by dap | Sep 13, 2024 | Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO (AP) — United Airlines has struck a deal with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to offer satellite-based Starlink WiFi service on flights within the next several years.
The airline said Friday the service will be free to passengers.
United said it will begin testing the service early next year and begin offering it on some flights by later in 2025.
Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
The announcement comes as airlines rush to offer more amenities as a way to stand out when passengers pick a carrier for a trip. United’s goal is to make sitting on a plane pretty much like being on the ground when it comes to browsing the internet, streaming entertainment and playing games.
“Everything you can do on the ground, you’ll soon be able to do on board a United plane at 35,000 feet, just about anywhere in the world,” CEO Scott Kirby said in announcing the deal.
The airline says Starlink will allow passengers to get internet access even over oceans and polar regions where traditional cell or Wi-Fi signals may be weak or missing.
by dap | Sep 13, 2024 | Chicago Tribune
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — The federal government would ban in-game advertising and bets on college athletes under a sports betting regulation bill proposed by two northeastern legislators.
Rep. Paul Tonko of New York and Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut introduced the bill Thursday. It’s designed to address what they say are the harmful effects of the rapid expansion of legal sports betting in the U.S. since 2018.
The measure also would forbid the use of credit cards to fund online gambling accounts.
The Democratic legislators say sports betting, now legal in 38 states plus the District of Columbia, has increased gambling addiction and other problems. Every moment of every game is a chance to gamble, Tonko said.
“That’s resulted in a frightening rise in gambling disorder, which has in turn enacted a horrific toll on individuals, many of whom have lost their home, job, marriage, and their lives,” Tonko said.
Blumenthal called the measure a matter of public health.
“It is a matter of stopping addiction, saving lives, and making sure that young people particularly are protected against exploitation,” Blumenthal said.
The legislation already faces strong opposition from the gambling industry, which has said for years that it should self-regulate sports betting advertising to avoid the federal government imposing standards on it.
The American Gaming Association, the gambling industry’s national trade association, said sports books already operate under government supervision, contribute billions of dollars in state taxes, and offer consumers protections that don’t exist with illegal gambling operations.
“Six years into legal sports betting, introducing heavy-handed federal prohibitions is a slap in the face to state legislatures and gaming regulators who have dedicated countless time and resources to developing thoughtful frameworks unique to their jurisdictions,” it said in a statement.
The industry has adopted sports betting practices that include some limits on advertising, but critics say they don’t go far enough.
Harry Levant, director of gambling policy at the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University School of Law, compared gambling to drugs and alcohol in terms of potential addictiveness.
“With every other addictive product or substance, the government regulates the advertising, promotion, distribution, and consumption of the product,” he said. “With gambling, sadly, the exact opposite is occurring.”
The National Council on Problem Gambling says “gambling problems may increase as sports gambling grows explosively” across America.
The bill would prohibit operators from accepting more than five deposits from a customer over a 24-hour period, and check on a customer’s ability to afford depositing more than $1,000 in 24 hours or $10,000 in a month.
The bill also would ban “prop” bets on the performance of college or amateur athletes, such as how many passing yards a quarterback will rack up during a game.
And it would prohibit the use of artificial intelligence to track a customer’s gambling habits or to create gambling products including highly specific “micro-bets,” which are based on scenarios as narrow as the speed of the next pitch in a baseball game.
by dap | Sep 13, 2024 | Chicago Tribune
NEW YORK — Major League Baseball teams will have advertising on their helmets during the postseason.
MLB said Friday it reached a deal for the postseason ads through 2027 with Strauss, a German apparel company that entered the U.S. market last year.
Ads of 5-by-0.92 inches (12.7-by-2.3 centimeters) will be on each side of every helmet featuring “STRAUSS” in capital letters in white alongside the company’s ostrich logo silhouetted by a red square, with an alternate color for red helmets.
Strauss also will appear on the helmets of the 120 affiliated minor league teams from 2025-27.
MLB previously had helmet ads in select international games dating to at least 2000 and has allowed jersey ads since 2023. The general use of ads was agreed to by the players’ association in the 2022 labor contract, and 23 of the 30 teams have jersey patch ads.
Engelbert Strauss GmbH & Co. KG was founded in 1948.
Major League Soccer became the first of the major North American leagues to allow jersey ads in 2007. The NBA started selling sponsorship logos for the 2017-18 season, and the NHL launched helmet ads for the 2020-21 season and began jersey advertising the following season.
by dap | Sep 13, 2024 | Chicago Tribune
Mayor Brandon Johnson plans to appoint West Side Ald. Walter Burnett to lead the City Council’s powerful Zoning Committee after he faced pushback on naming a progressive council ally to the post.
The decision, confirmed by a top Johnson administration official Friday, marks a sharp change in course for Johnson, who for months had tried to put Southwest Side Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, into the important position overseeing development. Sigcho-Lopez’s appointment faced strong opposition from council opponents who argued he would be too politically radical and hostile to developers.
In Burnett, 27th, a mentee of former Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White who is the longest-serving alderman in the City Council and is currently Johnson’s vice mayor, aldermen said Friday they see a more acceptable pick.
The new choice is “way less contentious,” Ald. Andre Vasquez, 40th, said.
“I think Walter is someone that the whole council can work with and doesn’t bring a lot of controversy to the position,” he said.
Vasquez, member of both the council’s Latino Caucus and Progressive Caucus, earlier pledged to not vote for Sigcho-Lopez. He had also angled for the Zoning chairmanship made available when Johnson’s original selection, Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 35th, resigned after
to politically bully colleagues last November.
Johnson had promised the Latino Caucus the coveted seat would stay in its ranks. But over ten months later, that intention has given way to the mounting need to fill the chairmanship after no choice emerged who could win the support of both the mayor and the City Council.
The several bids for the position most recently included a push by Ald. Felix Cardona, 31st, a Northwest Side Latino alderman typically at odds with Johnson who sought to gain enough council support to take the seat with or without the mayor’s backing. But in Burnett, Johnson is offering the council a compromise appointee leading a West Loop ward hot with development.
Cardona said Friday he was weighing whether he will continue to pursue the chairmanship, but called it “unlikely” that he would.
“The whole objective was anybody but Byron,” he said.
He praised Burnett and called the new pick a respected “safe bet,” but also lamented the move as an act of “disrespect” toward Latinos.
“That position really belongs to the Latino Caucus,” Cardona said. “As the Latino community, we lost a powerful position in city government.”
The Burnett pick is also sure to be popular with developers who have enjoyed a building boom in the West Loop neighborhood he represents, but who in many cases worried Sigcho-Lopez would use the committee leadership post to press for more affordable housing, fight segregation and champion other progressive priorities prized by the Johnson administration.
“I think he’d be great,” Ald. Sam Nugent, 39th, said of Burnett Friday morning. “Vice Mayor Walter Burnett is a respected colleague who is known to work well with the entire City Council. He is respected by the business community and would be an excellent chairman for the Zoning Committee.”
The pick also won instant praise from Ald. Stephanie Coleman, 16th. The leader of the council’s Black Caucus, now set to gain a critical chairmanship, highlighted Burnett’s “years in the council” spanning four decades.
“Walter is fair. Walter has the relationships, he has the experience,” she said. “He’s just an exceptional individual and leader.”
Before news broke of Burnett’s nomination Friday, first reported by WBEZ, Sigcho-Lopez told the Tribune he was still expecting to go forward as the Zoning chair pick.
But the fissures were evident, he conceded. After defending his track record leading the council’s Housing Committee and promising to not change the impassioned tone that has drawn the ire of ideologically different colleagues — and made his appointment so contested — Sigcho-Lopez said that a pick for the long unfilled chairmanship will move forward at a Rules Committee meeting Monday even if it’s not him.
“We’re going to have a chair pretty soon. The business of the city of Chicago cannot wait for the Vrdolyak 29 to be ready,” Sigcho-Lopez said, suggesting the bloc of aldermen opposed to him has behaved like the group of white aldermen who in the 1980s fervently opposed the city’s first Black mayor, Harold Washington.
“We’re gonna see Monday.”
by dap | Sep 13, 2024 | Chicago Tribune
The “persistence of rumors” about an unfounded threat Thursday at Thomas Jefferson Middle School led to a few athletic teams to secure in their locker rooms during afterschool activities, police said.
The Valparaiso Police Department and the Valparaiso Community Schools staff investigated the threat, according to a release from Capt. Joe Hall, public information officer for the police department.
“The threat was found to not be credible; however, the persistence of rumors led to a few athletic teams to temporarily secure in their respective locker rooms during afterschool activities, as an exercise of caution,” Hall said in a release.
The joint investigation determined that no evidence was found to support the rumors and officials will continue to take such matters seriously.
“We truly appreciate the ongoing partnership and dedication to safety shared with the Valparaiso Community Schools,” Hall said, adding there would be increased patrols taking place throughout all of the schools in Valparaiso on Friday as a precautionary measure.
Portage Police handled a threat to the Portage Township schools on Monday that also was deemed as not credible but Police Chief Michael Candiano said police would be pursuing charges against two of the juveniles involved because of the impact the allegations had on the community.
by dap | Sep 13, 2024 | Chicago Tribune
Justin Timberlake se declaró culpable el viernes de conducir en estado de ebriedad, resolviendo el caso penal derivado de su arresto en junio en los Hamptons de Nueva York por un cargo de conducir ebrio.
El cantante y actor compareció en el Tribunal de Sag Harbor Village para presentar una nueva declaración de culpabilidad por el cargo menor.
by dap | Sep 13, 2024 | Chicago Tribune
A third person was charged Friday in the 2022 fatal shooting of a 12-year-old girl who was celebrating her birthday in the South Shore neighborhood, Chicago police said.
Rahdeem Calhoun, 23, of the West Englewood neighborhood was charged with first degree murder in the March 1, 2022, fatal shooting death of
in the 2300 block of West 72nd Street in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood, police said.
Calhoun was arrested by police and the Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force on Wednesday in the 7500 block of South Normal Ave.
Police said he was the third person to be handed charges in the slaying. He was scheduled to appear at a detention hearing.
by dap | Sep 13, 2024 | Chicago Tribune
Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, el poderoso líder del cártel de la droga de Sinaloa en México, se declaró inocente el viernes en Nueva York de 17 cargos de narcotráfico y asesinato.
Al participar a través de un intérprete de español, Zambada no habló, excepto para dar breves respuestas a las preguntas habituales de un juez sobre si entendía varios documentos y procedimientos y cómo se sentía. Sus abogados se declararon inocentes en su nombre. Zambada permaneció sentado en silencio cuando escuchaba al intérprete. Al salir de la corte, pareció aceptar algo de ayuda para levantarse de una silla y luego salió lentamente pero sin ayuda.
Buscado por las autoridades estadounidenses durante más de dos décadas, Zambada ha estado arrestado en Estados Unidos desde el 25 de julio, cuando aterrizó en un avión privado en un aeropuerto en las afueras de El Paso, Texas, en compañía de otro líder del cártel fugitivo, Joaquín Guzmán López, según autoridades federales.
by dap | Sep 13, 2024 | Chicago Tribune
A standalone Boys & Girls Club could be back in play for the Town of Merrillville after one councilman reintroduced the ordinance that would fund it.
Councilman Shawn Pettit, D-6, said during the September 10 Town Council meeting that he, at Town Attorney Joe Sventanoff’s counsel, brought the ordinance back through the Council Affairs committee for further explanation. This time, the council approved it 5-2, with Councilwomen Shauna Haynes-Edwards, D-2; and Leona Chandler-Felton, D-3, dissenting.
The council will vote again for the ordinance on September 24.
The council, which initially voted unanimously in June for the ordinance that would allow the town to issue the Boys & Girls Club $2 million in economic development bonds over 10 years for the organization, killed the ordinance 3-2-1, the Post-Tribune previously reported. Council President Rick Bella, D-5, Council Vice President Rhonda Neal, D-1, and Councilman Shawn Pettit, D-6, voted in favor; Councilwomen Shauna Haynes-Edwards, D-2, and Leona Chandler-Felton, D-3, voted against; Councilwoman Marge Uzelac, D-4, abstained; and Councilwoman Keesha Hardaway, D-7, was absent.
Boys & Girls Club of Greater Northwest Indiana President and CEO Mike Jessen told the council that while it greatly appreciates the space in the community center, it’s not able to serve as many kids as it has even when it used space in one of the Merrillville Schools. Clerk-Treasurer Eric January, however, said the town can’t afford to “give gifts” to everyone who asks for them, though the money to pay the bond issue would come out of the town’s tax increment financing fund, which currently has $9.1 million in it and wouldn’t burden homeowners.
The state’s TIF language allows municipalities to give public entities money directly, while not-for-profits are allowed the money through bond issues, the Post-Tribune previously reported.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
by dap | Sep 13, 2024 | Chicago Tribune
A Lincolnshire area man was arrested after police said he tried to have a child perform a sex act on him at a Labor Day pool party.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office said they arrested Benedicto M. Aviles, 60, of the 15300 block of West Apple Orchard Lane, and charged him with indecent solicitation of a child and attempted predatory criminal sex assault of a child.
Authorities said Aviles was at a pool party in the Mundelein area on Sept. 2 when he showed pornographic videos to a young girl. He then suggested the girl perform a sex act demonstrated in the video.
The incident was interrupted, though, when the child’s mother called out for her when she didn’t see the child in the pool. After Aviles left, the child relayed what happened to her mother, who reported it to the police.
Detectives were able to find Aviles and arrest him Tuesday, police said.
Boat rescue
Police and Coast Guard personnel were able to locate and aid a man who was threatening to harm himself in a boat floating in Lake Michigan.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office said it received word early Wednesday that the man was in a boat about three miles off the Illinois-Wisconsin border. Sheriff’s deputies launched their marine patrol boat, and worked with Winthrop Harbor Fire Department personnel and those from the Coast Guard and Kenosha County, Wisconsin.
They were able to locate and rescue the man, whose boat was partially capsized, police said.
Award winner
Lake County Sheriff’s Sgt. Ari Briskman has been named the Brian McMillen Award winner by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, in recognition of Briskman’s history of promoting safe roads and arresting impaired drivers.
The honor is named for an Illinois state trooper who was killed in 2007 by a drunk driver as he responded to a call.
Briskman throughout his career has been a leader in making DUI arrests, the sheriff’s office said. He currently is the commander of the marine unit, and also works as commander on the technical crash team, among his other duties.
He is also considered an expert in drug recognition and an instructor for field sobriety testing.
Open house
The Zion Fire and Rescue Department will host an open house at Fire Station 1 on Oct. 5 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Visitors will get an up-close look at fire equipment, and will have a chance to interact with firefighters. There will also be demonstrations and giveaways.
The fire station is located at 1303 27th St.
Drug bust
A Buffalo Grove man was arrested on charges that he manufactured the drug ecstasy, and that he had a large quantity of marijuana.
Zans Batjuks, 33, of the 400 block of Castlewood Lane, was charged with four felony drug counts after police executed a search warrant at his home Wednesday.
Police seized more than 315 grams of MDMA, which is known as ecstasy, 5,200 grams of marijuana, along with pills and cocaine, authorities said.
The investigation was conducted by the Lake County Sheriff’s Office Special Investigations Group, which includes officers from several departments around the county, along with cooperating federal law enforcement agencies.
