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USA Today
3 hours ago
- Health
- USA Today
U.S. Open winner J.J. Spaun's health issues posed greater threat than Oakmont
U.S. Open winner J.J. Spaun's health issues posed greater threat than Oakmont As soon as J.J. Spaun won the 2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont on Sunday, Andy Bessette fired off an email to Spaun to congratulate him. 'For a man with Type 1 diabetes to win the U.S. Open with four days of pressure – pressure is the enemy of Type I diabetes – I said with your burden there is nothing more amazing than you winning the U.S. Open,' said Bessette, executive vice president and chief administrative officer at Travelers and a hammer thrower on the 1980 U.S. Olympic Team. 'To me, it's one of the greatest accomplishments in sports given the burden he lives with.' In the fall of 2018, Spaun was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. 'I wasn't feeling great, so I knew something was up,' he said Wednesday during his press conference ahead of the Travelers Championship in Cromwell, Connecticut. The 34-year-old started taking medicine for Type 2 but still felt lethargic, kept losing weight and, most concerning, losing distance. By mid-2021 his ranking dipped to No. 584 in the Official World Golf Ranking. Before COVID canceled the 2020 Players Championship, Bessette was chatting with pro Harold Varner III, who expressed his concern that his pal Spaun was struggling with diabetes. Bessette's son, Chris, had been diagnosed with Type I diabetes at age 18, and Bessette was familiar with the disease – the beta cells in the pancreas stop working and produce zero insulin. Spaun goes into insulin shock if he doesn't control his insulin levels. Varner called Spaun via FaceTime to connect him with Bessette, who listened to his list of symptoms. 'I said, 'Are you sure you have Type 2?' You should get yourself checked by a good endocrinologist to make sure,' Bessette recalled advising. He made some calls on Spaun's behalf to the CEO of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (since renamed Breakthrough T1D), which funds research for the development of new therapies and treatments for type 1 diabetes. Spaun eventually discovered he was misdiagnosed. 'I just was kind of going through the whole learning experience of what diabetes is and how to treat it and how to approach this disease,' Spaun said. He has been approved by the Tour to wear a Libre blood-sugar monitor and check his levels while competing. If his blood sugar is low, he can faint. If it gets too high, his vision starts to blur. Later that year at the Travelers Championship, Spaun wedged to 19 inches in a closest-to-the-pin contest at the red floating umbrella in the middle of a lake dubbed hole No. 15 ½ at TPC River Highlands. As the winner, Spaun could donate $10,000 to the charity of his choice. He chose JDRF. Bessette was touched by Spaun's gesture and personally matched the donation. 'So that initiated our connection,' Spaun said. 'He's kind of been there for me the whole way, where if it was doctors I needed to get in touch with or CEOs of JDRF, it's been nice to have that connection and his network to kind of help me along this journey because I had just been diagnosed with it, but diagnosed incorrectly. Even when I got my diagnosis corrected, I guess, it was even more so helpful to have JDRF and Andy on my side to kind of help me navigate another new territory.' Bessette was moved again Sunday when Spaun achieved a career-defining moment at Oakmont – Type I Diabetes be damned. 'It changed his life,' Bessette said of being diagnosed correctly. 'It's a brutal disease.'
Straits Times
4 hours ago
- Business
- Straits Times
Italy's immigration and emigration both soaring, stats agency says
ROME - The numbers of Italians leaving their country and of foreigners moving in have soared to the highest in a decade, official data showed on Friday, fuelling national concerns about brain drain, economic decline and immigration. Italy has a right-wing government elected in 2022 on a mandate to curb migrant arrivals, but also has a shrinking population and growing labour shortages, highlighting the need to attract foreign workers. Meanwhile the country's stagnant economy and low wages - salaries are below 1990 levels in inflation-adjusted terms - have been blamed for pushing many Italians to seek better fortunes abroad. Last year 382,071 foreigners moved to Italy, up from 378,372 in 2023 and the highest since 2014, statistics agency Istat said. In the same period, 155,732 Italians emigrated, up from 114,057 in 2023 and also the highest since 2014. The immigration figure beat the previous high for the last decade of 301,000 in 2017, and was well above that period's low of 191,766 from 2020 - the height of the COVID pandemic. The figure of almost 270,000 nationals emigrating in the two-year period from 2023 to 2024 was up around 40% compared to the previous two years. The two-year immigration figure for that period, of around 760,000, was up 31% from 2021-2022. The figures are derived from town registry offices, so are unlikely to reflect undocumented migration. Ukrainians made up the biggest national group among those who arrived in 2023-2024, Istat said, followed by Albanians, Bangladeshis, Moroccans, Romanians, Egyptians, Pakistanis, Argentines and Tunisians. As for the high number of emigrants, "it is more than plausible" that a significant number were "former immigrants" who moved abroad after acquiring Italian citizenship, Istat said. The agency also said Italy's poorer south was continuing to depopulate, noting that almost 1% of residents in Calabria, the region with the lowest per capita income, moved to central or northern areas during 2023-2024. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Boston Globe
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Under Daigneault's leadership, SpeakEasy spoke to, and for, many
Last year, Daigneault, now 60, Daigneault has both witnessed and helped to bring about the growth of a robust midsize theater scene. But as he leaves, he's worried about the precarious financial situation midsize theater companies find themselves in due to the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors. (Watertown-based New Repertory Theatre closed two years ago.) Advertisement 'Post-COVID has been the hardest,' said Daigneault. 'Audiences got in the habit of staying home, so they're not going out anymore. Or they're older and still afraid of the health risks. It's been much more of a struggle to sustain ourselves since we've gotten back from COVID.' Advertisement 'The funding community in this city needs to step up and value the art,' he said. 'A $100,000 grant to a midsize theater company is transformative.' He added: 'The midsize theaters need to band together to find ways to bring new audiences to the theater. It's a challenge that we are all facing, so we should get together to figure out how to solve this.' He spoke by phone from the home in Connecticut that he and his husband, the Rt. Rev. Jeffrey W. Mello, bought when Mello was named Bishop Diocesan of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut several years ago. Daigneault's modus operandi at SpeakEasy was a blend of vision and pragmatism. Whether it was a drama, a comedy, a musical, or a combination thereof, he displayed a gift for finding directors, actors, and designers who matched the material. Daigneault with "An American Daughter" playwright Wendy Wasserstein, left, who visited SpeakEasy in October 1998 during the show's run, which Melinda Lopez, right, directed. Courtesy SpeakEasy staged contemporary works that varied in style and subject matter, but had in common a certain polish and vitality, and, sometimes, the ability to start conversations. A 2002 production of 'Bat Boy: The Musical,' about a half-bat, half-boy who falls in love with a girl in a small town in West Virginia, generated so much buzz in Boston that SpeakEasy brought it back for a second run in January 2003, and then for a third run in April 2003. From the start, Daigneault envisioned SpeakEasy and other midsize and small companies as an antidote to what he calls 'museum theater,' in which 'you're watching the show as if it's in a kind of display case, and you're not feeling a connection with what's going on onstage.' With that in mind, Daigneault kept an eye peeled for shows first produced on Broadway, such as Advertisement Karen MacDonald and Paul Daigneault at rehearsals for "Pru Payne" in October of 2024. Nile Scott Studios What animated him for more than three decades, Daigneault said, was the chance to 'mak[e] art to create community,' telling the stories of 'people who are othered or disenfranchised' while not being 'so didactic and preachy that they're not entertaining.' He points to SpeakEasy's January co-production with Front Porch, directed by Simmons, of free of charge, to 'solve racism.' 'It was super-entertaining, but it also punched you in the gut,' Daigneault said. 'I've never been a warrior,' he said. 'But I've been a warrior through the art that I produced. I've never had a formula. Just trying to listen to my gut.' He grew up in Marlborough and Sandwich, graduated from Boston College in 1987, and then spent several years in New York City, where he struggled to land directing jobs. 'I got frustrated, and said 'Forget it, I'm going to go back to Boston and start my own theater company,'' he said. That's what he proceeded to do, along with several friends, including actress Kerry Dowling. Brainstorming names during an apple-picking excursion, they came up with a name drawn from the Prohibition era. 'It was the idea that a speakeasy is where you needed to know the password,' said Daigneault. 'It was underground. That it was cool to be there, that whole idea. The name is saying something.' Advertisement The company's first production was a musical about the turbulent teenage years titled 'Is There Life After High School?' SpeakEasy established a niche for itself that was summed up in the tagline: 'Staging Boston Premieres.' But it was a challenge. In those early years, the actors were paid a small stipend, and Daigneault was not paid at all. 'I had no business experience,' Daigneault said. 'I didn't know how to raise money. I didn't know how to budget. I was learning all of these things as I was going along. We started off really grass-roots, really doing shows that I wanted to direct. Over time, it morphed into what we know today.' 'At first, it was really about us young artists getting a chance to do our work,' he added. 'As far as theater goes, Boston was known as an out-of-town [Broadway] tryout place, and mostly commercial touring productions. I just felt there was a hole here of contemporary shows that were a mirror of our society.' Paul Daignault leads an audience talkback with Richard Kramer and the cast of SpeakEasy Stage Company's production of Kramer's "Theater District" in October 2005. Craig Bailey/Perspective Photo A turning point for SpeakEasy, in Daigneault's view, was the 1995 production of Paul Rudnick's 'Jeffrey,' a comedy about a gay man who swears off sex in the middle of the AIDS epidemic, but finds that vow difficult to fulfill. 'Jeffrey' drew more media attention than SpeakEasy had previously enjoyed. Since then Daigneault has consistently made space on SpeakEasy's stages for stories of gay life, such as Advertisement 'The biggest change is that there's a community of theaters and artists,' Daigneault said. 'I can see my favorite actors at SpeakEasy and then I can see them at the Lyric and at Greater Boston Stage Company, all in one season. Sometimes there's real competition in terms of licensing the shows or getting the actors that you want. But we've been able to foster excellence because excellent artists have chosen to live and work here.' He's been one of them. Now he's starting a new journey. Literally. Daigneault has visited 35 of America's 63 national parks. '28 to go!' as he put it in an email. And he plans to continue teaching musical theater at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. But he's also looking forward to the most protracted period of inaction and relaxation he's ever had. 'It's time,' Daigneault said. 'I could do rehearsals for the rest of my life. I love it, love it, love it. But it starts to wear on you, the funding [challenges], the day-to day.' 'I wanted to make sure that the people who are at SpeakEasy are finding joy in it — much like I did in 1992 — and can take the company to a whole new level.' Don Aucoin can be reached at
Chicago Tribune
6 hours ago
- Climate
- Chicago Tribune
Editorial: As temps rise into the 90s, Chicago public pools are fully reopened — finally
Summer got off to a slow, cool start, but the heat has arrived — with temperatures projected to hit the 90s this weekend and UV levels soaring. For many Chicagoans, that means one thing: Pool season is officially here. While many suburban park districts resumed full pool schedules much sooner, Chicago is only now restoring seven-day-a-week access at its public pools. Starting Saturday, all 50 outdoor pools will be open every day for the first time since the pandemic, and 27 indoor pools will also be accessible six days a week, the Park District announced Monday. This is fantastic news for parents and kids who can now get in plenty of cannonball practice, as well as the Chicagoans who enjoy swimming a few laps out of doors. In 2020, all outdoor pools were completely closed because of the pandemic. In 2021 and 2022, the pools reopened but with reduced capacity, fewer hours, fewer days and a shorter season. Even in 2023 and last year, pools often remained open only five or six days a week. The city says this was due to lifeguard staffing shortages, something many other cities have faced in recent years. Other major metros including New York City and Houston have also struggled to hire sufficient staff to meet demand. For our part, we can't help viewing the slow-walk back to aquatic normalcy as a symbol of just how long it's taken for Chicago to get over COVID. To address past lifeguard shortages and build a stronger pipeline, the Chicago Park District launched several recruitment initiatives in late 2023, including the Lifeguard Explorers Training Program targeting teens and young adults on the South and West sides, with stipends and free certification. The district also raised pay to $19.75 per hour, eliminated certification fees and other red tape, held teen job fairs with on-the-spot interviews, and partnered with schools and nonprofits to promote lifeguard training and employment opportunities. As a result, the district received over 3,000 applications — 55% more than in 2024 — and enters summer 2025 with a fully staffed aquatics team. This is the kind of creative thinking we like to see out of our government agencies. And it's a good thing for our spirits too — open pools are a visible, tangible way to see your tax dollars at work. And while we often grumble here about taxes and spending, we believe people are willing to pay a reasonable and fair amount if they're getting services they value in exchange. And so we have to applaud some good news out of the Park District, which has not only limited its service over the past several years, but has also been the focus of unsettling sexual harassment stories. In 2021, the Park District's interim inspector general wrote in a report that the investigation into the Park District uncovered multiple locations where the aquatics department had 'long-tolerated hazing behavior fostered an environment where bullying, harassing and sexual misconduct flourished and went unchallenged.' It's clear the Park District's pool issues extend well beyond a generic staffing problem — it faced a significant culture problem too — one we trust is now resolved. Fully reopened pools aren't just a relief in the heat — they're a sign of a city finally reclaiming its rhythm. Let's hope the Park District keeps the momentum going, not just in lifeguard hiring, but in restoring public trust.
Chicago Tribune
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
She wanted more spaces in Chicago for queer women to build deep connections with each other — so she made her own social club.
When Aderinsola Akeju saw an ad on social media for an all-female slumber party, the former boarding school student was excited for the opportunity to fulfill a wistful dream. But instead of snacks and late-night conversations, the party felt more like a rave she could find anywhere, she said. Disappointed, the 22-year-old decided to throw her own slumber party with friends complete with drinks, games and karaoke. 'I had never felt so euphoric and happy about hosting something,' Akeju said. That night inspired a broader vision, but it was not until she received $10,000 a grant from the Human Rights Campaign's 'Queer to Stay' program last December that she went all in with her idea. Now, Akeju, a retail store director, regularly organizes intimate gatherings for queer women, especially queer women of color, through her social club Pink Sappho. Pink Sappho is part of a resurgence in Chicago of spaces dedicated for queer women. Tracy Baim, a journalist who has covered the LGBTQ+ community in Chicago for more than 40 years, said that there are more spaces for queer women today than there were at any point in her career. 'Coming out of COVID, it feels like there was just an explosion of both full-time bars and pop-up parties and other types of social events out there, specifically targeting lesbians in nonbinary and gender non-conforming folks,' Baim said. Baim noted multiple factors driving this increase, including a more openly queer population in the U.S., a longing for more in-person socializing after COVID and a new wave of anti-LGBTQ sentiment. 'I think coming out of (the pandemic), as people want community, and we have more forces fighting against us again, like we did in the '80s, there's this resurgence of anti-lesbian, anti-queer behavior out there. So sometimes being with like minded folks can be a safe haven,' Baim said. Pop-up parties and social clubs for queer women in particular seem to be growing in popularity in recent years, said Kristen Kaza, co-founder of the pop-up group Slo 'Mo. 'Queer pop-up parties are so many different things, but it is taking over a space and reclaiming it, making it ours from who we are inviting to the space to the programming and who we're featuring,' Kaza said, emphasizing that this pop-up model has been particularly popular with queer women in the absence of brick-and-mortar spaces dedicated to that demographic. Kaza said that such pop-up groups have been around for a long time. One of the most popular pop-up party groups in Chicago, Executive Sweet, ran for decades and started as a way to create welcoming spaces for queer women of color who found themselves discriminated against in white-owned lesbian bars. What is different now, Kaza noted, is that following the pandemic more young people are taking it upon themselves to make the pop-up parties and social clubs — and they're getting creative with the spaces they're making. Pink Sappho is an example of just that. Akeju said that for her, she felt that events for queer women were too centered on nightlife and clubbing. Rather, she wanted a social group that was focused on building genuine relationships and education. 'A lot of stuff happens at night, but even straight people want to connect with people without having to go to a club,' Akeju said. 'We don't need another club, that's cool to have. We can have a banging party, but we need education.' Kelsie Bowers, an ambassador for Pink Sappho, also emphasized that finding social clubs made for Black queer women can be particularly difficult. In her experience, many social spaces are not necessarily created with Black queer women in mind, and she also said they tend to be focused more on nightlife. Once President Donald Trump took office for his second term, Bowers felt an increased urgency to be around more people like her and build the kinds of spaces she'd felt were missing from her life. 'Around the time that Trump got in office, I just realized the immediate threat that that posed, not only to my community as a lesbian woman, but also as a Black woman,' Bowers said. 'I reached out to (Akeju) and I was like, 'Hey, I want to do whatever I can do right now for my community, because I can't just sit and watch all of this go down.'' No two Pink Sappho events are exactly alike, but there are three pillars that are always touched upon in some way at every event: authentic connection, wellness and sex education. Some things you may find at a typical Pink Sappho event include complimentary drinks — usually champagne — upon entry, venues with elegant architecture, an 8-foot long charcuterie board and games designed to spark friendship or ignite a new romance. It may seem simple, but it is that type of community building that Bowers sees as crucial to navigating the next four years. 'We want to build community. We want to make sure that we have community for our people, that they know that this is a space for them, that they can feel safe and that they can feel relaxed and we want a place for us to be able to connect,' Bowers said. 'It's really affirming to see us come together.' It's the kind of space Tyara Whitted was looking for. The 23-year-old attended her first Pink Sappho — a Juneteenth happy hour — event Wednesday. She would go out to queer-friendly neighborhoods such as Boystown, but found herself longing for more spaces with people that share her experiences. 'I just kind of realized that the gay spaces that I want to occupy are the ones that also identify with me, not just like queer-wise, but also racial-wise,' Whitted said, who attended Pink Sappho's Juneteenth Happy Hour Wednesday evening. It was just the kind of event she was looking for. 'We do occupy the nightlife, and it'd be nice to mix it up where we can occupy the brunch life, the afternoon life,' Whitted said. 'I'm getting older. I rely on CTA. Sometimes I don't want to be out that late trying to find that connection and sometimes the connection I want to find isn't at a club — it's at a fun, low-key event.'
