Good afternoon! Tomorrow is predicted to be one other bitterly chilly day, with wind chills of minus 15 to twenty levels. Right here’s what else you might want to know right now.
1. Retailer closings may skyrocket this yr, a analysis agency says
A whole lot of nationwide chains’ retail places closed final yr as a part of continued fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and the dominance of on-line procuring — and 2025 is predicted to see extra of the identical, USA At present studies.
“Inflation and a rising desire amongst shoppers to buy on-line to seek out the most cost effective offers took a toll on brick-and-mortar retailers in 2024,” Coresight Analysis CEO Deborah Weinswig stated in an announcement. “Final yr we noticed the very best variety of closures because the pandemic … and we proceed to see a pattern of shoppers choosing the trail of least resistance.”
The agency expects 15,000 shops will shutter with simply 5,800 openings to offset the closures.
Weinswig stated the problem goes past shoppers wanting the perfect costs; they’re additionally pissed off by disorganized shops, out-of-stock gadgets and poor customer support. To outlive, Weinstein stated, shops might want to get inventive and embrace new applied sciences, corresponding to synthetic intelligence to optimize costs. [USA Today]
In the meantime, Chicago’s Black bookstores — which skilled a surge after the 2020 racial justice protests — now face declining engagement, political shifts and decreased white allyship. [Chicago Sun-Times]
2. Chicago-area federal employees are on edge as President Donald Trump guts businesses
Greater than 48,000 workers in and round Chicago are ready to see how deep the courts will enable the White Home to chop because the Trump administration tries to drastically scale back the federal workforce, Mitchell Armentrout studies for the Chicago Solar-Instances.
“The concern within the office is simply palpable. Individuals really feel bodily sick,” a VA well being care supplier who has labored at Chicago-area clinics for greater than a decade informed the Solar-Instances. “For individuals who assume it’s a traditional type of downsizing — it’s not. It’s harassment, and abuse, and intimidation, even to get individuals to come back again to work.”
Not all authorities employees have resented Trump’s method. One Chicago federal employee known as the buyout “a once-in-a-lifetime alternative to vary profession lanes with a delicate touchdown.”
The employee stated his solely resentment was geared toward union leaders who tried to dam the buyout program in court docket. [Chicago Sun-Times]
3. A Nice Lakes restoration venture could lose funding as Trump targets local weather packages
As senator, Vice President JD Vance voted to extend funding for the Nice Lakes Restoration Initiative. Advocates hope he nonetheless helps it, Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco and Izzy Ross report for WBEZ.
However Vance has modified course on environmental points as he has risen via the political ranks, and Trump is taking intention at environmental spending, together with initiatives that fund packages tied to environmental justice and local weather change.
The 5 Nice Lakes characterize the biggest freshwater ecosystem on the earth, in addition to a supply of ingesting water for about 10% of the nation’s inhabitants. Since 2010, the huge Nice Lakes Restoration Initiative spending package deal has helped fund the whole lot from microplastics analysis to algal bloom elimination to climate-resilient shorelines. [WBEZ]
4. Illinois is weighing opening state monetary help to college students in jail
Researchers have discovered that larger training is without doubt one of the only methods to stop individuals who have been incarcerated from re-offending. But simply 615 out of 29,470 inmates in Illinois are enrolled in school lessons, based on the Training Justice Undertaking primarily based on the College of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Solely seven of the state’s 26 prisons supply any larger training programming, and only a fraction of inmates can participate on the services that do have programs out there.
However laws reintroduced within the Common Meeting this session may broaden entry by restoring state monetary help for incarcerated college students, my colleague Lisa Kurian Philip studies for WBEZ. That funding may immediate extra universities to convey their lessons into prisons. [WBEZ]
5. Shelter cats are bringing smiles to youngsters on the Discipline Museum
Tiger, Wakanda and Solidarity visited the museum as a part of an occasion to have fun the “Cats: Predators to Pets” exhibit, which highlights your complete feline household tree from home cats generally present in houses to feared predators like tigers and lions.
The exhibit options taxidermy, totally different skeletons over a century outdated, video projections, video games and connections to popular culture.
“Lots of the exhibit talks about how behaviors and traits that we see in our personal pet cats are additionally current in numerous these large wild cats,” Kate Golembiewski, a science author with the Discipline Museum, informed the Chicago Solar-Instances.
The cat cafe occasion, hosted in partnership with River North animal shelter Anti-Cruelty Society, allowed households to probably meet their subsequent pet or to see cats up shut if they’ll’t convey one house. [Chicago Sun-Times]
Right here’s what else is occurring
- European leaders held emergency talks, fearing Trump has deserted longtime allies. [AP]
- The U.S. Division of Agriculture issued conditional approval for a vaccine to guard chickens from hen flu. [CBS News]
- Protests towards the Trump administration had been held throughout the nation. [NPR]
- Right here’s what Chicago Bears proprietor Virginia McCaskey’s demise would possibly imply for the workforce’s stadium plans. [Chicago Sun-Times]
Oh, and another factor …
A Full Unknown — nominated for eight Oscars, together with Greatest Image and a Greatest Actor nod for Timothée Chalamet — paperwork Bob Dylan’s origin story in New York. However most of the characters within the movie are rooted in Chicago, the place Dylan spent an influential month earlier than hitchhiking east in 1961, WBEZ contributor Mark Guarino studies.
Hyde Park was the epicenter for folks music tradition by the late Fifties, and it’s the place most of the musicians Dylan first performed with honed their craft.
That’s due to the College of Chicago Folks Competition, run by college students and patterned after the Newport Folks Competition, which launched in 1959. [WBEZ]
Inform me one thing good …
From a serious fireplace to political occasions, Chicago’s information has by no means been boring. I’m questioning, what’s a serious historic second that stands out to you? Bonus factors if it’s one thing you witnessed firsthand.
Be at liberty to e-mail me, and your response could also be included within the publication this week.
