Daywatch: The environmental impact of the holidays

Good morning, Chicago.

As the holiday season comes to an end, families are tidying up their homes. This involves disposing of numerous bags filled with torn up wrapping paper, getting rid of leftovers that didn’t quite make it to the plate despite good intentions and taking down holiday decorations for the new year.

However, what some may not realize is the glittering gift wrap, disposable decorations and excess food waste significantly harm the environment, experts say.

Household waste increases by more than 25% from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, according to the Clean Air Partnership, a public-private organization that advocates for air quality. The added waste from food, shopping bags, packaging, wrapping paper, bows and ribbons contributes to an additional 1 million tons of trash entering landfills each week.

See steps some are taking to celebrate more sustainably.

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City’s police accountability agency did not finish investigation against infamous cop, declines to wrap it up now

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability assigned an investigator in 2017 to determine whether Lt. Glenn Evans lied about allegedly breaking a mentally ill woman’s nose while she was in custody, but public records show the agency shelved the case almost immediately without any explanation — or any real inquiry.

The Tribune obtained more than 1,000 pages of records related to the case through Freedom of Information Act requests submitted to both COPA and the Office of the Inspector General. The public documents raise questions about COPA’s early accountability efforts, given the inspector general’s finding that no one seriously vetted allegations against a high-profile member of the Chicago Police Department command staff and that failure later was met with rejection.

Illinois skirted a recession last year. Here’s what to know about the job market in 2024.

Most states have lower unemployment than they did before the pandemic, said Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter. Illinois is an exception, with an unemployment rate higher than it had pre-pandemic.

Some Chicago companies eyeing expansion are finding luck in Ireland

Today, about 1,000 American companies employ about 17,000 people in Ireland.

“Chicago has been hugely important,” said Paul Veale, who represents IDA, the investment and development agency of the Irish government, in the Midwest and the South. “(Chicago companies) are very, very huge contributors to both Ireland and the Irish economy.”

Chicago-area hospitals welcome first babies of 2024: ‘It’s a real blessing’

Many people begin the new year with glasses of Champagne, but some Chicago-area parents started the first hours of 2024 with the birth of a child.

Basya and Ezra Moskowitz welcomed their new baby, a boy weighing 7 pounds and 2 ounces, just after midnight Monday. He was among the first children born in local hospitals in 2024, and possibly the very first.

Autistic man shot in head still recovering 1 year after Back of the Yards attack

When Jesus Rega got his high school diploma, he didn’t get to walk across the stage.

He couldn’t. As classmates donned caps and gowns, he was bedridden after being hospitalized for a blood clot and too afraid to get in the car — more complications in a long recovery after being shot in the head and stomach while waiting for the school bus outside his Back of the Yards home last January.

Column: It’s a new year. But will this also be a new future for the Bulls?

The passage of a year always shifts perspective. That couldn’t be more true for the Chicago Bulls as they enter 2024, writes Julia Poe.

• Zach LaVine is assigned to the Bulls’ G League affiliate as he nears a return

• Bulls lean into a new tradition: Thor’s hammer award for defensive output.

Cale Yarborough, a NASCAR Hall of Famer and 3-time Cup champion in the 1970s, dies at 84

Known for his fierce toughness and grit, Cale Yarborough won the Daytona 500 four times and the Southern 500 at his home track of Darlington Raceway five times. His 83 Cup Series victories are tied with Jimmie Johnson for sixth on NASCAR’s all-time wins list, and Yarborough ranks fourth with 69 pole positions.

The biggest women’s jazz festival in the world? It might be in Arlington Heights.

In a directory of jazz venues in the metro area, Hey Nonny is on few fans’ shortlist. Heck, it may not even crack their long list.

But in two short years, the downtown Arlington Heights venue has gone from a reliable, if not prolific, host of jazz acts to the home of what might be the largest women’s jazz festival, taking over the venue this year from Jan. 4 to 7. The Kennedy Center, the Schomburg Center in New York and Palm Springs all host jazz festivals focused on female bandleaders; Hey Nonny’s now exceeds them in number of acts and length.

Javauneeka Jacobs, sous chef at River North’s Frontera Grill, becomes ‘Chopped’ champion

Jacobs is now a “Chopped” champion after beating 15 other chefs in a special five-part tournament that celebrated Julia Child on the famed Food Network cooking show.

The sparks, opinions and anecdotes fly as David Mamet tackles his 40 years in Hollywood in ‘Everywhere an Oink Oink’

David Mamet does not use a computer. He has no website. No email. Twitter is out of the question. He doesn’t text. He does most of his writing in a multilevel townhouse that functions as an office that he comes to five or six days a week.

Now, sitting on my desk is his latest work, dedicated to his wife. It’s a nonfiction book titled “Everywhere an Oink Oink.” It carries the subtitle “An Embittered, Dyspeptic, and Accurate Report of Forty Years in Hollywood.” Like most everything Mamet has ever written (and said publicly for that matter), it has attracted attention, controversy and wildly divergent opinions, writes Rick Kogan.