WBEZ’s Weekly News Recap: Sept. 11, 2026

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Chicago Public Media returns to the Evanston Folk Festival on September 12th and 13th for Tent Talks, a series of conversations with our reporters and festival artists. Learn more at wbez.org/events.

**Sasha-Ann Simons** (0:27)
Hey Chicago, I'm Sasha-Ann Simons, and this is In the Loop.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:34)
The Frankfort mother charged with killing her two-year-old son made her first court appearance today.

**Olivia Olander** (0:39)
We learned many new details about that tragedy in the courtroom.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:42)
There is a firestorm brewing in Bridgeport.

**SPEAKER_5** (0:45)
Over the Labor Day holiday, Justin Ishbeam, the billionaire minority owner of the White Sox, dropped new ballpark drawings.

**SPEAKER_6** (0:51)
Ray Field right over our shoulder here is only 35 years old, and it was built with $137 million of taxpayer subsidies.

**Sasha-Ann Simons** (1:01)
We are breaking down the biggest stories of the week in our Weekly News Recap.
Another Chicago alder opts not to run for re-election. A proposed plan to move the White Sox into a new South Loop stadium is unveiled. Plus, South Suburban students stage a walkout over alleged racist incidents.

**Olivia Olander** (1:19)
Students at Lincoln Way East High School walked out of class today.

**SPEAKER_7** (1:23)
Their purpose was to protest racism.

**Hannah Domboski** (1:25)
Illinois Governor JB. Pritzker joined Democrats in Texas to share their own message to voters.

**JB Pritzker** (1:30)
Nothing Republicans say over the next two days is going to change how clinically deranged and out of touch the GOP has become.

**SPEAKER_7** (1:37)
Alderman Matt O'Shea says he's ready to pass the torch. This is now the third city council member deciding not to seek re-election next year.

**SPEAKER_10** (1:47)
The Illinois Department of Transportation has installed nearly 600 FLOC safety cameras along highways. The Secretary of State Alexei Genolia says FLOC broke state law by sharing data with federal immigration officials.

**Sasha-Ann Simons** (1:59)
We'll get into the full recap you just clicked on shortly. But first, one of our panelists this week, Chicago Sun-Times reporter Violet Miller is here. Hey Violet.

**Violet Miller** (2:06)
Hello.

**Sasha-Ann Simons** (2:07)
You are heading down to Springfield and I hear it's not for politics, so I'm curious.

**Violet Miller** (2:11)
No, but we're still playing hardball. It's the Women's Professional Baseball League. The playoffs are this weekend and the championship is next week. The contender is yet to be determined. The Firebells take on the Boston Hunters tonight. That'll one seed versus the four seeds. The Firebells are the favorite. They're likely to end up in the championship next week against the winner of either the New York Heights or the LA Queens who play on Saturday.

**Sasha-Ann Simons** (2:35)
Do we have any Chicagoans still representing?

**Violet Miller** (2:38)
Yeah, Amira Hondras still representing, getting a couple of RBIs yesterday in the Queens' win over the Heights. The Heights do seem to be a slight favorite, even though the two are pretty evenly matched. So every run counts and they were really racking them up last night. So Amira Hondras are Chicagoan continuing to contribute in this league.

**Sasha-Ann Simons** (2:57)
That's so exciting.

**Violet Miller** (2:59)
It's been a really, really good time.
It's just been fun watching Kelsey Whitmore, one of the Firebells lead players, the captain, put up a post a few days ago on Instagram talking about it. This is the first time she's ever been able to like relax as herself in baseball because she doesn't have the pressure of being the only woman on the team. She is on a women's team. And so she can just have fun. That's probably why she racked up 11 home runs and 15 games.

**Sasha-Ann Simons** (3:23)
Oh, yeah. She's going to go all the way. Yeah. And historically, you talk about women's teams.
We haven't really seen women's team sports get so much attention, right? That's kind of changed a little bit lately with the WNBA, for instance. But I wonder if we might see something happen with women's baseball.

**Violet Miller** (3:41)
Yeah. I mean, the WPBL is definitely in a very different place than WNBA, which has had a few years to establish itself. But you can see that they're falling in the footsteps of the Professional Women's Hockey League, which has also kind of erupted over the last few years, initially taking a play out of their playbook with trying to make their streams free on YouTube, eventually backtracking that with an ESPN deal.
So kind of a double-edged sword there in that they're trying to build this crowd, they're trying to establish that base that the WNBA, the PWHL have done over the years and then kind of monetize that to keep it going. But also there are now these resources, ESPN buying it and the MLB too, a lesser extent with some of the teams kind of shouting them out, contributing, whatever. And so I think it's yet to be seen whether the WPBL is on the exact path of the WNBA, but here's to hoping because this first opening season has been really, really exciting to watch.