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The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights nationwide Friday afternoon following a communication issue between air traffic control centers. An FAA alert said the stoppage was "due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety."Ground stops were issued at Chicago O’Hare International Airport and Midway International Airport. As of 5:30 p.m., O'Hare had reported 328 flight cancellations and 847 delays. Midway saw 30 cancelled fights and 186 delays, according to the Chicago Department of Aviation. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said a communication issue affected all of the nation's 22 air traffic control centers that route planes between airports.Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said there was no sign yet that "this was a nefarious attack against us. It's just a telecommunications outage."“Everybody's safe. There's no reason to be concerned about your loved ones if they're flying,” Mullin said.Prospect Heights residents Matt and Patricia Kowalski arrived at O’Hare two hours early for their annual holiday trip to visit family in Poland, prepared to board a flight to Germany.He learned through the radio on their ride to the airport that a ground stop had occurred, so they decided to wait it out.By 5 p.m., they had already missed their connecting flight and were debating waiting another three hours for the technical issues to pass in the hopes they could keep the trip going.“Maybe we go back home tonight,” Matt said. “There’s no update now.”There is no timeline for restarting flights. Mullin said investigators will look at whether there is any link to the FAA's nationwide rollout of a new artificial intelligence system to help identify problems and reroute planes. But that system operates out of one location near Washington, D.C., and just sends recommendations to the air traffic control centers.The FAA's first alert went out shortly before 3 p.m.The FAA, in a separate statement, said the ground stop was issued "out of an abundance of caution. "Every flight has been accounted for and international flights will be handled on a case-by-case basis," the FAA said. Jetliners can be seen parked on the runway at O’Hare International Airport after the FAA issued a nationwide ground stop on Friday.Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times Nashville resident Paul Lindsay was on his way to Mason City, Iowa, with friends before learning of the ground stop at O'Hare."This is nuts," said Lindsay. "It's good to know this is not our problem. Every person in an airport in the United States is running into this problem."The Chicago Department of Aviation said it had no comment and directed questions to the FAA, which did not immediately provide further details.American Airlines, in a statement, said flights already in the air would continue to their destinations. "We expect disruption to our schedule for the rest of the day, depending on the length of the FAA’s nationwide ground stop," the company said.This is the first nationwide ground stop since January 2023, when a key FAA computer system malfunctioned. Before that, the last time had been after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.The government has been working to overhaul the outdated technology that air traffic controllers rely on since Congress approved $12.5 billion for the project last year, according to the AP. Miles of old copper wires have been replaced with fiber optic lines and old radio systems are gradually being replaced at airports across the country. But much work remains, the AP reported. Duffy has said that another $30 billion will be needed to complete the work, and the White House has begun lobbying Congress to approve it.The FAA recently expanded its use of an AI tool that reroutes flights at O'Hare, though there is no indication that the system is related to the ground stop. The system, called Strategic Management of Airspace Routing Trajectories, or SMART, has been used in Washington, D.C., since September. But the FAA this week said it is now being used at O'Hare to reduce delays. The system has been used to reroute 180 flights across the country, the FAA said. Duffy has said the AI tool would offer recommendations to human air traffic controllers, who would remain in control of rerouting flights.This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.Contributing: Associated Press

Outgoing Illinois House Speaker Emanuel "Chris" Welch, D-Hillside, has enlisted a Loop law firm to evaluate workplace culture in his chamber, following intra-caucus outrage over his delayed response to sexual harassment allegations that will soon force him to relinquish the gavel.The Prinz Law Firm received a $450,000 contract that began Sept. 21 to help assess and address Springfield’s entrenched culture of harassment, state records show.A spokesperson for Welch’s office said they “retained the Prinz Law Firm in September to assess culture within the office and make recommendations for improvements. Their process is ongoing."Attorney Kristen Prinz noted her firm was “not engaged to investigate any particular issue but rather to help the Office of the Speaker and the Clerk assess and improve the workplace culture.”“We will be gathering feedback from staff and recommending policy and process changes to further trust, engagement and productivity,” Prinz said in an email. “We are grateful to be a part of this effort towards making work better for the people who serve our state.”Welch came under fire over the summer after a legislative inspector general’s report confirmed the three-term speaker was aware of a complaint against ex-state Rep. Harry Benton almost three years before additional accusations prompted the Plainfield Democrat to resign.In between, Welch put $1.4 million behind Benton’s reelection campaign, later claiming he had no choice but to support a member because the initial complainant declined to file a formal complaint.Welch — who has faced allegations of misconduct himself over the years — has since expressed regret over the way he handled the case, and he apologized for social media interactions with the complainant that made her uncomfortable.Welch established a House culture and accountability working group to tackle the broader issue, but that wasn’t enough for an insurmountable bloc of Democrats who publicly announced last week they wouldn’t support him for a fourth term as speaker. He soon announced he’d step aside from the post while remaining a rank-and-file lawmaker.Welch’s predecessor, Michael Madigan, was ousted from the speaker’s office amid complaints over his inaction on sexual harassment allegations, too, before the longtime ex-speaker’s ultimate downfall on a federal corruption conviction.In a message sent to Democratic lawmakers and staffers, Welch’s office said the outside firm’s review is “intended to be as independent as possible” and that he “will not be directing it or otherwise managing it.”“We believe a strong, inclusive, and respectful workplace culture is essential for everyone’s success and long-term growth. And we understand that is an ongoing process that needs to be regularly evaluated and updated,” Welch’s office told members.Several Democrats are jockeying to succeed Welch as speaker, with maneuvering expected to intensify next week as lawmakers return to the Capitol for the fall veto session.

Almost every day, Blackhawks rookie Anton Frondell, Jets rookie Viggo Bjorck and Islanders rookie Victor Eklund's three-man group chat blows up with messages."We three are best friends, so we're texting back and forth," Frondell said Friday. "We give each other energy."Friday was likely one of the chat's quieter days, however, because Frondell and Bjorck — plus Bjorck's dad — were able to get dinner together in Chicago.And on Saturday, the chat will be dead, because Frondell and Bjorck will be playing each other at the United Center. The three Swedes' deep friendship gets turned off for about three hours whenever two of them face off."We're enemies for the day," Frondell said. "[I] probably won't use that group chat. I'll just try to stay in my focus, my bubble. [But] outside of the ice, we're best buddies. I feel like that's pretty normal, though."This will mark Frondell and Bjorck's second NHL meeting after years of developing side-by-side — along with Eklund — within the Djurgardens organization in Stockholm. The Hawks won the first matchup Oct. 15. As long as they both remain in the Central Division, they'll see each other plenty. Frondell already faced Eklund on Oct. 8 in New York, too. The triangle will be completed next Thursday when Eklund's Islanders visit Winnipeg.For the Jets, that Oct. 15 overtime loss in Chicago began a nine-game losing streak after a 4-1-1 start. Then a dramatic comeback Nov. 3 in Montreal flipped their fortunes again, so they enter Saturday riding a five-game winning streak.Their upturn has coincided with Bjorck moving from center to wing. That's particularly interesting because the Hawks, by contrast, have been very reluctant to do the same with Frondell.The Jets picked Bjorck eighth overall in June to address a massive organizational need for centers, but he — perhaps unsurprisingly — struggled to find immediate NHL success at that position. Through Nov. 3, he had zero points in 16 games, and the Jets had been outscored 9-2 during his five-on-five ice time. Since shifting onto veteran center Adam Lowry's line, he has tallied four assists and been a plus player, albeit in a small sample."He's going to end up back in the middle down the road somewhere," Jets coach Scott Arniel said Friday. "But for a young player, 18 years old, he's been really good without the puck."Frondell, meanwhile, continues to navigate choppy waves as he attempts to play center — and handle matchups against elite opponents like Jets star Mark Scheifele — as a 19-year-old.He has had some impressive games and moments, and it's easy to follow the Hawks' logic. They want him gaining maximum experience in the Jonathan Toews-type role they foresee him holding long-term.But considering Frondell has recorded only three points in his last 12 games, and that the Hawks haven't found any well-suited wingers for the first-line role next to Connor Bedard and Roman Kantserov, it's odd they haven't even given that idea a try.General manager Kyle Davidson said this week they might rethink things if Frondell was getting "steamrolled every night," but they believe he's holding up well enough to forge on.Frondell himself obviously isn't worrying about his deployment, nor about his inconsistent box-score stats. He said he's proud of his recent hard work to improve at faceoffs and on the penalty kill.At his apartment, he still hasn't figured out how to watch NHL games on TV — which, to be fair, is no simple task. He hears all important updates through the group chat, though, and it sounds like he has raved about his Chicago experience so far."He's told me it's a great city," Bjorck said. "He likes his teammates very much. I'm happy it's going well for him and he's found his way into the team. I'm just happy that he's happy."

Joe Maddon still meditates every morning — 10 to 15 minutes upon waking, in his bed, a pillow over his eyes, deep breaths, focusing on what he’d like to make of the day ahead.The ritual lasted longer when he was still managing in the big leagues, which he hasn’t done since the Angels fired him 56 games into the 2022 season. At 72, the top item on his agenda these days is often a round of golf at the country club outside his hometown of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, where he plays with the same pals he’s had since childhood.Even if Maddon has fewer urgent matters on which to ruminate than he did, say, as the Cubs were closing in on a curse-busting 2016 world championship, he remains a thinker, a feeler, a strong believer in intuition. In baseball terms, Maddon is still all about “the human element,” as he often put it, rather than bloodless, soulless data.Which certainly is one of the biggest reasons the game he loves stopped loving him back.“Yeah, it kind of did,” he told me. “That’s a good way to put it.”At 54, Maddon managed the Rays to their first division title and the World Series and became a star. At 62, he helped bring the mother of all championships to the North Side, where he’d been received by fans and the organization alike as a sort of savior. By 65, he was in a lame-duck season with the Cubs, his relationship with the front office doomed by philosophical incompatibility. At 68, he got fired. No teams have come knocking on his door since, and by now there’s no discernible chance of that changing.“What I do and how I do it, I don’t think it’s necessarily sought after anymore,” he said. “In today’s world, whether it’s baseball or the corporate world, experience is not necessarily sought after. What everybody’s looking for is a more controllable asset that they can then nurture in their own image and likeness. That’s what they like.“When I was coming up, it was very important to have your own thoughts and ideas because the manager was more autonomous and had to set the direction for the organization both on and off the field. In today’s game, in terms of the hiring process, I don’t think that’s what anybody’s looking for. The way things are handled — pregame [decisions], how teams are put together, the way tablets are used and tech — it’s not going to change. Control beats experience, intuition and feel because those three words, these guys have never done that. When you say that to them, it’s like you’re speaking a different language.”Maddon stays involved with the game as a favorite guest of MLB Network host Brian Kelly and with the “Book of Joe” podcast he does with writer Tom Verducci. He does corporate speaking engagements, a nice way to make a buck. He plays in golf tournaments and keeps in touch with former coaches and players.He also still loves to feed people, a lifelong enjoyment for someone who grew up in the family-owned Third Base Luncheonette in Hazleton. For 20 years, Maddon has hosted “Thanksmas” meals at holiday time for community members experiencing homelessness. It started in Tampa, Florida, and expanded to Hazleton and Chicago. On Saturday, Maddon will be back to serve Italian and Polish food — his specialties — alongside staff and volunteers at the Care For Friends facility in Lincoln Park.“I’d like to try to bring some dignity to people who may have lost some of their own personal perspective on things, just based on their lot in life and how tough it’s been,” he said.Later this month, Maddon and wife Jaye will pile into their sweet, beloved ride, motor down to Florida and spend the winter months at an RV resort near the St. Petersburg Country Club, where they are members. Some things never change. Related Cubs’ Pete Crow-Armstrong wins NL MVP to cap all-time season of homers, stolen bases and defensive excellence As Cubs chase pitching, how would they approach potentially replacing a third of their lineup? Maddon’s baseball proclivities haven’t changed. He’d still pull Kyle Hendricks from Game 7 of the World Series when he did. He still defends his extreme use of reliever Aroldis Chapman in that series.Some around the Angels will never wrap their brains around what Maddon did a couple of months before his dismissal, intentionally walking a hitter with the bases loaded and his team trailing by a run. Yes, the Angels ended up winning. A young writer asked Maddon after that game about the “analytics” of the move.“Numbers are one thing; human beings are something completely different,” Maddon lectured, adding that it had “nothing to do with math.”So what if the move made spreadsheets spontaneously combust?There’s one current big-league manager with whom Maddon most closely relates, and that’s World Series winner, well-liked “oldster” and fellow born raconteur Pat Murphy of the Brewers, who is 67.“I love the way they play,” Maddon said, “and I think the way they’re playing really reflects the sensibilities of Murph.“I just talked about how hard it is for a manager to make an impact based on the overarching philosophies of front offices, but Murph is one guy who has found his way through that. They realize how important he is to their success. I’ll say it straight-up — that team does not win it with anybody else managing them.”Maddon and Murphy have known and liked each other for decades. When Maddon managed against the Brewers as a Cub, he didn’t spend much time trading stories and yuks with then-Brewers skipper Craig Counsell. He and Counsell’s then-bench coach, Murphy, always sought each other out before games, though.“He and I have a lot in common,” Maddon said. “The sensibilities are very similar.”Same goes for the experience.“That’s what you’re seeing when he’s sitting on the bench or in postgame conversations with the press or whomever, it’s just all the years of having done this,” Maddon said. “He’s able to slow it down. He always has something to draw back on that permits him to slow moments down, and that’s what he does really well. And in the game today, I think that’s the sort of thing that’s missed.”

The Chicago City Council is more independent than it’s ever been, forcing Mayor Brandon Johnson to issue four vetoes, cast three tie-breaking votes, accept a Zoning Committee chair he did not choose and struggle to pass two budgets with mounting resistance for a third.Yet in spite of that transition from rubber stamp to real power, 11 of the city's 50 wards are uncontested in the Feb.23 aldermanic election.Ten incumbents are guaranteed reelection: Alds. Lamont Robinson (4th); Peter Chico (10th); Nicole Lee (11th); Ray Lopez (15th); Ronnie Mosley (21st); Samantha Nugent (39th); Andre Vasquez (40th), Anthony Napolitano (41st); Matt Martin (47th) and Debra Silverstein (50th). They don’t have to raise a penny or spend a minute shaking hands, knocking on doors or attending neighborhood forums.Neither does newcomer Elianne Bahena, chief of staff to — and handpicked successor of — retiring Ald. Michael Rodriguez (22nd).Even more incumbents could end up running unopposed when the dust settles from petition challenges.Other veterans are likely to face only nominal opposition from challengers with very little money. They include: Brian Hopkins (2nd); Pat Dowell (3rd); Desmon Yancy (5th); Monique Scott (24th); Felix Cardona (31st); Bill Conway (34th); Gilbert Villegas (36th); Nick Sposato (38th); Brendan Reilly (42nd); Timmy Knudsen (43rd) and Bennett Lawson (44th).Chicago is closer than ever to the strong Council, weak mayor form of government the city code intended. And yet, only 140 candidates filed to run for City Council 4-year term seats.That’s down from 210 candidates filing nominating petitions to run for alderperson in 2023, 174 of whom ultimately survived petition challenges."It's possible that our constituents are pleased to see a City Council with teeth and a coalition of aldermen who are stepping up, doing the hard work and pushing back on the executive branch of government for the first time in many, many decades," said Reilly, a leader of the group that calls itself the "Common Sense Caucus.""In other cases, maybe it's a job they simply don't want. There's so much upheaval at City Hall, perhaps some folks don't want to sign up for that circus."Southwest Side Ald. Marty Quinn (13th), one of three veteran incumbents retiring from the City Council, is not surprised about the higher number of uncontested races. He ties the shortage of competition to the historic Nov. 3 election for 21 seats on Chicago’s first elected school board that preceded the 2027 aldermanic contests. “Having these two election seasons intersect has taken a lot of potential aldermanic candidates off the table,” Quinn said. Ald. Marty Quinn chose not to run again in next year’s aldermanic election.Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times file “People who are real active in the community, involved in schools, LSCs [local school councils], block clubs — those are the natural aldermanic candidates. And a good number of those [were] on the ballot” for school board.‘There’s so much negativity’Southwest Side Ald. Matt O’Shea (19th) who is calling it quits after four terms in the City Council, bemoans how the job has changed.O’Shea blames that same sharp turn to the left — with seven Democratic Socialists serving alongside Johnson, the most liberal mayor in Chicago history — for turning off candidates who might otherwise find it attractive to seek a City Council seat.“You have a career that you would be leaving to go into public service, and public service is so ugly. There’s so much negativity. There’s so much distrust,” O’Shea said. “And then, you go down to City Hall and you see people arguing about issues we have no control over, halfway around the world. I would guess that would turn off a lot of people.” O’Shea can’t help but be surprised by the lack of interest in a job that will now pay $159,264 a year at the high end after the latest pay raise, which was tied to the rate of inflation.“When you look at communities in crisis, and you look at people elected in some of those communities, and they don’t have opposition? That should be startling to people,” O’Shea said. “There’s no one in a community of 50,000 people who thinks they could do a better job or want to do a better job?" Mike Ruemmler, president of One Future Illinois, said he is not surprised that so many incumbents are running unopposed, and that the entire field of prechallenge candidates is 66% of what it was four years ago. Ruemmler's group is a nonprofit created by business leaders to influence city and state policy, in part by electing a more conservative City Council. The group is planning to support several anti-administration Council members and seek to defeat as many as 10 mayoral allies.“People probably see the job and say, 'Why would I want to do that? Why would I want that job?' What about it would make somebody want it?” Ruemmler said. “It’s been a rough four years. A lot of rancor within the Council. Tough budgets to deal with. And it takes a lot to say, 'I want to serve.' It doesn’t seem like a desirable job to have these days.”Lee is grateful for the vote of confidence at a time when she is fighting to keep the White Sox in the Bridgeport area and a planned Amtrak maintenance facility out of the Bridgeport community. Amtrak wants to move its South Loop rail yard to Bridgeport, and if that happens, Sox minority owner Justin Ishbia would like to build a new White Sox ballpark in Amtrak's old South Loop rail yard site. Being an alderperson is "not a cakewalk sort of job, as some people may have thought of it years ago," Lee said. "This is technically a part-time job. And when I talk to people about that, I tell them it's more like two full-time jobs." Ald. Nicole Lee joins dozens of people for a news conference outside Rate Field Sept. 8. Speakers decried the proposal to move the White Sox out of Bridgeport and the construction of a 24/7 Amtrak maintenance facility.Violet Miller/Sun-Times The cost of running for the City CouncilVeteran political consultant Delmarie Cobb ties the lack of interest to the cost of an aldermanic campaign. The days when you could run for a City Council seat by knocking on doors and “just being visible” are long gone, she said.“It’s the gated communities. More and more buildings are locked. You can’t knock on doors. People aren’t answering their doors. They’ve got cameras out there. They see who it is. They don’t even come to the door. People used to volunteer for campaigns. They don’t do that anymore. So you have to spend the money,” Cobb said.“The idea of getting $300,000 — where am I gonna get that? How am I gonna run a viable campaign if the incumbent chooses not to appear at forums, which might be my only possible opportunity to do a one-on-one where people can see a comparison?”Cobb recalled what happened when she ran the 1999 aldermanic campaign that helped 9th Ward Ald. Anthony Beale, who is now the City Council dean, unseat incumbent Robert Shaw.“If it hadn’t been for the forums, there’s no way he would have won,” Cobb said of Beale. "Now a lot of incumbents refuse to do them with their opponents. They figure, 'You can’t afford to really run against me, so why should I give you this unnecessary publicity?’ ”Rodriguez is delighted, but not all that surprised, that nobody filed to challenge Bahena, his chief of staff. Bahena was the leading vote-getter in her down-ballot race for the local police district council and is “very well known” in the 22nd Ward, which includes Little Village and North Lawndale. Ald. Michael Rodriguez speaks during a City Council meeting in 2023. Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times “It’s good to be endorsed by Chuy Garcia and Mike Rodriguez in Little Village and the 22nd Ward. But it’s also the police district council, being my chief of staff and fighting for the community to the extent that the Gestapo detained her a year ago for seven hours,” Rodriguez said, a reference to federal agents carrying out President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign. “She has a stellar resume, and she’ll be the first female in that seat. I think that has kept people out.”Nugent has managed to balance the demands of her Far Northwest Side constituents and navigate the outcry about the homeless encampment in a local park, while also helping to lead the 31-member bloc of conservative and moderate alderpersons who rejected Johnson’s corporate head tax last year and have threatened to do the same this year.By maintaining that balance, Nugent believes she has earned the political pass.“I’m a workhorse. I’m out in the community all the time. I love representing my community and the residents and families, and I think they know I don’t take their support for granted,” Nugent said. “ Hopefully, no opposition just reflects that they know I’m there to support them.”Vasquez, a former battle rapper once known for his homophobic and misogynistic lyrics, attributed the high number of uncontested races, including his own, to how much time City Council members are now spending on what he called “crisis management.”“Maybe they understand how bad the budgets are looking,” Vasquez said.Four years ago, five ward races were uncontested at the close of filing, but ballot challenges doubled that number to 10.The open seat in the 21st Ward drew 14 candidates. Thirteen candidates vied for the vacant seat in the 6th Ward.The modern-day record for candidates filing to run for Chicago alderperson was set in 2011, the year that Richard M. Daley’s retirement set the stage for the election of Rahm Emanuel. The field of 351 candidates filing for a Council seat was ultimately reduced to 239 candidates after petition challenges.In 2023, the City Council welcomed 16 newly elected alderpersons, an unusually large turnover that followed a wave of retirements, resignations and defeats.The lowest turnover in modern history occurred in 2003, when the first-year class included just three new members — Manny Flores (1st); Howard Brookins (21st) and Rey Colon (31st).