lane usage, possession of a controlled substance and not wearing a seat belt at 3:44 p.m. Feb. 4 at West 87th Street and Route 59.
A 30-year-old man from Aurora was arrested on a charge of identity theft not exceeding $300 at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 4 at the police station, 1350 Aurora Ave.
A 51-year-old man from Carol Stream was arrested on charges of burglary and retail theft not exceeding $300 at 6:32 p.m. Feb. 4 in the 800 block of South Route 59.
An 18-year-old man from Naperville was arrested on a warrant and on charges of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, violation of the Illinois Motor Carrier Safety Law and not having a registration light at 9:36 p.m. Feb. 4 at South Whispering Hills Drive and West Jefferson Avenue.
A 41-year-old man from Bolingbrook was arrested on a warrant at 7:05 p.m. Feb. 5 at 87th Street and Plainfield Naperville Road.
A 28-year-old woman from Naperville was arrested on a charge of possession, display or cause to be displayed any fraudulent ID card at 7:26 p.m. Feb. 5 in the 800 block of East Ogden Avenue.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/10/naperville-police-arrests-blotter-february/ 

Early primary voting underway in DuPage, Will counties

Early voting is currently available at sites in DuPage and Will counties, including at the Naperville Municipal Center, 400 S. Eagle St.

DuPage locations also include the DuPage County Fairgrounds in Wheaton, Downers Grove Village Hall, Bartlett Community Center and the Addison Township Office. Hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays and 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays, including Monday, which is Presidents Day.

Will County residents can vote early at the Will County clerk’s office, 302 N. Chicago St., Joliet. Hours are 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays through Friday, March 6. Starting March 7, weekend and early evening hours will be available.

Starting March 2, voters also can cast ballots at 23 satellite locations throughout Will County, including Naperville City Hall and the 95th Street Library, 3015 Cedar Glade Road.

Discounted memberships to Centennial Beach are on sale now through May 25. (Naperville Park District)

Discounted Centennial Beach memberships on sale

Memberships to Centennial Beach this summer are on sale and will be discounted through May 25, Naperville Park District officials said.

Beach members receive exclusive benefits, including early entry on weekdays, a 10% discount at Centennial Grill, two guest passes and coupons for other park district amenities.

After May 25, memberships will be sold at the regular season rate. The beach, located at 500 W. Jackson Ave., opens for the season on Saturday, May 23.

Memberships are available for residents and nonresidents and for children, adults, seniors and family. A “plus friends” option is available through May 25 and allows up to two additional guests to accompany a family or individual.

Memberships can be bought at www.napervilleparks.org/beachmemberships or at the Alfred Rubin Riverwalk Community Center and the Fort Hill Activity Center.

Naperville historian to speak at group’s annual meeting

Naperville author and historian Bryan J. Ogg will talk about the Greek Revival style of architecture during Naperville Preservation’s annual meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 12, at the the Naperville Woman’s Club, 14 S. Washington St.

Free and open to the public, the meeting will feature Ogg’s presentation, “It’s All Greek to Me: How the Ideals of Democracy Shaped Building Design in Early Naperville.”

Guests are asked to park at the Van Buren Parking Deck. Register at www.eventbrite.com.

KidsMatter attempting to break world record Thursday

KidsMatter will be conducting a Guinness World Records attempt for the largest simultaneous pickleball lesson Thursday, Feb. 12, in an effort to highlight the positive effects of movement on mental and physical health.

The lesson will be led at 9:25 a.m. via Zoom by Coach Joe Canda of Sure Shot Pickleball in Naperville, the nonprofit said in a news release.

More than 250 participants are expected to gather across multiple locations, including Naperville North High School, the Alfred Rubin Riverwalk Community Center and Sure Shot Pickleball.

Participants can register at form.jotform.com/260216497211048.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/10/naperville-early-voting-centennial-memberships/ 

For fans of the late Richard Greenberg, his final work, “Holiday,” is an unfettered Goodman Theatre delight, a painful but not-to-be-missed reminder that nobody, but nobody, in the American theater better understood the ennui of the adult children of the American urban rich or had a firmer grasp on the existential paradox of their condition. Other playwrights usually want to take them down, especially if that is whence they came.  Greenberg didn’t just understand them; he offered them tenderness.

“What is more privileged than being sad about being privileged?” observes the truth-teller of this particular Fifth Avenue family, inured by alcohol as one of his siblings finds that teaching kids in Red Hook, Brooklyn, has provided no actual escape from her destiny, a destiny as pre-determined as if she were Antigone.

Such wry observations, often accompanied by a disarmingly sudden sadness, pepper this likely Broadway-bound premiere of Greenberg’s adaptation of Philip Barry’s 1928 romantic comedy “Holiday.” It’s an updating of the caper-ish, star-friendly plot about a self-made guy from nowhere, Johnny Case, who falls in love with a young woman, Julia Seton, without knowing her identity — only to show up at her place and find himself as the disrupter of a patriarchally broken family that masks its fundamental fragility with wit, sure, but also toxic, pecunious dominance.

“Holiday” is on the marquee, Robert Falls is back in the director’s chair, praise the theater gods, and the erudite Barry legacy of swank society comedies, much loved in Hollywood in the mid-20th century, certainly underpins the show’s themes. But this is really a whole new play, set very much in the here and now and remarkably comfortable there.

Johnny (Luigi Sottile) and Julia (Molly Griggs) met in a resort where they had been stripped of their phones and biographies (and apparently did not Google each other when they got home). Julia’s sister Linda (Bryce Gangel) is a sardonic single woman, disdainful of Julia’s nascent, daddy-funded entrepreneurship. Brother Ned (Wesley Taylor, in one stunner of a performance) is the booze-soaked seer of this struggling crew, the wise Tiresias observing the Creon-like dominance of Edward (Jordan Lage) over his now motherless children, threatening to sign the “giving pledge” whenever he disagrees with their adult choices.

There are various Fifth Avenue hangers-on, some self-aware (Jessie Fisher’s Susan and Christiana Clark’s Nikka) and some not (Erik Hellman’s Seton and Alejandra Escalante’s Laura), as well as Rammel Chan’s Walter, the family’s hopeful personal chef, serves as a reminder of how the intimacy and opportunity offered by the seemingly liberal elite often is merely illusory. But if the original Barry play was most interested in Johnny, Greenberg’s main attention falls on the three Seton siblings, bereft of a loving mother, desperately trying to find their way in a world where everyone accuses them of having their collective thumb on the scale.

“Some survive and some succumb,” Walter observes, pretty much summing up life in the few similar families I know, and who would likely flock to such a “White Lotus”-like play on Broadway that mines them for schadenfreude, for sure, but that also knows them. And we all like to be known.

“Holiday” is very funny. The play is stacked with laugh lines and Greenberg’s deliciously writerly digressions. “Do you know the real meaning of ‘enormity’ is monstrous wickedness?” someone observes at one point, apropos of nothing other than the writer’s intellectual curiosity, tickling me pink nonetheless.

Falls’ production is very shrewdly cast with New York and Chicago-based actors and plays out on an expansive, Falls-ian set from Walt Spangler, a clever design that focuses on how this class of Americans often tries to buy a happy childhood for their troubled kids, only to find that utterly elusive. Aside from Taylor, who feels essential to any future for this play, the other very notable performance comes from Griggs, in something of a thankless role. She nails her character to the wall without resorting to any pleas for sympathy, however much it is deserved.

The show is about a love triangle and yet I did not believe that Griggs, Gangel and Sottile, all impressively au fait with the play’s verbosity, had any sexual attraction to each other. Indeed, sex is the one crucial, overall element missing so far in a production that needs more of a relationship with desire — a classless if complex preoccupation of one’s late 20s and early 30s. And there are moments here where the necessary updating strains credulity a bit; we have to believe, for example, that Edward, a child of the 1980s, sees Red Hook as some kind of slum, when any New Yorker from that era would know their way around the hipster map. In that same vein, you have to buy a plot that relies heavily on characters lacking information about each other at a moment when, well, we lack information for about a nanosecond, especially when the stakes of love or money are high. Some of that could use massaging, especially in a second act that is somewhat less secure.

‘Holiday’ comes to the Goodman, directed by Robert Falls and no longer a zany comedy

But in the end, the play is just too beautifully and wisely written, and Falls’ production is just too much fun, for any of that to be particularly bothersome. Intermission comes as an irritation, not a relief.

One last thing. I’m not privy to how much Greenberg did or did not know about his health when he was writing this piece but his many fans will detect a note of intense melancholy in the writing, especially that penned for brother Ned. Such notes hardly are new for Greenberg, of course, but this time they arrive with a jolting immediacy, such as when Ned describes cancer as “the emperor of all maladies,” a line demonstrably capable of shocking a theater into silence, before Ned shakes off the death of his mother once again, returns to his roles of observer and surrogate father to his lost sisters and pours himself another drink.

Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.

cjones5@chicagotribune.com

Review: “Holiday” (4 stars)

When: Through March 1

Where: Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St.

Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes

Tickets: $34-$104 at 312-443-3800 and goodmantheatre.org

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/10/review-holiday-goodman-theatre/ 

Insurance Brokers Extend Monday’s Plunge On Fears AI Is Coming For Them Next

Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/10/2026 – 11:45

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/insurance-brokers-extend-mondays-plunge-fears-ai-coming-them-next 

The Harvey City Council meeting concluded Monday with the city still lacking an acting mayor.

But the City Council voted unanimously to approve several items, including a lawsuit settlement and the acceptance of road improvement funds. However, there was no action scheduled on the mayoral vacancy.

Mayor Christopher Clark died Jan. 30, leaving Harvey without a mayor. The City Council was scheduled to select a new acting mayor to serve out the remainder of Clark’s term at a special meeting Feb. 2, but deadlocked between 1st Ward Ald. Shirley Drewenski and 5th Ward Ald. Dominique Randle-El. Each received three votes from the six-member City Council.

Drewenski is mayor pro tempore until an acting mayor is elected.

The selection of an acting clerk and a resolution to update the city’s bank signatories has been deferred until an acting mayor is selected.

“I understand that there’s no timeline,” resident Amanda Askew told aldermen Monday. “But I do believe that the sense of urgency needs to happen, like, yesterday, so those people can lock in and do their job properly.”

Drewenski said the mayoral vacancy will be addressed at the City Council meeting at 7 p.m. on Feb. 23. Since not everyone who wanted to attend the last meeting was able to fit in the council chambers, Drewenski said, the aldermen are seeking a venue that will accommodate more people.

Drewenski also said residents interested of the public interested in city clerk position hould submit letters of interest, with an interview process to follow.

Clark’s absence was still palpable in the room, as aldermen continued to adjust to meetings without him. Clark was mayor since 2019, and an alderman before that.

“It has been one week,” Drewenski said. “One week since we found ourselves in this situation.”

Fourth Ward Ald. Tracy Key encouraged the City Council to come together as a team, urging all of the aldermen out of their seats to put their hands together as before a big game.

“All teams need a coach. Shirley — Madame Pro Tem — you are our coach right now,” Key said. “I’m a team player because I care about my city, I came here and I got people counting on me.”

Second Ward Ald. Colby Chapman noted Monday’s meeting was the first time in a long time the City Council had cooperated so well.

“For the first time in a long time, this council voted unanimously across the board,” Chapman said. “That matters. It shows when clarity is provided and processes are respected, we can come together as one body to move the city forward.”

Ryan Sinwelski speaks during public comment during Monday’s Harvey City Council meeting. (Evy Lewis/Daily Southtown)

Among the items approved unanimously was a settlement agreement for a lawsuit brought by local activist Ryan Sinwelski over the city’s failure to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests.

The city eventually released the requested records, though after a delay of over a year, according to the settlement agreement. Drewenski attributed the delay to human error. The city agreed to pay Sinwelski’s legal costs.

The council also voted to accept funds to improve Broadway Avenue, which runs in front of City Hall, and to convey right of ways surrounding the city’s Metra station to Metra. The resolutions regarding Metra are part of a long-planned improvement project and were originally passed by City Council in 2021, Drewenski said.

“The city will vacate the property so Metra can do their work,” Drewenski said. “And then once it’s completed, the city will resume ownership.”

elewis@chicagotribune.com

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/10/harvey-acting-mayor-foia-settlement/ 

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych said Tuesday he still wants to compete at the Milan Cortina Games wearing a helmet that commemorates athletes from his country who were killed in the war with Russia, even though the International Olympic Committee said it cannot be used.

The IOC offered Heraskevych a chance to compete while wearing a black armband instead, calling it a compromise. The IOC said the helmet — emblazoned with images of more than 20 athletes and coaches who have been killed since the Russian invasion in 2022 — violates the Olympic rule on political statements.

Heraskevych said he doesn’t plan to wear the armband.

“We will continue to fight for the right to compete in this helmet,” Heraskevych said after his two training runs Tuesday. “I truly believe that we didn’t violate any law and any rules.”

He plans to wear the helmet again for the final training runs Wednesday in advance of Thursday’s start of the two-day, four-heat Olympic race.

The IOC wrote to the Ukrainian Olympic Committee that it “was a fundamental principle” that the Games have to be separate from “political, religious and any other type of interference.” Ukraine’s Olympic committee said it believes the helmet is fully compliant with IOC rules because it “does not carry any political slogans and does not express any racial discrimination.”

“What we’ve tried to do is to address his desires with compassion and understanding,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said Tuesday. “He has expressed himself on social media and in the training and, as you know, we will not stop him expressing himself in press conferences, as he leaves competition in the mixed zone and elsewhere. We feel that this is a good compromise in the situation.”

Heraskevych evidently can train in the helmet without risk of IOC sanctioning. The IOC told the Ukrainians that Heraskevych would not be able to “compete” in the personalized helmet. It says the matter falls under Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter, which in part states that “no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”

Heraskevych was fourth at last year’s world championships and is generally considered a medal hopeful. He is popular among other sliders on the skeleton tour and has gotten support from many of them, not just in this instance but since the war began.

“Any type of war or conflict is wrong,” said Britain’s Matt Weston, the reigning world champion and overwhelming gold-medal favorite. “There’s ways we can always go about things without that. To be honest, I don’t really want to comment too much on that. It’s super sad that we’re in the situation, having to talk about it.”

The IOC noted it has banned armbands in the past but is willing to make an exception in Heraskevych’s case. The move by the IOC doesn’t mean all athletes can wear armbands, and if Heraskevych chooses to do so, it cannot include any text, Adams said.

“We don’t want everyone wearing a black armband for every competition,” Adams said. “But where there’s a good reasoning, it will be considered properly.”

Heraskevych said he has seen Russian flags — which were supposed to be banned at these Games — in the stands at some events and wonders why they are allowed by the IOC.

“I cannot understand how this helmet hurt anyone. It’s to pay tribute to athletes, and some of them were medalists in the Youth Olympic Games,” Heraskevych told The Associated Press on Monday before Ukrainian sliding officials met with an IOC representative and learned the helmet would not be allowed. “That means they’re Olympic family. They were part of this Olympic family, so I cannot understand they would find a reason why not.”

Faces on the helmet include figure skater Dmytro Sharpar — a onetime Youth Olympic Games teammate of Heraskevych — boxer Pavlo Ishchenko, and hockey player Oleksiy Loginov. Some, Heraskevych said, were killed on the front lines; at least one died while trying to distribute aid to fellow Ukrainians. The Ukrainian sports outlet Tribuna published a list of 22 victims who are memorialized on the helmet, with the youngest victim being a 9-year-old.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy weighed in on Heraskevych’s quest with a post on his Instagram page saying he wanted to thank the slider for “reminding the world the price of our struggle.”

“It’s very nice to have such big support,” Heraskevych said.

Heraskevych, a flag bearer for Ukraine at last week’s opening ceremony, displayed a sign after his fourth and final run of the 2022 Beijing Olympics saying, “No War in Ukraine.” Days after those Games ended, Russia invaded his country and the war has continued since.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/10/olympics-ukrainian-skeleton-helmet-russia/ 

Por CHARLOTTE KRAMON

Una nueva ola de artistas está trascendiendo las nociones tradicionales de la música cristiana, atrayendo a jóvenes hacia el rap, Afrobeats y R&B basados en la fe.

A menudo impulsados por las redes sociales, muchos de ellos comenzaron con sellos independientes o subiendo canciones autogestionadas a plataformas de streaming. Ahora, sellos más grandes y servicios de streaming están tomando nota.

La gente busca “algo que alimente el alma, algo con visión de futuro, positivo”, expresó James “Trig” Rosseau Sr., CEO de Holy Culture Radio. “Encuentran una comodidad sonora, pero luego un mensaje que satisface esa necesidad”.

El interés en esa música ha proliferado desde 2022, dijeron representantes de Spotify y Amazon Music. Sin embargo, irrumpir ha sido un desafío para este grupo de artistas, en su mayoría negros y/o africanos, que están haciendo música que no siempre puede definirse y que no ha estado bien representada en la industria de la música cristiana.

“En los últimos dos años, hay algo que está sucediendo en términos de impulso, y todavía se siente subterráneo, pero ahora está comenzando a obtener la visibilidad que merece”, comentó Angela Jollivette, quien anteriormente supervisó las categorías de Gospel/Contemporary Christian de los Premios Grammy y dirige una empresa de supervisión y producción musical.

El rap cristiano ascendió alrededor de 2013 cuando el rapero Lecrae Moore ganó su primer Grammy. Hoy en día, artistas más nuevos están modernizando el hip-hop cristiano. Los raperos de Florida Caleb Gordon y Alex Jean están entre aquellos que se inclinan hacia los subgéneros del rap, así como hacia el Afrobeats, la popular mezcla de estilos musicales de África Occidental. El pionero del Afrobeats cristiano nigeriano Limoblaze ahora con el sello Reach Records de Moore, y artistas de Afrobeats como CalledOut Music y la ganadora de “The Voice UK” Annatoria están en ascenso.

“Creo que el mundo ahora se da cuenta de que estamos representados”, declaró Moore. “Para mí, eso refleja la fe que tenemos. Somos una fe global”.

El artista ghanés canadiense Ryan Ofei, radicado en Dallas y exmiembro del grupo cristiano Maverick City Music, se inclinó hacia la fusión Afrobeats-R&B, lanzando su primer álbum en solitario en 2024. Dijo que la música cristiana más reciente es menos “predicadora” pero sigue siendo una “herramienta evangelística masiva” para quienes no asisten a la iglesia.

“Puedes mover la cabeza, puedes escucharla en el carro”, indicó Ofei. “Pero todo el tiempo, sigues siendo edificado, y aún puedes sentir la presencia del Señor”.

Apto para la familia pero no infantil

Los artistas de rap cristiano, R&B y Afrobeats dicen que quieren escribir música que puedan tocar alrededor de sus hijos, pero sin sacrificar el arte.

“Les estoy dando sonidos que son gueto y cool, pero no profanos”, señaló la rapera Jackie Hill Perry. Describió el rap cristiano de hoy como menos intelectual y más “impulsado por la vibra” que cuando comenzó hace más de una década.

La rapera Childlike CiCi comenzó como artista secular grabando en “trap houses”, un término para casas de venta de drogas donde algunos de los nombres más grandes del hip-hop también impulsaron la popularidad de la música trap. Unos años después de convertirse al cristianismo en 2019, Childlike CiCi buscó hacer música que no podía encontrar, arraigada en la fe pero inspirada en el trap y su contraparte más agresiva, el drill.

“Cuando la gente piensa en el hip-hop cristiano, espera que sea como Kidz Bop”, dijo. “Creo que es más grande que eso. Es decir, la Biblia no es Kidz Bop”.

Algunos artistas encontraron el rap cristiano cursi al principio. Pero Limoblaze, radicado en Londres, sostuvo que la música de Moore transformó su fe “de una práctica religiosa a una relación real con Jesús”.

Aprovechando la popularidad global del Afrobeats y su propia audiencia en crecimiento, Limoblaze se reunió con Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube y Amazon hace unos tres años. Meses después, Amazon lanzó su primera playlist de Afrogospel, dijo.

“Creo que el Afrobeats cristiano está lenta pero eventualmente alcanzando un nivel mainstream, al menos en la escena musical africana”, comentó Limoblaze.

Comparado con sus contrapartes mainstream, los números de streaming para estos subgéneros siguen siendo menores, pero la dedicación de sus fanáticos es desproporcionada, apuntó Lauren Stellato, líder de programación para música cristiana y gospel en Amazon Music.

“Estos jóvenes artistas y jóvenes fanáticos están llevando la fe a sonidos y espacios en los que realmente ya viven”, expresó. “Las audiencias están respondiendo porque se siente natural”.

Algunos artistas han colaborado con actos cristianos populares como Forrest Frank, y el rap cristiano está irrumpiendo en espacios seculares y mainstream. Los raperos cristianos Gordon, Jean, nobigdyl., Hulvey, Jon Keith y GAWVI actuaron en el festival Rolling Loud Miami 2024. Meses después, Rolling Loud dio un set en solitario al rapero cristiano Miles Minnick, quien habló este año en un panel de los Grammy y actuó en un evento del Super Bowl.

Alternativa al culto tradicional

Las iglesias han resistido durante mucho tiempo actos que se desvían de la tradición, como el sonido gospel moderno de Kirk Franklin en los años 90, aseguró Emmett G. Price III, decano de estudios africanos en el Berklee College of Music. Price agregó que aunque todavía hay resistencia, los artistas más nuevos son importantes porque “no hay una iglesia negra homogénea”.

Cuando las canciones de culto tradicionales no resuenan, no hay nada “impío” en querer a Dios en otra música, aseveró Moore.

La artista CèJae afirmó que sus canciones de R&B todavía están arraigadas en la Biblia, pero también exploran temas personales como el desamor y la lucha por orar regularmente.

“A veces no obtenemos la parte emocional”, dijo sobre el gospel tradicional. “O si lo hacemos, a veces parece un mensaje reciclado”.

El artista alternativo Sondae, radicado en el Reino Unido, expresó que la diversidad sonora ayuda a las personas a encontrar música con la que puedan conectarse, ya sea gospel, Afrobeats o canciones de culto contemporáneo que atraen más a audiencias blancas.

“Siento que Dios ha bendecido su cosecha de tal manera que hay diferentes sabores de frutas surgiendo por todas partes, y todos están siendo bendecidos”, comentó.

Desafíos en un género en expansión

Los artistas de rap cristiano, R&B y Afrobeats todavía carecen del mismo apoyo de la industria, recursos financieros y exposición en radio que tienen los artistas cristianos contemporáneos y seculares, notó Jollivette, quien está trabajando con la Academia de Grabación para desarrollar un Grammy de ritmo y alabanza. Algunos han ganado en categorías de Grammy basadas en la fe existentes compitiendo contra artistas con sonidos muy diferentes.

La música cristiana también es muy basada en la letra de las canciones, por lo que categorizar a los artistas en una “generación que realmente no hace distinciones de género” es un desafío, manifestó Mat Anderson, vicepresidente senior de estrategia de sellos y operaciones en Provident Entertainment de Sony Music Entertainment.

Los observadores dicen que la calidad del hip-hop cristiano y sus contrapartes ha mejorado a lo largo de los años, pero los escépticos permanecen.

El rapero cristiano Torey D’Shaun destacó en el podcast del rapero nobigdyl. que incluso el rap que admiraba artísticamente no resonó al principio. Una letra de Kendrick Lamar llevó a D’Shaun a la fe después de escuchar su crianza en East St. Louis reflejada en el álbum “good kid, m.A.A.d city” de Lamar, con historias paralelas en Los Ángeles, dijo.

“Deberíamos poder hacer música más densa que la música de grupo juvenil”, declaró D’Shaun, miembro del colectivo de rap indie tribe de nobigdyl.

CèJae indicó que representantes de streaming le han dicho que más playlists ayudarían al género a despegar, pero que aún no hay suficiente música de R&B cristiano. Anderson de Sony Music apuntó que eso está comenzando a cambiar.

Aún así, en una industria centrada en la fama donde puede ser difícil ganar dinero y destacarse, Hill Perry señaló que es importante atender el llamado de la Biblia a la humildad. Ella aconseja a los artistas evitar obsesionarse con los números y practicar la humildad diariamente, lo cual se traducirá en sus carreras. Limoblaze coincide con eso.

“Es una resolución para mí, saber que lo que sea que vaya a suceder, sucederá por el Espíritu de Dios y no porque yo sea poderoso o talentoso”, expresó.

___________________________________

Kramon es parte de un proyecto de asociación entre la AP y Report for America. Report for America es un programa sin fines de lucro que asigna a periodistas a diversos medios de prensa para reportar sobre temas poco explicados.

___________________________________

La cobertura de temas religiosos de la Associated Press cuenta con apoyo de The Conversation US, con fondos de la Lilly Endowment Inc. La AP es la única responsable del contenido.

___________________________________

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

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/10/artistas-emergentes-de-rap-afrobeats-y-rb-amplan-los-lmites-del-gnero-cristiano/ 

LIVERPOOL, Inglaterra (AP) — La temporada de Liverpool ha estado lejos de ser perfecta. Ahora, el técnioc Arne Slot aseguró que el resto de la campaña tendrá que ser casi impecable si el campeón defensor de la Liga Premier quiere asegurar la clasificación para la Liga de Campeones.

Slot se concentra en terminar entre los cuatro primeros cuando restan 13 fechas por disputar, lo que dice mucho sobre la defensa del título cada vez más comprometida.

La dramática derrota del domingo por 2-1 ante el Manchester City fue el octavo revés de los de Merseyside en la liga inglesa esta temporada, descolgados a 17 puntos del líder Arsenal.

Liverpool todavía sigue en carrera en la Liga de Campeones y en la Copa FA, por lo que aún hay mucho por lo que jugar. Pero al menos en la Premier, Slot, quien ganó el título en su temporada de debut el año pasado, ha tenido que bajar sus expectativas.

Antes del partido del miércoles en Sunderland, Slot dijo que su equipo tenía que estar “cerca de la perfección” para asegurar un lugar en la próxima edición Liga de Campeones.

Los cuatro primeros lugares se clasifican para el máximo torneo de Europa. Es probable que Inglaterra reciba un quinto lugar debido al desempeño de los equipos ingleses en Europa esta temporada.

Liverpool se ubican sexto, a cinco puntos del cuarto Manchester United y a cuatro del quinto Chelsea.

“Así que para cerrar la brecha de cuatro o cinco puntos hacia el tercero, cuarto o quinto significa que tienes que ganar mucho”, dijo Slot el martes. “Y eso no es lo que hemos hecho mucho esta temporada, por lo que eso tiene que mejorar y tenemos que acercarnos a la perfección”.

“Si no vamos a la Liga de Campeones, definitivamente no ha sido una temporada aceptable”, puntualizó.

Liverpool ha ganado uno de sus últimos siete partidos de la Premier y Slot dijo que ha sido la temporada más desafiante que ha tenido como entrenador.

“Los jugadores no están acostumbrados a perder mucho o a tener muchos empates. Yo tampoco estoy acostumbrado a eso”, dijo. “Siempre es más desafiante después de perder un partido de fútbol volver a motivarlos que después de una victoria (y) decirles que no fuimos tan buenos como podrían pensar que fueron”.

“Así que, sí, esta temporada ha sido más desafiante para mí también, pero también sacas cosas buenas de ello, por extraño que pueda sonar, porque también miro cuánto estamos mejorando”, agregó.

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Deportes AP: https://apnews.com/hub/deportes

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/10/arne-slot-reduce-sus-expectativas-para-el-liverpool-esta-temporada/ 

Norman Rockwell’s “The Dugout,” a classic portrait of slumped Cubs, dejected Cubs, defeated Cubs, a morose team resigned to an existential slog of failure, now hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago. It was gifted to the museum by former Illinois governor Bruce Rauner and his wife, Diana, who have had it hanging in their home for the past 19 years. It was installed on Tuesday morning across from Grant Wood’s “American Gothic.”

It’s not just the first Norman Rockwell painting in the entire collection of the Art Institute — and he painted 323 covers for the Saturday Evening Post between 1916 and 1963 — it’s probably the first major work in the museum’s collection that depicts a popular sport.

“When the Rauners reached out to see if we were interested, we were absolutely immediately interested,” said Sarah Kelly Oehler, the Art Institute’s chair and chief curator for Arts of the Americas. “I had been thinking for years that it would be wonderful to get a Rockwell in our collection, and this, being Chicago, is the perfect painting.”

“The Dugout” is among the most indelible 20th century images of America’s pastime, painted back when it really still was America’s pastime, before faster-moving football and basketball leagues chipped away. It shows a dugout full of hangdog Cubs while a crowd behind them jeers relentlessly.

The Rauners bought the Rockwell via Christie’s in 2009 for $662,500. They bought it, Bruce Rauner said, “for two reasons. I am a longtime Cubs fan and followed them as a kid, but also I am a huge fan of Norman Rockwell, who is the most iconic of American painters. We really loved owning it. I didn’t necessarily even want to donate it — except after I was dead. But this seemed like a great time to say thank you to the people here.”

Plus, he said, since it was made in 1948, it’s mostly been in private collections.

“It’s such a community-focused painting,” said Diana Rauner, “that I felt more people should be seeing this, and it was a little weird to have it not be part of any community.”

Tom Ricketts, Chicago Cubs chairman, said in a statement: “It is fitting the Art Institute honor ‘The Dugout,’” particularly on the team’s 150th anniversary as a National League franchise. What he failed to mention is that this is also a portrait of the Chicago Cubs as a last-place team in 1948.

It practically oozes 64 wins and 90 losses.

In fact, even if you’ve never seen “The Dugout,” if you grew up on the North Side of Chicago, you’ve certainly felt it. Bruce Rauner definitely did. He was born near Wrigley Field in 1956 — yet another season during which the Cubs finished in last place. However, Rauner never really regarded the painting as sad. “It is about emotion and baseball is about emotion and the feelings (in the painting) are just part of competition.”

“I thought of the faces as beautiful,” Diana Rauner said. “We had this hanging in our home for a while, so we looked at it every day — those faces are really expressive.”

Easy for them to say.

Here’s what you’re looking at when you look at “The Dugout”: You’re looking at the Cubs early in their season, during an ugly doubleheader in Boston against the Boston Braves. You’re looking at, on that bench, from left, pitcher Bob Rush, manager Charlie Grimm and catcher Rube Walker. The player behind the sad batboy is pitcher Johnny Schmitz.  And that very sad batboy was Frank McNulty, a Braves batboy who was coaxed into a Cubs uniform to pose for photos that became the painting.

You’re looking at, in those stands behind them, actual Boston fans who posed. The woman needling the Cubs, hands at her head, was the daughter of the Braves coach.

You’re looking at a doubleheader the Cubs dropped entirely.

You’re also looking at an image that helped cement the Cubs as the lovable losers of baseball for generations of fans, having been published when the Saturday Evening Post still had three million subscribers a week. That painting, when placed alongside A.J. Liebling’s infamous “Second City” series in the New Yorker just four years later, did nothing for Chicago’s growing midcentury reputation as a large but insecure cowtown.

“I think this is how Chicagoans see themselves,” Oehler said.

“They have a tremendous optimism but tend to grumble.” Indeed, she noted Rockwell’s work, which was often called sentimental by critics, and just as often overlooked for its influence and social issues, “helped define the way Americans thought of themselves.”

Typically, Rockwell created his Saturday Evening Post covers using oils, then magazine would reproduce those oil paintings. This one, however, is an oil study by the artist. (The work reproduced for the “Dugout” cover was actually a rare watercolor, now hanging in The Illustrated Gallery outside Philadelphia.) Everyone in the image, Cubs, Braves and fans alike, agreed to pose for photographs, later used as studies for the painting. That’s how Rockwell worked.

Former Illinois governor Bruce Rauner, second left, and his wife, Diana, watch as Norman Rockwell’s painting titled “The Dugout” is installed at the Art Institute on Feb. 10, 2026. The painting was gifted to the museum by the Rauners, who have had it hanging in their home for the past 19 years. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

“The Dugout” is also a good example of the growing willingness of major fine arts institutions to embrace commercial illustration, even when it crosses into pop culture. For decades, the Art Institute had rarely collected anything like a Norman Rockwell.

“It’s becoming more typical to see the barrier that long separated fine arts from applied arts growing more porous with big museums,” said Stephanie Plunkett, chief curator of the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. “Illustration is the people’s art in many ways, and while professional curators were once the main authority for what we should see, museums now are much more engaged in what the audience would like to see.

“Still, I wouldn’t call Rockwell really a sports guy. He painted baseball, football, some golf. He lived in Massachusetts the last 25 years of his life, so he would have been a Red Sox guy. But what he really loved was the underdog, even from the earliest days of his career. He always possessed a particular empathy when it came to the losers.”

Indeed, compared with the realistically creased faces and hangdog stares of the Cubs, the Boston fans behind them are closer to grotesques, an inhuman crush of caricatures.

You might even say that Rockwell was unintentionally trolling the Cubs in 1948. Later that season, at Ebbets Field in New York City, he had a photographer capture the Brooklyn Dodgers playing the Cubs for a spring 1949 cover. The Cubs lost that game, too. Luckily, Rockwell returned the next day to shoot the Dodgers and the Pittsburgh Pirates, which became the study Rockwell used for an even more famous work, “Game Called Because of Rain (Tough Call),” an image of three umpires evaluating stray drops of precipitation. It hangs today in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

If there is a sunny side to “The Dugout,” it’s that the Cubs were not the absolute worst team in major league baseball in 1948. That distinction went to the Chicago White Sox, which finished the American League season in the basement, dead last with 101 losses.

Rockwell didn’t bother to paint them at all.

cborrelli@chicagotribune.com

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/10/art-institute-acquires-norman-rockwells-the-dugout-his-famous-painting-of-the-cubs/