Author: chicagoinquirer

NEW YORK — The “Saturday Night Live” 50th anniversary special will include guest appearances by Steve Martin, Sabrina Carpenter, Bad Bunny, John Mulaney, Dave Chappelle and numerous other stars who’ve been associated with the show over the years. Scarlett Johansson, who is married to Weekend Update co-host Colin Jost, will appear on the “SNL50: The Anniversary Special” that will air Feb. 16. It’s a three-hour live telecast honoring “SNL’s” 50th anniversary. Other guests announced by NBC on Thursday include Adam Driver, Ayo Edebiri, Paul McCartney, Tom Hanks, Miley Cyrus, Robert De Niro, Martin Short and Kim Kardashian. The special will…

by Aamer Madhani WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he wants to root out “anti-Christian bias” in the U.S., announcing that he was forming a task force led by Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the “targeting” of Christians. Speaking at pair of events in Washington surrounding the the National Prayer Breakfast, Trump said the task force would be directed to “immediately halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination within the federal government, including at the DOJ, which was absolutely terrible, the IRS, the FBI — terrible — and other agencies.” Trump said Bondi would also work…

by Samy Magdy CAIRO — Israel says it has begun preparations for the departure of Palestinians from Gaza despite international rejection of President Donald Trump’s plan to empty the territory of its population. Egypt has launched a diplomatic blitz behind the scenes against the proposal, warning it would put its peace deal with Israel at risk, officials said. The Trump administration has already dialed back aspects of the proposal after it was widely rejected internationally, saying the relocation of Palestinians would be temporary. U.S. officials have provided few details about how or when the plan would be carried out. In…

by Morgan Lee Demonstrators gathered in cities across the U.S. on Wednesday to protest the Trump administration’s early actions, decrying everything from the president’s immigration crackdown to his rollback of transgender rights and a proposal to forcibly transfer Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. Protesters in Philadelphia and at state capitols in California, Minnesota, Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin, Indiana and beyond waved signs denouncing President Donald Trump; billionaire Elon Musk, the leader of Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency; and Project 2025, a hard-right playbook for American government and society. “I’m appalled by democracy’s changes in the last, well, specifically two weeks…

by Megan Janetsky CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico (AP) — A line of Mexican National Guard and Army trucks rumbled along the border separating Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday, among the first of 10,000 troops Mexico has sent to its northern frontier following tariff threats by President Donald Trump. Masked and armed National Guard members picked through brush running along the border barrier on the outskirts of Ciudad Juárez, pulling out makeshift ladders and ropes tucked away in the trenches, and pulling them onto trucks. Patrols were also seen on other parts of the border near Tijuana. It comes…

by Tim Reynolds Jimmy Butler got what he wanted. He’s being traded out of Miami and got a new contract in the process. The Heat and the Golden State Warriors have agreed on a deal that sends Butler to the Bay Area, a person with knowledge of the talks said Wednesday. Butler helped carry the Heat to the NBA Finals twice, long before a hostile breakup that saw him suspended three times by the team in January. Golden State is making it happen by moving Andrew Wiggins, Dennis Schroder, Kyle Anderson and first-round draft compensation out in the deal, said…

by Rob Maaddi NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and the Kansas City Chiefs are pursuing history and a few of Taylor Swift’s records. Saquon Barkley, Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles stand in their way. The Chiefs (17-2) will try to become the first team to win three straight Super Bowls when they face the Eagles (17-3) on Sunday in the Superdome. It’s a rematch from two years ago when Hurts nearly led the Eagles to a championship only to watch Mahomes snatch it away by rallying Kansas City to a 38-35 win on Harrison Butker’s 27-yard…

by Steve Megargee MILWAUKEE — Jaren Jackson Jr. scored 37 points and the Memphis Grizzlies continued their recent mastery of Milwaukee with a 132-119 victory over the Bucks on Sunday night. Memphis has won its last seven meetings with the Bucks, who last beat the Grizzlies 126-114 in Milwaukee on Jan. 19, 2022. The Grizzlies won this one without star guard Ja Morant, who missed a second straight game due to a sore right shoulder. Jackson briefly went to the locker room late in the first quarter after taking an inadvertent elbow to the face from Ryan Rollins on the…

by Tara Copp WASHINGTON — The Air Force has removed training courses with videos of its storied Tuskegee Airmen and the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs — the female World War II pilots who were vital in ferrying warplanes for the military — to comply with the Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The videos were shown to Air Force troops as part of DEI courses they took during basic military training. In a statement, the Air Force confirmed the courses with those videos had been removed and said it “will fully execute and implement all…

By Rick Callahan WESTFIELD, Ind. (AP) — Decades after investigators unearthed thousands of human bones and bone fragments on a suspected Indiana serial killer’s property, a renewed quest is playing out in laboratories to solve a long-running mystery: Who were they? A new team working to identify the unknown dead says the key to their success will be getting relatives of men who vanished between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s to provide samples of their own DNA. Those samples can then be screened against DNA profiles scientists are extracting from the remains, which were found starting in 1996 on Herbert…