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DESIGN

Automatic Ticketing For Cars Parked In Bus And Bike Lanes Coming To Downtown

“Coming this summer: A ticket for your car, if you park in Chicago’s downtown bike and bus lanes. The city’s ‘Safe Streets’ pilot is on track to launch this summer and bring automated ticketing to many illegally parked drivers,” report Sarah Freishtat and Jake Sheridan at the Tribune.

Winnetka Passes Lakefront Law

“Winnetka’s village council approved an ordinance limiting what Lakefront homeowners can build on their table land and bluffs, despite warnings that passing it would trigger at least two lawsuits from residents,” reports Crain’s.

ShotSpotter Contract Expires Soon

“The gunshot detection system’s contract with the city ends this month without a firm signal from Mayor Brandon Johnson on what comes next,” reports Block Club.

DINING & DRINKING

Sugar Is Dear Far And Near

“The impact of the climate crisis is [being] felt by sugar producers, with poor weather conditions, including severe drought, across Europe severely damaging beet crops,” reports FoodNavigator Europe. “Sugar cane production in major producing countries, such as Brazil, has also been affected by extreme weather conditions pushing prices up. The global cost of sugar has risen to its highest level since 2011, following concerns of underproduction… from countries such as Thailand, which is facing a severe drought… Sugar, cocoa beans and milk are among [the] most important raw materials. To help secure imports of cane sugar, from outside the EU, the EU is granting duty-free access to the market for developing countries… The real impact is likely to be felt by consumers as the cost is inevitably passed on.”

Greater Chicago Food Depository Adds Exec

“I’ve joined the Greater Chicago Food Depository as Senior Director of Community Advocacy & Government Affairs,” posts Skyler Larrimore on X/Twitter. “I’ll center & amplify the voices of food insecure neighbors & communities in advocacy, foster relationships with elected officials, and build policy partnerships to address root causes of hunger. The Greater Chicago Food Depository’s mission is to end hunger. To achieve our mission, we work in partnership with a network of community-based organizations and individuals. Together, we connect our neighbors with healthy food, lift our voices and advance solutions that address the root causes of hunger—poverty, systemic inequity and structural racism.”

Republican Frontrunner A-OKs Anheuser-Busch While Lobbyist Sets Fundraiser

“Former President Donald Trump offered an olive branch to Anheuser-Busch on Tuesday, issuing a post on his social media platform calling on conservatives to drop their opposition to the besieged beer company,” reports Politico. “Trump’s message… comes as a top Republican lobbyist for the company is set to host a fundraiser for the former president next month, with some tickets going at $10,000 each.”

FILM & TELEVISION

Mise En Place For “The Bear” Season Three

The third season of FX/Hulu’s “The Bear” is in prep, and starts shooting February 26, reports Screen Magazine.

Hulu, But For Sports: Disney, Fox And Warner Bros. Discovery Will Merge Sports Efforts Into A Cable-Busting Streamer

“The new service, which will have its own management team, will offer streams of channels including ESPN, FS1, ABC, Fox, TNT and TBS,” writes the Hollywood Reporter. Beware, cable and cable operators: “The service will be available directly to consumers, but will also be available as a bundle with WBD’s Max, Disney’s ESPN+ and Hulu. Pricing is still TBD, but it is expected to launch in the fall, in time for the NFL season.”

LIT

Chicago Cabbie’s Pulp Fiction Novel Gets Tarantino Injection

“Jack Clark’s novel, ‘Nobody’s Angel,’ started selling briskly online after Quentin Tarantino called it one of his favorite reads of the year,” reports Block Club. Here’s a piece of what QT grokked: “It was another quiet night—the tail end of that same winter—the last time I saw Lenny. I was northbound on Lake Shore Drive, fifteen over the special winter speed limit, which was supposed to keep the road salt spray from killing the saplings shivering in the median. The lake was a vast darkness on the right. To the left lay the park and beyond that a string of high-rent highrises climbed straight into the clouds.”

Missouri Republican Candidate Burns YA Books With Flamethrower; Banned Books Boxed In Texas

“In a message posted on Twitter February 6, Valetina Gomez, a candidate running for Missouri’s Secretary of State, stands poised with a flamethrower in her hands,” reports Book Riot. “The text introducing the video explains precisely what viewers will witness were she to be elected: ‘I will BURN all books that are grooming, indoctrinating, and sexualizing our children. MAGA. America First.’” Gomez vows to continue burning books in this clip (X/Twitter link). Footnotes Eric Kleefeld of Media Matters (X/Twitter link): “Historical note: The Nazis literally started their book-burning rituals with an attack against Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sex Research.”

Meanwhile, in Texas: “With a growing number of titles banned across the district, some teachers in Conroe Independent School District were asked to box up and return thousands of books from their classroom collections,” reports HoustonPress. (An instructor provided a photo of rows of brown cardboard boxes marked, “BANNED BOOKS.”)

MEDIA

NPR’s Linda Wertheimer Retiring

Linda Wertheimer is retiring, memos Edith Chapin, interim chief content officer, senior vice president and editor in chief of NPR: “After more than fifty years of service to NPR and public broadcasting, Linda Wertheimer, one of our founding mothers, has announced her retirement. Linda is an NPR icon blazing trails for women, for the news magazines and superlative reporting of politics in this country. She began as a director of ‘All Things Considered,’ only to later host the show with her distinctive voice—authority, charm, and dry humor wrapped into smooth tenacity. Her accomplishments are too numerous to list, but I encourage you to read her bio on our website for inspiration and admiration.”

Publications Moving Away From Hard Paywall Model

“News companies are reversing course on hard subscriptions—once seen as a safer alternative to the volatile ad market—in favor of flexible paywalls, membership programs and more ads,” reports Axios. “A strategy focused mainly on subscriptions requires upfront spending on premium content. That takes time to pay off—and many publishers don’t have the cushion for that.” Also: “many outlets have learned that simply throwing a paywall up over your previously free content doesn’t work either. It throttles ad revenue without capturing enough new subscribers.”

Roofing Billionaires Price Graydon Carter’s Air Mail At $50 Million

“A billionaire roofing family is in talks to buy Air Mail, former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter’s effort to drag glossy magazines into the online age,” reports Semafor. “Standard Industries—whose CEOs, two ex-brothers-in-law named David, are stretching a family business into a wide-ranging financial empire—is in talks to acquire the five-year-old media company for about $50 million.”

Argentine’s Rightwing President Seals Public Media Takeover

“The Argentinian government announced the takeover of four state-owned public media companies for one year,” reports the Buenos Aires Herald. “The move was made official on Monday via a decree signed by President Javier Milei.” A block of senators “called the decision ‘a clear step towards authoritarianism.’ … This decision to take over public media is in line with the December mega-decree which declared a public emergency in economic, financial, fiscal, administrative, social security, tariff, health, and social matters until December 31, 2025.”

STAGE

Lifeline Theatre World-Premieres KidSeries “Skunk and Badger”

Lifeline Theatre has announced casting for the world-premiere production of “Skunk and Badger,” based on the book written by Amy Timberlake and illustrated by Jon Klassen. Lifeline Ensemble member Alan Donahue teams up with director Brian Tochterman Jr. for a story for kids “that navigates the rocky road of two very different roommates.” March 2-April 7. Tickets and more here.

Royal Court Literary Department Threatened

London’s Royal Court’s literary department “is under threat, as the institution enters into a consultation with employees to take voluntary redundancy in a process designed to secure its long-term future,” relays The Stage (paywall). Great Britain’s Writers Guild: “It is extremely troubling to hear that the literary department at the Royal Court may be at risk. While we are reassured to hear that the theater remains committed to new writing via script submissions and writers’ programs, this still raises some very serious questions. Playwrights will rightly be asking, ‘Where next for the future of new writing?’ if a ‘writers’ theater’ can fail to protect the core infrastructure that is needed to sustain it?”

ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.

Illinois Arts Council Announces Big Changes To Grant And Funding Process

The Illinois Arts Council has made major changes to their grant and funding process. Much of information is at a new website that “allows artists, educators, arts organizations and communities to more easily access information about how to receive funding.” Says Nora Daley, board chair, Illinois Arts Council, “The IAC has taken a deep dive into its grants and processes and made significant changes to best support the arts throughout Illinois while lightening the burden on our constituents. The arts and culture sector account for $29.7 billion of the Illinois economy and supports more than 216,700 jobs. Our sector is made up of small to large-sized businesses. Our artists are entrepreneurs. We are economic drivers.”

Among the changes: “The IAC divided the state into six distinct regions allowing program directors to oversee entire communities as opposed to artistic disciplines. This establishes a more direct relationship with rural and under-resourced communities and strengthens re-granting partnerships. The newly created six regions will allow for more equitable funding across Illinois’ communities. The Chicago Metro Region will also be further divided into subregions to better serve distinct communities within our largest urban setting.”

For the 2025 fiscal year, “The IAC will also launch a new grant program for individual artists called the Creative Accelerator Fund. Rather than restrict resources to the production of a specific project, this program will provide holistic support to Illinois artists. A primary goal of the program is to bolster a creative workforce that composes a significant portion of Illinois’ creative and economic activity.” The website is here.

Ex-Manager Says He Wouldn’t Fly In A Boeing Max 9

“Last weekend Alaska Airlines and United Airlines resumed flying some of their Boeing Max 9 planes, all of which were grounded after a door panel on a Max 9 blew out in midair January 5,” reports the Los Angeles Times. “I would absolutely not fly a Max airplane,” said Ed Pierson, a former Boeing senior manager. “I’ve worked in the factory where they were built, and I saw the pressure employees were under to rush the planes out the door. I tried to get them to shut down before the first crash.”

Three Million Smart Toothbrushes Unite In Attack

“Approximately three million smart toothbrushes were hijacked by hackers to launch a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack,” reports ZDNet. The devices, “transformed into soldiers in a botnet army, knocked out a Swiss company for several hours, costing millions of euros in damages.” (Update: 404 Media reports this story isn’t true and came out of a translation error.)

Convention Protesters Slip Past Deadline

“Due to a technicality, the city was forced on appeal Monday to allow one group to march to the sidewalk in front of the United Center. The Poor People’s Army was granted its permit after the city failed to respond to the application within its own ten-day deadline,” reports the Sun-Times.

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