The Tribune's Quotes of the Week quiz for Aug. 2
But let's go back to the start of the week. On Monday, Gov. JB Pritzker signed a pair of gun control measures into law, and state lawmakers said they're looking to address the steady rise in auto insurance rates in Illinois. By Friday, Pritzker signed another bill, this time one that would provide some Chicago police officers and firefighters with higher pensions. At the city level, the Chicago City Council eliminated minimum parking requirements for some residential developments and Mayor Brandon Johnson weighed new taxes on businesses — including a corporate head tax — to help balance the next budget.
Meanwhile, more Illinois primary races are opening up, and endorsements are pouring in. On Thursday, 83-year-old U.S. Rep. Danny Davis announced that he will not seek a 16th term representing Illinois' 7th Congressional District. At least nine people have filed to run for the soon-to-be vacant seat, but Davis has already endorsed his preferred successor: veteran state Rep. La Shawn Ford. In the race to replace outgoing Sen. Dick Durbin, U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly also earned a key endorsement this week, receiving backing from a major gun control political action committee.
More layoffs are hitting the city's education sector. Northwestern University announced it eliminated about 425 staff positions on Tuesday, and Moody Bible Institute, a small bible college, also laid off about 9% of its staff.
Plus, former President Joe Biden visited Chicago this week to speak at the National Bar Association's awards gala, where he called on the nation's lawyers to continue to uphold the Constitution under the Trump administration.
In other news from around the world, wildfires raging across Canada covered parts of the midwestern United States with smoke, leading to unhealthy air quality alerts. The United Kingdom and Canada announced this week that their governments would recognize a Palestinian state come September, following a similar move by France. And some countries were able to complete trade deals with the U.S. before the president's Friday deadline, but others — like Brazil, Switzerland and New Zealand — ran out of time. The new rates will take effect on Aug. 7.
And Chicago Cubs fans lost a legend this week. Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg, the dynamic second baseman who spent 15 of his 16 major-league seasons with the Cubs, passed away at age 65 following a battle with prostate cancer. The team then dropped into second place in the National League Central after a loss to the Milwaukee Brewers. But the week ended on a more positive note. The Cubs added four players before Thursday's trade deadline, and on Friday, the league officially announced that the 2027 MLB All-Star Game will be held at Wrigley Field.
Now for the fun stuff! Here's the latest installment of the Tribune's Quotes of the Week quiz, this time with excerpts and utterances from July 27 to Aug. 2. Missed last week? You can find it here or check out our past editions of Quotes of the Week.
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Los Angeles Times
16 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Israeli minister visits contentious holy site as 27 aid-seekers are reported killed in Gaza
DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip — A far-right Israeli minister visited and prayed at Jerusalem's most sensitive holy site on Sunday, triggering regional condemnation and fears that the provocative move could further escalate tensions with Palestinians. The visit came as hospitals in Gaza reported that 27 more Palestinians seeking food aid were killed by Israeli fire. With Israel already facing global criticism over famine-like conditions in the besieged Gaza Strip, the visit by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to the hillside compound threatened to further set back efforts by international mediators to halt Israel's nearly two-year military offensive in the territory. The area, which Jews call the Temple Mount, is the holiest site in Judaism and was home to the ancient biblical temples. Muslims call the site the Noble Sanctuary, and today it is home to the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. Visits are considered a provocation across the Muslim world and openly praying violates a long-standing protocol at the combustible site. Under that protocol, Jews have been allowed to tour the site but are barred from praying, with Israeli police and troops providing security. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said after Ben-Gvir's visit that Israel would not change the norms governing the holy site. Ben-Gvir made the stop after Hamas' release of videos showing two emaciated Israeli hostages. The videos caused an uproar in Israel and raised pressure on the government to reach a deal to bring home from Gaza the remaining hostages who were captured on Oct. 7, 2023, in the attack that triggered the war. During his visit to the hilltop compound, Ben-Gvir called for Israel to annex the Gaza Strip and encourage Palestinians to leave, reviving rhetoric that has complicated negotiations to end the war. He raged against a video that Hamas released Saturday of 24-year-old hostage Evyatar David showing him skeletal and hollow-eyed in a dimly lit Gaza tunnel. He called it an attempt to pressure Israel. Ben-Gvir's previous visits to the site have been explosive and prompted threats from Palestinian militant groups. Clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinian demonstrators in and around the site fueled an 11-day war with Hamas in 2021. His Sunday visit was swiftly condemned as an incitement by Palestinian leaders as well as Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Sufyan Qudah, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in neighboring Jordan, which serves as the custodian of the Al Aqsa Mosque, condemned what he called 'provocative incursions by the extremist minister' and implored Israel to prevent escalation. Israel has been jolted in recent days by videos of hostages with their faces hollow, ribs protruding and bodies ravaged by hunger. The videos — released by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the second-largest militant group in Gaza — triggered outrage across the political spectrum in Israel. Tens of thousands rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday urging Israel and the United States to urgently pursue their release after suspending ceasefire talks. Right-wing politicians who have opposed deals with Hamas said the videos reinforced their conviction that the militant group must be obliterated once and for all. 'From here we need to bring a message and ensure that from today, we conquer all of the Gaza Strip, declare sovereignty over all of the Gaza Strip, take out every Hamas member and encourage voluntary emigration,' Ben-Gvir said on a video posted on social media after his visit to the holy site. Palestinians reported more deadly violence at aid sites and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said a staff member had been killed when Israeli forces shelled its office with artillery. With international anger growing at the situation in Gaza, around 90,000 protesters in Australia marched across the Sydney Harbor Bridge, turning the city landmark into a symbol of opposition to Israel's military campaign in Gaza. Hospital officials said Israeli forces killed at least 27 Palestinians seeking food on Sunday in the besieged territory, where witnesses described facing gunfire as hungry crowds surged toward aid sites and the malnutrition-related death toll also rose. Desperation has gripped the Palestinian territory of more than 2 million, which experts warn is facing 'a worst-case scenario of famine' because of Israel's blockade and nearly two-year offensive. Yousef Abed, among the people en route to a distribution point, described coming under indiscriminate fire, seeing at least three people bleeding on the ground. 'I couldn't stop and help them because of the bullets,' he said. Two hospitals in southern and central Gaza reported receiving bodies from routes leading to U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid sites, including 11 killed in the Teina area en route to a distribution point in Khan Younis. Three Palestinian eyewitnesses, including one traveling through Teina, told the Associated Press that shootings occurred on the routes, which are in military zones secured by Israeli forces. They said they saw soldiers open fire on hungry crowds advancing toward troops. Eyewitnesses seeking food have reported similar gunfire attacks in recent days near aid distribution sites, leaving dozens of Palestinians dead. The United Nations reported that 859 people were killed near GHF sites from May 27 to July 31 and that hundreds more have been slain along the routes of U.N.-led food convoys. GHF says its armed contractors have used only pepper spray or fired warning shots to prevent deadly crowding. Israel's military has said it fires only warning shots as well. Both claimed the death tolls have been exaggerated. Israel's military did not immediately respond to questions about Sunday's reported fatalities at the sites but said it was reviewing the Red Crescent's report. GHF's media office said there was no gunfire 'near or at our sites.' Meanwhile, the Gaza Health Ministry said six more Palestinian adults died of malnutrition-related causes over the past 24 hours. It said Sunday's casualties brought the death toll among Palestinian adults to 82 over the five weeks since the ministry started counting deaths among adults in late June. Malnutrition-related deaths are not included in the ministry's count of war casualties. Ninety-three children have died of causes related to malnutrition since the war in Gaza started in 2023, the ministry said. Israel has taken a series of steps to increase the flow of food into Gaza over the last week, but U.N. and relief groups say conditions have not improved. The war began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, and abducting 251. The militant group is still holding 50 captives, about 20 of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefires or other deals. Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed more than 60,400 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The ministry, which doesn't distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count but says most of the dead are women and children, is staffed by medical professionals. The United Nations and other independent experts view its figures as the most reliable count of casualties. Israel has disputed its figures, but hasn't provided its own account of casualties. Shurafa, Metz and Magdy write for the Associated Press and reported from Deir al Balah, Jerusalem and Cairo, respectively.
Yahoo
39 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Biden laments over Trump's handling of the presidency in speech: ‘These are dark days'
Former President Joe Biden blasted his predecessor and successor in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump, in a speech at the National Bar Association's Centennial Convention in Chicago on Thursday night. Biden said he was 'proud I've appointed judges doing their best to be independent, fair, and impartial, respecting the rule of law, upholding the Constitution. I wish I could say the same for the executive branch.' The 82-year-old said Trump was 'doing his best to dismantle the Constitution.' Saying that he was 'deadly earnest,' Biden lamented that Congress was 'just sitting on the sidelines' and that the Supreme Court was enabling the president's worst impulses. 'The rulings they made, my God,' said Biden. The former president said, 'There are moments …that forced us to confront hard truths about ourselves, our institutions, and democracy itself. We are, in my view, at such a moment in American history, reflected in every cruel executive outreach, every rollback of basic freedoms, every erosion of long-standing established precedent.' 'Watching immigrants who are in this country legally, torn from the arms of their family, dragged away in handcuffs, the only home they've ever known,' said Biden. 'My friends, we need to face the hard truths of this administration.' He argued the Trump administration's goals have been to 'erase all the gains' from his own time in the White House, and 'to erase history rather than make it, to erase fairness, equality, to erase justice itself. And that's not hyperbole, that's a fact.' 'Look, folks, you can't sugarcoat this. These are dark days, but you're all here for the same reason. I left that prestigious law firm … to go to the defender's office years ago, it's because our future is literally on the line,' he added. Biden accepted an award from the association following his 22-minute speech, in which he criticized the president without mentioning him by name. The former president was awarded the association's highest honor, named after its founder, C. Frances Stratford. The National Bar Association is the country's oldest and largest national association of mostly African American attorneys, judges, law professors, and students. Biden's speech targeting the president came as a group of federal judges has asked U.S. political leaders to tone down their rhetoric and ease their attacks on members of the judicial system after a spike in intimidation and death threats. The group Speak Up for Justice hosted a forum on Thursday where a number of judges spoke of their experiences of receiving hatred and harassment. While Trump was not named, Esther Salas, a District Court judge in New Jersey, said attacks came from the 'top down.' 'The fix check is so easy in some ways, right, because what we need is our political leaders from the top down to stop fanning these flames, to stop using irresponsible rhetoric, to stop referring to judges as corrupt and biased and monsters that hate America. We need our leaders to lead responsibly,' said Salas Thursday. 'Stop demonizing us, stop villainizing us, because what they're doing when they do that irresponsible rhetoric is they are inviting people to do us harm… because our leaders are calling us idiots and deranged, and monsters,' she added.
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
US envoy tells Israeli hostage families he's working on plan to end Gaza War
Trump has made ending the conflict a major priority of his administration, though negotiations have faltered. JERUSALEM, Aug 2 – President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy told families of hostages being held by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Aug. 2 that he was working with the Israeli government on a plan that would effectively end the war in Gaza. Trump has made ending the conflict a major priority of his administration, though negotiations have faltered. Steve Witkoff is visiting Israel as its government faces mounting pressure over the deteriorating humanitarian conditions in the enclave. In a recording of the meeting, reviewed by Reuters, Witkoff is heard saying: "We have a very, very good plan that we're working on collectively with the Israeli government, with Prime Minister Netanyahu ... for the reconstruction of Gaza. That effectively means the end of the war." The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his remarks. Witkoff also said that Hamas was prepared to disarm to end the war, though the group has repeatedly said it will not lay down its weapons. In response, Hamas, which has dominated Gaza since 2007 but has been militarily battered by Israel in the war, said it would not relinquish "armed resistance" unless an "independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital" was established. Indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel aimed at securing a 60-day ceasefire in the Gaza war and a deal for the release of half the hostages ended last week in deadlock. On Aug. 2, Hamas released its second video in two days of Israeli hostage Evyatar David. In it, David, skeletally thin, is shown digging a hole, which, he says in the video, is for his own grave. "They are on the absolute brink of death," David's brother Ilay said at a rally in support of the hostages in Tel Aviv, where thousands gathered holding posters of those in captivity and chanted for their immediate release. "In the current unimaginable condition, they may have only days left to live." Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa'ar said the "world cannot remain silent in the face of the difficult images that are the result of deliberate sadistic abuse of the hostages, which also includes starvation." Witkoff, who arrived in Israel with Benjamin Netanyahu's government facing a global outcry over the devastation in Gaza and the starvation growing among its 2.2 million people, met the prime minister on Thursday. Afterwards, a senior Israeli official said an understanding between Israel and Washington was emerging that there was a need to move from a plan to release some of the hostages to a plan to release all the hostages, disarm Hamas and demilitarise the Gaza Strip, echoing Israel's key demands for ending the war. Gaza starvation amid ceasefire talks On Tuesday, Qatar and Egypt, who are mediating ceasefire efforts, endorsed a declaration by France and Saudi Arabia outlining steps toward a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As part of it, they said Hamas must hand over its arms to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority. The crisis in Gaza has also prompted a string of Western powers to announce they may recognize a Palestinian state. On Friday, Witkoff visited a U.S.-backed aid operation in southern Gaza, which the United Nations has partly blamed for deadly conditions in the enclave, saying he sought to get food and other aid to people there. Dozens have died of malnutrition in recent weeks after Israel cut off all supplies to the enclave for nearly three months from March to May, according to Gaza's health ministry. It said on Saturday that it had recorded seven more fatalities, including a child, since Friday. Israel blames Hamas for the suffering in Gaza and says it is taking steps for more aid to reach its population, including pausing fighting for part of the day in some areas, air drops and announcing protected routes for aid convoys. U.N. agencies have said that airdrops of food are insufficient and that Israel must let in far more aid by land and quickly ease access to it. The Gaza war began when Hamas killed more than 1,200 people and took 251 hostage in an attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, according to Israeli figures. Israel's offensive has since killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials. According to Israeli officials, 50 hostages now remain in Gaza, only 20 of whom are believed to be alive.
