Northwest Indiana residents and environmental activists on Wednesday attended a public meeting to voice their concerns about a potential permit for Tradebe.
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management hosted a meeting at Calumet College of St. Joseph in Whiting. IDEM’s Office of Air Quality issues air pollution control permits to sources that emit regulated levels of pollutants into the air, according to the agency.
Tradebe, a Barcelona-based waste management company, has a hazardous waste storage and treatment facility at 4343 Kennedy Ave. in East Chicago.
IDEM’s public meeting focused on a drum shredder at Tradebe’s East Chicago location. A drum shredder is used to break down drums that previously contained waste.
Tradebe has a RCRA empty drum shredder, which is used for drums that stored acutely hazardous waste, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The waste management company is one of the largest toxic chemical processors in Lake County, according to the EPA’s toxics release inventory tracker.
Most speakers at the public meeting were concerned about how the drum shredder has operated without a permit for 20 years. Jenny Acker, permits branch chief in IDEM’s Office of Air Quality, said she’s unsure how the drum shredder went unpermitted.
“Once it was noticed that it was there, (Tradebe) was required to submit a permit application to get a permit,” Acker said.
A Tradebe spokesperson did not confirm how long the drum shredder was unpermitted.
Susan Thomas, legislative and policy director for Just Transition Northwest Indiana, asked if Tradebe would face consequences for the drum shredder going unpermitted.
“Twenty years is a lifetime,” Thomas said. “I hope that people really, really consider very strict new permitting for the upcoming permit for Tradebe.”
Acker told Thomas that IDEM’s enforcement team would handle any consequences, and she couldn’t comment.
Tradebe representatives weren’t at Wednesday’s meeting, but both a company spokesperson and Acker emphasized that the meeting was conducted by IDEM. Tradebe wasn’t required to attend.
The hearing was, in part, a measure that clarified which permit swerve applicable for the drum shredder, a spokesperson said in an email.
“We thank IDEM for its help and guidance with this issue,” the statement said. “Tradebe is also proud to work with East Chicago residents and community programs including hosting a publicized, multi-session public meeting and real time ‘question and answer’ session at the East Chicago Library about the facility that was attended by multiple company executives, members of the public as well as special interest groups such as the Abrams (Environmental) Law Clinic. We follow the required steps for permit renewals and modifications.”
Although Tradebe wasn’t required to be at the meeting, multiple speakers said they wish a company representative would’ve been present.
“There’s a lot of interest in this facility, interest in this permit,” said Sam Heppell, a clinical teaching fellow at the Abrams Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Chicago. “We’ve made requests for Tradebe to be here tonight … We’ve made requests for them to hold their own meetings and speak to the community about the broader concerns that they have.”
Heppell was concerned that Tradebe would receive a permit after the drum shredder went without one for so long. Acker told him that noncompliance is not a reason to not issue a permit.
Other speakers were concerned about the amount of volatile organic compounds emitted by the drum shredder. Tradebe’s unit can shred up to 185,000 drums annually and “can emit high concentrations” of VOCs, according to the Abrams Environmental Law Clinic.
Many VOCs are human-made chemicals and are used to manufacture paints, pharmaceuticals and refrigerants, according to the EPA. The compounds can worsen health conditions including bronchitis, emphysema and asthma.
Justus Jones, a Whiting resident, said he works in industrial areas that are exposed to hazardous materials. He’s concerned about the amount of VOCs emitted, and that if not monitored close enough, Tradebe could lie about the amount.
“I worked in non-union sites before I joined the union, and that stuff was regulated by the EPA and was easily fudged,” Jones said. “When it came down to where there was a fine that was dropped on the company, it was either paid and laughed off or they were paying off the people from that corporation.”
Jones also asked Acker if IDEM could require baghouses or scrubbers to help with air pollution control. Acker told him that Tradebe is well below the amount of particulates emitted that would require a baghouse.
Anyone can submit written comments to IDEM regarding Tradebe’s permit, according to the department. Comments must be received by Monday, and people can submit them by email, fax or mail. More information is available on IDEM’s website
.
Smushing a cheese sandwich in the pan leaves you with a crisp outside and gooey inside, says Mark Bittman in his cookbook “How to Cook Everything Kids.” You will need a couple cans from the pantry or a small heavy pot for this one.
Without permission, two Microsoft employees held a vigil for “victims of the Palestinian genocide
” at the company’s headquarters in Washington state last Thursday. Later that same day, both of the event’s organizers were fired.
“Due to privacy and confidentiality considerations, we cannot provide specific details,” Microsoft shared in a statement
the following day. It did clarify that it “ended the employment of some individuals”—Abdo Mohamed and Hossam Nasr—“in accordance with internal policy,” and that it remains “dedicated to maintaining a professional and respectful work environment.”
According to The Jerusalem Post, Mohamed and Nasr “were part of a coalition of Microsoft employees who called themselves ‘No Azure for Apartheid,’ in alleged protest against the sale of the Microsoft cloud-computing technology to Israel’s government
.”
The former Microsoft employees told
The Associated Press that Microsoft has “many community members … who have lost family, friends or loved ones.” Mohamed felt that “Microsoft really failed to have the space for us where we can come together and share our grief and honor the memories of people who can no longer speak for themselves.”
However, some outlets have highlighted
the fact that of the two, “Nasr was previously subject to internal investigations by Microsoft on more than one occasion, including for posting antisemitic memes online, according to his social media.” He was also exposed
for calling Microsoft “an evil Zionist corporation facilitating and empowering a genocide” in a post on Instagram.
“Nasr cofounded Harvard Alumni for Palestine,” The Post Millennial reported
, “and was copresident of the university’s Palestine Solidarity Committee, an alternative name for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which is linked to terrorism and the antisemitic Boycott, Divest, Sanction movement against the Jewish state.”
Mohammad, the outlet added, shared on LinkedIn that “he needs to find new employment in the next 60 days or face deportation.”
Ever since Hamas attacked Israel
on Oct. 7, 2023, there have been numerous and consistent protests across the globe. Within the last year, largely due to left-wing activism, cases of antisemitism have “surged
by 200% when compared to the same period the year before.”
Several universities faced anti-Israel protests that caused chaos on campuses
. In many instances, Jewish students were blocked from getting to class as Hamas supporters set up encampments and barriers
. In July, antisemitic activists took to Union Station in Washington, D.C., tearing down
and burning American flags and assaulting police officers. Many of these protests went largely without consequence
.
It now appears that an increasing number of universities and companies are choosing to clamp down on destructive and disruptive behavior.
Microsoft’s decision to fire Mohamed and Nasr is not a unique occurrence. In April, Google fired
up to 50 employees in connection with the actions of the “No Tech for Apartheid” group that protested against “the company’s cloud-computing contract with the Israeli government.” Earlier this month, the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) group at Brown University was suspended
due to “alleged threats and intimidating actions during a campus event” such as “banging on cars, screaming obscene language, and making racial comments toward others.” The Daily Caller explained
how “the demonstrators were protesting the university’s decision to not divest from 10 companies linked to Israel, following
an Oct. 9 divestment vote.”
Asked whether companies at large are starting to adopt stricter rules around protests, Chris Gacek, senior fellow for regulatory affairs at the Family Research Council
, replied, “Every company has its own culture.”
“It strikes me that there may be sort of a recognition that, in order to run a company like Microsoft,” there has to be “some sort of free range of ideas and expression,” he told The Washington Stand, adding, “You can’t really have this kind of thing going on,” where employees are putting their opinions front and center without company approval.
Additionally, Gacek addressed the likelihood that some companies, such as Microsoft, may at least recognize that “Oct. 7
was a big deal.” It can be “a daunting recognition,” he emphasized, and it’s to the benefit of organizations to be sensitive to how they react to it. However, Gacek ultimately came to the conclusion that what’s unfolding may be something “we just have to let play out.”
Only Microsoft can give its exact reasons for why it fired Mohammed and Nasr, and it has chosen not to do so.
“We’re not in the company,” Gacek noted. “It’s one thing to sort of read it from a story from the outside,” but from the inside, many of these organizations that are starting to shut down protests could simply be in “a position [where] they’re just sick of it” and “don’t want to turn their company into … [an] environment that’s politicized and nasty.”
Microsoft and others are reacting to “a lot of things in the culture” right now, Gacek added. “Reasonable people [can see] the coercive nature of the treatment of Israel.”
In a single summer, they changed the way they play
— entirely. And after preaching pace of play throughout the preseason, the Bulls have exploded onto the scene as the NBA’s fastest team through their first five games.
Teams often fail to deliver on such preseason platitudes, but the Bulls have accomplished a complete revamping of their offensive system, leaning into their strengths in an attempt to cover their lack of size and defensive rigor. As a result, they’re off to an unexpected 3-2 start
, the first time they’ve been above .500 since November 2022.
The shift in philosophy is predicated on one simple edict: run.
“I told them — we don’t run, we’re done,” coach Billy Donovan said. “It’s that simple. If we run, we’ll maybe have some fun.”
The Bulls had a similar goal last season — but Donovan said it was doomed from the start. The roster wasn’t built to run. But the departures of DeMar DeRozan and Andre Drummond relieved the Bulls of their dependency on a more methodical style of play.
This season, the desired style of play fits the personnel. Nikola Vučević is the only true center on the roster. The rest of the team consists of lengthy wings such as Patrick Williams
and a cluttered collection of guards such as Coby White and Zach LaVine who thrive in a more fluid system.
“We’re obviously a very, very guard-dominated team with a lot of guys that can make plays,” Donovan said. “You want to get guys like that opportunities in transition and in the open floor.
“It’s probably more of a credit to the guys being committed to try to play like that. It does take a lot physically from them. And they’ve done that.”
The NBA calculates pace by how many possessions a team averages over 48 minutes (the length of a regulation game). The Bulls lead the league with a 107.5 pace rating — a major leap from last season, when they finished third-to-last at 96.94.
Bulls guard Zach LaVine goes up for a basket during the second half against the Magic at the United Center on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)
Pace isn’t just about running the floor. And the Bulls aren’t actually supplementing that much of their scoring through fast breaks — they rank 11th in the league with 14.3% of their points off the break.
Instead, their speed comes from a newfound urgency in moving the ball, often emptying the paint to stretch the floor and whip passes around the perimeter until an optimal angle to the rim or outside shot opens.
The Bulls are one of the highest-volume passing teams in the league. They rank sixth in assists (27.6 per game) and ninth in secondary assists (4.2). Execution is still an issue — the Bulls rank third in potential assists, reflecting an inability to finish at times — but their robust ball movement has helped to outweigh other deficiencies.
That’s accompanied by a nonstop green light to take 3-pointers. It’s hard to overemphasize the scope of this shift. The Bulls finished last in the league in 3-point attempts in both 2021-22 (28.8 per game) and 2022-23 (28.9) before improving slightly to 26th last season (32.1).
Through five games this season, the Bulls are taking the third-most 3s in the league, averaging 44.2 attempts. A staggering 44.4% of their total scoring has come from 3s — a 13.7% increase from last season.
While this rapid increase has helped catalyze the offense, the Bulls still can’t afford to live or die behind the arc — something Donovan hammers into his team on a regular basis.
Bulls guard Zach LaVine grabs a rebound during the fourth quarter against the Magic at the United Center on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)
He has outlined three key factors in a successful up-tempo offense: dominating the defensive glass, attacking the open court and taking care of the ball. The Bulls are finding mixed success in those areas. They lead the NBA in defensive rebounding (41.8 per game) as well as pace, but they’re coughing up 16.2 turnovers per game, 12th-most in the league.
If they can stabilize their ball protection, Donovan thinks this new identity could be sustainable.
“We may have some good nights and some bad nights shooting,” he said. “That’s OK. But we can’t have a bad night shooting, turn the ball over and then get crushed on the glass. That gives us no chance.”
While playing up-tempo creates an obvious advantage on offense, it also might be an indirect answer to some of the Bulls’ defensive weaknesses.
Bulls opponents are shooting 38.3% in the fourth quarter — the second-lowest mark in the league — and their 19.6% 3-point shooting in the fourth is the NBA’s lowest. It’s a small sample size, but the pattern has been clear: The Bulls are running their opponents ragged.
“If we stick with our pace of play the whole game, eventually it’ll break through for us on the offensive end,” LaVine said. “And they’ve got to keep up with us the whole time.”
The biggest test is whether the Bulls themselves can maintain this pace for an entire season.
While the young roster certainly is a benefit for the increased endurance required, Donovan is implementing this new identity with a cast of often-injured players such as LaVine, Williams and Lonzo Ball
. The NBA season is a marathon course of 82 games, and as invigorating as these early wins have felt, the Bulls will put their conditioning to the test when the calendar turns to January.
That’s a risk Donovan and his team are willing to embrace. The bottom might fall out at any point. But for now, the Bulls are enjoying the ride — and surprising the Eastern Conference.
University officials made “shocking concessions” to anti-Israel protesters and withheld support from Jewish students as pro-Gaza unrest roiled college campuses in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, according to a long-awaited House report.
It’s been a month since the Chicago Sports Network launched
, and the Comcast blackout is starting to get real for increasingly frustrated fans.
The revamped Bulls are a promising 3-2, the last-place Blackhawks are 10 games into what may be a long season and Comcast’s one million Chicago-area subscribers are still in the dark, staring at a blank screen that used to be NBC Sports Chicago.
On the bright side, Comcast customers in the city and suburbs should begin to see an $8 credit for the programming void on their next bill, covering that portion of the regional sports fee paid in advance last month.
The regional sports fee for November, however, will remain intact, despite the ongoing carriage dispute.
“We are not adjusting the regional sports network fee at this time,” a Comcast spokesperson said Wednesday. “It is just a credit for the month of October.”
As the impasse drags on, there has been plenty of finger-pointing by both sides, blaming everything from CHSN’s foray into free TV to Comcast’s insistence that the new regional sports network move to a higher-priced subscription tier
. Some have even theorized that Comcast is exacting revenge on the Bulls, Blackhawks and White Sox for ostensibly jilting NBC Sports Chicago, which was partially owned by the cable giant.
But sources close to the negotiations say the carriage fee dispute, not surprisingly, comes down to the fee itself: the amount Comcast is willing to pay CHSN to carry the 24/7 sports programming.
CHSN has made three offers to Comcast, the latest delivered just before the Bulls regular-season opener Oct. 23. It allowed for the network to move to the higher-priced Ultimate tier and included a substantially lower carriage fee than its predecessor, NBC Sports Chicago, generated from Comcast, according to CHSN.
Comcast rejected that offer earlier this week, according to CHSN.
A Comcast spokesperson declined to comment on “specific discussion points” in the negotiations.
Pressure is mounting on both sides, however, to come to an agreement before the time-honored Chicago sports mantra of “wait until next year” becomes a TV reality for both Bulls and Blackhawks fans. And for those keeping score at home, the White Sox opening day is five months away.
A joint venture between the Bulls, Blackhawks, White Sox and Nashville-based Standard Media
, the Chicago Sports Network supplanted NBC Sports Chicago, the 20-year-old regional sports network whose broadcast rights expired in September.
CHSN struck deals with pay-TV providers DirecTV and Astound to carry the new network at its Oct. 1 launch. It also reached agreements with TV stations
in Chicago, Rockford, South Bend and Indianapolis to broadcast the sports programming for free over the air.
Last week, CHSN added streaming service FuboTV
to its distribution lineup, expanding its reach to pay-TV subscribers in the Chicago market, which is defined by Nielsen as 3.46 million homes from Lake County in Illinois to Indiana’s LaPorte County.
But Comcast, the largest pay-TV provider in Chicago, is playing hardball with CHSN, initially refusing to pay any carriage fee for the programming, citing its availability on free TV. The cable giant has since offered a “de minimis” fee, according to a CHSN spokesperson, but Comcast didn’t move at all in response to last week’s eleventh-hour offer before the Bulls opening game.
That leaves upward of one million Comcast subscribers unable to watch the new network as the Bulls and Blackhawks play on without them for the first time in decades.
Marc Ganis, a Chicago-based sports marketing consultant, said Comcast has all the leverage in negotiations with CHSN due to the declining value of RSNs amid cord-cutting, and the less-than-stellar performance of the three teams in recent years, with the White Sox coming off the losingest season in baseball history.
Fan pressure on Comcast
, he said, is unlikely to be significant enough to get the job done.
“You don’t typically get a lot of fan pressure for the worst team in the history of the sport, and for two other teams that haven’t had very much success on the ice or on the court in recent years,” Ganis said. “If you had a Michael Jordan, the fans would be all over it. If you had Frank Thomas, they’d be all over it. But there is nothing like that.”
Distribution negotiations were more of a family affair when the teams’ TV home was NBC Sports Chicago, with Comcast owning 30% of the network at inception.
Founded in 2004 as Comcast SportsNet
, a partnership between the cable giant and the Cubs, Sox, Blackhawks and Bulls, NBC Sports Chicago struggled in recent years amid cord cutting, low ratings and a major defection after the Cubs broke off to form the Marquee Sports Network in 2020.
When the partnership agreement expired, the remaining three teams pulled the plug and formed CHSN.
Marquee’s agreement with Comcast also expired Sept. 30 and the Cubs network is operating on short-term extensions. Sources familiar with the negotiations said Comcast is looking to move Marquee to the Ultimate tier as well, a premium channel package which costs an additional $20 per month — on top of the regional sports fee.
A Marquee spokesperson declined to comment on the specifics of the Comcast negotiations.
Sources say it was Comcast that walked away from the deal to continue NBC Sports Chicago. That may be part of a larger trend. During its third-quarter earnings call Thursday, Comcast said it is exploring a spinoff of its NBCUniversal cable networks segment, which includes Bravo, Syfy and E!, as cord-cutting continues to erode the legacy cable TV business.
Traditional pay TV — excluding online services such as Sling, Hulu and YouTube — has fallen to about 50 million subscribers, or about 38% of U.S. households, according to the latest data from eMarketer. That number is expected to drop to 40 million subscribers by 2026, or just 3 in 10 households.
In launching the new network, the Bulls, Blackhawks and White Sox essentially traded Comcast for Standard Media, a small TV station owner that engineered the over-the-air strategy employed by CHSN, and is leading distribution negotiations with the pay-TV providers.
Standard Media, which owns 15% of CHSN, is part of Standard General, the New York-based hedge fund that also controls Bally’s, including its Chicago flagship, a $1.7 billion casino complex slated to rise up
at the site of the former Freedom Center printing plant in River West.
The company has also made a name for itself as part of an ill-fated regional sports network.
Last week, Diamond Sports Group jettisoned the Bally Sports name and rebranded as FanDuel Sports Network as its group of 16 RSNs prepares to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, pending a Nov. 14 confirmation hearing in a Texas court.
Carriage fees make up the bulk of the revenue for regional sports networks. Most of that is funded by cable subscribers — whether they watch regional sports networks or not. But as cord-cutting accelerates, pay-TV providers have cut back on the fees they are willing to pay for regional sports networks, long the cash cows of the cable bundle.
Comcast is charging $19.20 per month in the Chicago area for its regional sports network fee, which appears as a line item on the bill for the most popular cable subscription packages. The regional sports network fee included Marquee, NBC Sports Chicago and the Big Ten Network.
When NBC Sports Chicago went dark at the end of September, Comcast kept billing customers in advance for October as negotiations to replace it with the already-live CHSN continued.
While the $8 credit will appear on Chicago customer bills going out now, the regional sports fee will remain at $19.20 for November, pending a possible deal with CHSN.
“I don’t understand how Comcast can charge customers a fee for something that they’re not delivering,” a CHSN spokesperson said. “Because they’re sure not paying us.”
Meanwhile, industry observers say Comcast will be keeping a close eye on how fast cord-cutting accelerates among its Chicago-area subscribers, as fed-up fans break the billing cycle completely and migrate to other platforms, including free TV.
In Chicago, CHSN is leasing two digital subchannels of WJYS-Ch. 62, a full-powered UHF TV station licensed to Hammond, which is broadcasting the sports network in high-definition to anyone that can capture the signal with a TV antenna.
About 15% of Chicago-area homes use an antenna to watch television, according to Nielsen. That number is likely climbing amid the carriage dispute, although reception issues and problems with older TVs needing a new receiver to get the picture have presented challenges for some would-be free TV converts.
The over-the-air offering has also proved to be a stumbling block in negotiations with Comcast, which initially balked at paying any carriage fees to CHSN for programming some viewers could get for free.
While options for CHSN may evolve down the road, including planned direct-to-consumer streaming, Ganis said the fledgling regional sports network may need Comcast more than the cable giant needs another RSN, at least circa 2024.
“I think the best thing they could do is do a short-term deal, just to stop the bleeding,” Ganis said. “Understand that you’re not going to get very much money out of it and then see how technology in the market develops.”
As for progress in negotiations, the old TV tag line applies: stay tuned.
Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) recalled to Joe Rogan on Wednesday the moment he heard about the Pennsylvania assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. Vance, who would be named Trump’s running mate days after the shooting, told the popular podcast host how he rushed home and loaded all of his guns because he believed “they just killed” Trump.
“When you first see the video, he grabs his ear and then he goes down and I’m like, ‘My God, they just killed him,’” Vance told Rogan, repeating the baseless framing often used on the right that the assassination attempt was some kind of plot by Trump’s enemies.
“And I was, so I mean, first I was so pissed. But then I go into like, fight or flight mode with my kids. I’m like, you know, alright kids, you know, we were at a we were at a mini golf place in Cincinnati, Ohio, grabbed my kids up, throw them in the car, go home and load all my guns and basically stand like a sentry at our front door. And that was my that was sort of my reaction to it,” Vanceadded
.
Insider’s Senior Politics Reporter Bryan Metzger shared the moment on X, which quickly led to a bevy of replies suggesting Vance’s story seems a bit far-fetched.
Below are some of the reactions:
A great example of why Vance was a terrible VP pick. Instead of making up a story about how seeing Trump get up and pump his fight inspired him, Vance creates a story that centers himself as the protagonist in a dystopian moviehttps://t.co/EhMlRU3THs
“They” being extreme republicans. @JDVance
knows this and he was actually hopeful that “they” did the job because he thought it was his chance at the top. https://t.co/SJnUevMkd6
