6 Midwest cities to visit in 2023 – Chicago Tribune newstrendslive

Good morning, Chicago.

Today marks Bears owner Virginia McCaskey’s 100th birthday.

The only daughter of Bears founder George Halas, she attended her first NFL championship game at 9 in 1932. She never expected to be thrust into her role as principal owner and she has treated it as a sacred duty to her father.

“It’s very, very important,” she said in 2007 in a rare interview. “We’re enjoying all the privileges and perks that go along with ownership, but we have to keep reminding ourselves we really didn’t do anything to earn this. George Halas started it all and I think he’ll be around to finish it all. I look on it as a serious responsibility.”

She has known all 28 of the team’s Hall of Famers. The aspiration of adding to those lists remains strong. And if there was one characteristic McCaskey truly admired in her dad, it was his unrelenting optimism.

“That,” she said, “is the way he lived his life.”

With that in mind, the belief in a more promising future for the Bears remains steadfast. Read what Matt Eberflus recalled of his first conversation with McCaskey and more from the Tribune’s Dan Wiederer.

For a look into the archives at McCaskey’s impact on the NFL and Chicago, subscribe to the Vintage Chicago Tribune newsletter. This week’s edition from reporter Kori Rumore and photo editor Marianne Mather highlights McCaskey, in her own words.

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House Republicans flailed through a long second day of fruitless balloting Wednesday, unable to either elect their leader Kevin McCarthy as House speaker or come up with a new strategy to end the political chaos that has tarnished the start of their new majority.

Yet McCarthy wasn’t giving up, even after the fourth, fifth and sixth ballots produced no better outcome and he was left trying to call off a night-time session. Even that was controversial, as the House voted 216-214 — amid shouting and crowding —to adjourn for the night.

Nabeela Syed, a Democrat from Chicago’s suburbs, and Brad Fritts, a Republican from Dixon, don’t share the same positions on many issues. She’s for abortion access; he opposes it. He stands against gun rights restrictions; she supports a ban on high-capacity guns and new regulations.

Despite their policy differences, the pair’s arrival in Springfield on Jan. 11 for the Illinois House inauguration will mark the advent of Gen Z in the Illinois General Assembly, with Syed and Fritts bringing a new generation’s perspective to an institution that has long valued age and experience.

In the summer of 2019, as the Chicago Bears geared up for their 100th season, the team’s top officials had to tackle a sensitive off-field matter. Citing security concerns, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration had requested “updating” her season tickets, which she’d held for years before being elected months earlier to the top job at City Hall.

Team officials, including President Ted Phillips, worked with Lightfoot’s representatives to try to accommodate their security concerns and move the mayor’s seats — but the Bears had a problem of their own. From the team’s perspective, a 2016 ethics board ruling inspired by the Chicago Cubs’ World Series run complicated the question of whether they could offer the mayor a free or even face-value upgrade.

“A Game Maker’s Life: A Hall of Fame Game Inventor and Executive Tells the Inside Story of the Toy Industry” is a compelling memoir peppered with joy and family, resilience and creativity.

It is about how a kid from Albany Park, a self-proclaimed “imaginative, driven, but failing college student,” began his life as a toy designer who in a 40-year career created some of the world’s most popular toys and games, first as the youngest designer for Marvin Glass and later with his own Big Monster Toys, creating playthings for such companies as Mattel, Hasbro, Milton Bradley and Fisher-Price.

If traveling more was at the top of your New Year’s resolutions, it’s time to hit the road.

From breath of fresh air city living to small town charm with artistic flair, all without leaving the Midwest, here are our top destinations for 2023.