Wednesday, August 12, 2026

WBEZ is supported by the gynecology research lab at Endeavor Health. Period pain affects millions of people. Researchers want to learn from those experiencing period pain. The NIH-funded study wants to know whether a common over-the-counter medication can reduce period pain over time. Compensation is available. Learn more at cure period pain.org. Good afternoon. I'm Lisa Lobbiz, and this is The Rundown. A block of 27 Chicago City Council members is calling on bally's to resume construction on its full planned downtown casino development. The company said it intends to suspend work on the hotel, events center, and adjoining restaurant space within the casino campus, while construction is continuing on the casino itself. That decision was in response to the city council's recent authorization of video gaming terminals citywide. In a letter to bally's Alder Persons expressed war. the construction slowdown could threaten thousands of union jobs and inflict economic harm on the city. An unsanctioned weekend rave in the abandoned Congress theater on the northwest side could affect the theater's redevelopment. Block Club Chicago reporting a local DJ organized the Logan Square rave on Saturday. It attracted hundreds of attendees, social media video, showing people tagging walls with spray paint and dancing. First Ward Alderperson Daniel Espada says the party threatens efforts to redevelop the theater. The owner now needs to fix damage from this unlawful party and better secure. the building he says that could add financial strain to an already cash strapped project police shut down the event after receiving a noise disturbance call a police spokesperson said no citations were issued Tornadoes have been sweeping through Illinois and the Chicago metro area this year, far from the traditional tornado alley. Our data reporter Cam Rodriguez reports the tornado season in Illinois officially started in February. It's been ramping up since. Illinois has been creeping closer toward breaking the record for most tornadoes in a state in a single year. Right now, the National Weather Service has reported 258 tornadoes is the largest number, and that was in Texas in 2020. The Sun Times reports the National Weather Service in Chicago reports Illinois has recorded 198 tornadoes for this year, and preliminary reports from the National Storm Prediction Center have a possible tornado count as high as 233 this year. So this means Illinois could be on the heels of breaking a new stormy record sometime soon after already smashing the state record in June. The Chicago Bears open preseason play at Soldier Field Saturday against the Cleveland Browns. It isn't really clear at this point how much playing time starters will get or even if they'll be on the field at all. Bears quarterback Caleb Williams says he loves getting to play football anytime he can, but he's leaving it up to the boss, head coach Ben Johnson. Whenever coach tells me that I'm going to play is when I'm going to play. And if I don't, I don't, I'm going to keep treating practices and our scrimmages and our joint practices like his games because that may be what I get.

And it may not be what I get, you know, so I don't know what's going on and boss men's mind. Johnson says he plans on meeting with the coaching staff today to determine how much playing time everybody gets and he expects to have more clarity on Thursday. You're listening to The Rundown. When Alexandra Usher was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, she'd often get stuck in traffic on Dusabal Lakeshore Drive, and it gave her a lot of time to stare off into the lake. Now, one day, she noticed something kind of odd, and what she saw was the wreck of the silver spray. Alexandra wants to know the story behind that wreck and about what other shipwrecks in the lake are and whether the average Chicagoan could visit them. Curious City dives into all these questions. The silver spray was a double-decker wooden steamship that sank in 1914, about 600 feet off the shore in the Kenwood neighborhood. All the remains of the ship today is the iron boiler, poking above the water. It's one of the more amusing anecdotes of a shipwreck in the Chicago area. Chicago Maritime Museum curator Madeline Chris Bell says the silver spray was on its way to pick up some University of Chicago students for a tour. That's when it ran aground and became stranded at Morgan Scholl. The shoal is an ancient reef and rock formation, a navigational hazard where many ships have met their end. Luckily, only the captain and six crew members were on board. And they were so close to shore, they weren't in any real danger. Apparently, the chef of the ship was making an Irish stew in the kitchen. And so allegedly, the sailors took a little too long to evacuate because they all wanted to stay for lunch. The silver spray is just one of some six to 10,000 shipwrecks at the bottom of the Great Lakes. And the biggest share lie at the bottom of Lake Michigan. Back in the late 1800s, Chicago was the busiest port in North America, and that's why dozens of shipwrecks are just off Chicago's coast. As for Alexandra's question on whether people visit these wrecks today, they do.

It's no Caribbean destination, but it turns out Chicago plays an important role in the scuba world. There's this perception for people that what do you mean that the largest organization of scuba diving instructors in the world was founded in Morton Grove, Illinois. Patty is the Professional Association of Diving Instructors, and it wasn't founded in California or Florida, but in Chicago suburbs. The Chicago Park District is partly responsible, as well as a person named Ralph Erickson. Ralph was a lifeguard and swim instructor at Portage Park in the early 1950s. The park district bought aqualungs, the ones invented by explorer Jacques Cousteau, to help with search and rescue missions in Lake Michigan. Ralph's daughter, Karina, says her late father was one of the first at the parks to try them out. He had no instructions, no training. He was never told not to hold his breath, which is the number one rule in scuba. And he got in the water and started swimming with this brand new piece of technology. And he found that he was now able to be fully neutrally buoyant inside the pool, inside the water, and he didn't have to come up for air. And he thought it was the most incredible thing. Up until the 1960s, Most people became scuba divers for professional reasons. Maybe they were a lifeguard or in the Navy or salvaging shipwrecks. But then people started considering scuba diving for recreation. This is a time when it was truly the Wild West of scuba, and there was no educational model behind how to scuba dive. There was very little instruction on material. The only thing that you were handed was the manufacturer's instructional book of how to turn the unit on and off. If you didn't learn to do it right, it could be dangerous. Ralph saw how crucial water safety was, so he wrote one of the first instructional manuals on how to scuba dive and used it in courses he taught here in Chicago. Then Ralph met another Chicagoan, a scuba equipment salesman named John Cronin. They wanted to improve dive instruction. Within a few months, John turned his basement in Niles into the headquarters of the world's largest scuba organization. By 1966, they officially launched the Professional Association of Diving Instructors, or Patty. Patty is now in 180 countries and has certified more than 30 million divers.

Ralph certified a few of those divers himself, including Marianne Praker, owner of the Lakeview Neighborhood Dive Shop, underwater safaris. We've trained quadriplegages. We've trained buying people. We've trained all kinds of people that don't fit the normal pattern of scuba diving. Everybody who wants to do it can. When most of us look at Lake Michigan, we see an endless freshwater sea. But thanks to a couple local guys, people can explore those waters and get a close-up look at those shipwrecks that the rest of us can only imagine while stuck in traffic on Lakeshore Drive. For Curious City, I'm Andrea Guffman. Cloudy skies in your weather forecast, a high near 80 and a slight chance of rain. Cloudy tonight, a low of 70 and then Thursday, cloudy, chance of showers and thunderstorms high in the upper 70s. You can find the latest news whenever you want at WBEZ.org or on your radio at 91.5 FM. I'm Lisa Lobis. Thank you for listening.