Le Journal

In today’s world of transfer portals, NIL and all the coaching carousels spinning at the same time, it’s easy to forget what once was the biggest day of the year in the world of roster building: National Signing Day. Nobody would blame you if you managed to miss it. Heck, some teams seem like they’ve just completely given up on recruiting high school prospects altogether and are instead focused on the transfer portal every offseason. But TODAY is National Signing Day, or more accurately, today is day one of the three day window in the early signing period for college football. The early window runs from December 3rd to December 5th, 2025 with the final signing day coming on February 4th. If this feels a bit early, it’s because the early window was moved up to start just before the major conference championship games this weekend and after the conclusion of the regular season for the rest of us. Maybe more importantly, it sets up a nice month-by-month pace with the opening of the NCAA transfer portal window for all players not impacted by a coaching change coming January 2nd-16th. So December early high school signing period, January portal window, February late signing period and then we’re into spring ball. For the Hawkeyes, this is a big couple of months. Iowa has had the 30th, 39th, 29th and 33rd ranked recruiting classes nationally over the last four years and has become increasingly active in the transfer portal at key positions of need. This cycle, Iowa is set to graduate 24 seniors, pending any positive news on players like Kaden Wetjen (Wetjen, as a former JUCO player, may have additional eligibility pending existing litigation with the NCAA). There are some big time losses in that group, including starters across several position groups. Perhaps most notably, the offensive line is poised to lose Logan Jones, Beau Stephens and Gennings Dunker to graduation. That comes in addition to the obvious departure of starting QB Mark Gronowski, as well as three of his receiving weapons in Jacob Gill, Sam Phillips and Seth Anderson (in addition to the aforementioned Wetjen, potentially). We’ll wait to see what TE Addison Ostrenga opts to do after missing most of this season due to injury. On the other side of the ball, Iowa will have to replace five key defensive linemen in Max Llewellyn, Ethan Hurkett, grad transfer Jonah Pace, Aaron Graves and Jeremiah Pittman. Behind them, Phil Parker loses four linebackers, starting CB TJ Hall and safety Xavier Nwankpa. Oh, and kicker Drew Stevens is out of eligibility. So… plenty of holes to fill this offseason for the Hawkeyes. Fortunately, Iowa is hard at work filling them. In addition to the youth already in the program, the Hawkeyes are poised to sign the #22 ranked recruiting class nationally today. That’s good for 6th in the Big Ten and the highest ranking since Iowa landed the #20 ranked class in 2021, a class that featured several of those 5th year seniors now headed out the door. Updated Rivals Industry Team Recruiting Rankings, one day away from National Signing Day‼️Read: https://t.co/XasbkuOrXC pic.twitter.com/fKspP0B8la— Rivals (@Rivals) December 2, 2025 The Class In terms of the class itself, this is not a particularly big group of commitments. Iowa comes into the day with 18 verbal commits, all of whom are expected to sign today. That includes a whopping seven 4-star prospects with all remaining 11 classified as 3-stars according to the On3 industry consensus. Notably, Iowa was at 17 commits until yesterday afternoon, when former Wisconsin DL commit Jack Janda announced he was flipping to the good guys. The class is headlined by recent QB commit Tradon Bessinger, a 4-star prospect from Kaysville, Utah who was originally committed to Boise State but flipped to Iowa in the last month. He’s your prototypical pocket passer with a big frame at 6’4” and 200 pounds with a solid arm, great accuracy and enough mobility to escape the pocket without being the type of running threat the…

When Cynthia Fife-Townsel and her husband purchased their home in Burnside in 2024, the side lot next door was the main selling point. Fife-Townsel is a retired librarian and dog trainer. She has young grandkids and two dogs, and she wanted to finally have some space for them to run around in. But the lot wasn’t quite usable when they moved in.“It was wild. You couldn't see the neighbor's yard from that fence on this side,” she said. “We had some crab apple trees cut down, a lot of shrubs and just wild invasive plants and things removed.” When Cynthia Fife-Townsel moved to her home in Burnside, the vacant side lot was overgrown and full of trash. She cleaned it up and has been maintaining the yard ever since.Jeb Backe Typically, the city maintains its vacant land, but the thick overgrowth and quantity of garbage indicated the Burnside lawn had been untouched for years. Fife-Townsel put in a lot of time and personal finances to clean out the trash, landscape the yard into a usable space and plant a native garden. She thought it would be simple to buy this South Side lot from the city, and she applied to purchase it.Though the land is listed in the database of Chicago-owned vacant lots, it is still not for sale. She has followed all the procedures required by the city, but a year later, she has heard nothing. Chicago’s lot purchase process seems relatively simple — so where are the snags?How to purchase a vacant lotIn 2022, the city consolidated its land purchase systems into a website, ChiBlockBuilder, where you can browse more than 7,000 city-owned vacant lots.The Department of Planning and Development runs the sale of Chicago’s vacant lots. There are two rounds of applications per year on ChiBlockBuilder in the spring and fall, consisting of about 400 parcels each. City land is additionally available through requests for proposals for specific development sites.If you’re a resident who wants to purchase a lot, first, submit an application on ChiBlockBuilder. The DPD reviews it to see if the application meets the land sale program requirements and if you have submitted all required documents. The department also checks if the applicant has any unpaid county property taxes or other debts to the city.If the application is able to make it through these checkpoints, the DPD passes it to the City Council, where it will be reviewed by the Housing and Real Estate. The potential sale is then voted on by the full City Council. If it’s approved, the lot can be officially purchased. Vacant lot in Chicago’s Burnside neighborhood.Jeb Backe But in Fife-Townsel’s case, the lot is not available for purchase. In this instance, you would submit an interest form. This makes the DPD aware of buyer interest; then the department and corresponding alderperson determine whether to put up the lot for sale during the semiannual listings.This does not ensure that the transfer of land is imminent. It has now been a year since Fife-Townsel submitted her request, and she has not yet seen the property listed for sale. After calls and emails, she hasn’t gotten any clarity on the lag time. Her local alderperson’s office said it has not received her application. Alvin Riter, spokesman for Ald. Michelle Harris, 8th Ward, said it’s common for a resident to purchase a lot next to their property.“They take care of those lots,” Riter said. “So it’s only right to allow them to take them over if they’re interested in taking on the responsibility of maintaining and the tax liability — all things that come with those types of lots.”The DPD stated in response to Curious City’s inquiry on Fife-Townsel’s application that the “staff is aware of buyer interest.”The snagsWhy would it take a year for Fife-Townsel to have a chance to buy this adjacent lot? The DPD said it receives more than 450 applications of interest each month, while it is only able to offer about 800 parcels for sale each year. This means the capacity of listings per round prevents the DPD from…

Lorsque fin septembre dernier, on apprenait que Electronic Arts allait être racheté par 3 fonds d'investissement (deux US et un saoudien), beaucoup pensaient - naïvement - que...

LAS VEGAS — Yet again Tuesday, the Blackhawks pushed one of the Western Conference's most talented teams to the brink but failed to convert the effort into a victory.A highly entertaining 4-3 shootout loss to the Golden Knights marked the Hawks' sixth defeat in their last seven games, but coach Jeff Blashill was generally pleased with the performance."You’re disappointed you didn’t get two points," Blashill said. "With that said, I thought we did a lot of good stuff on the road against a team that’s probably considered one of the Stanley Cup favorites. ... In the end, we’ll have out-chanced them and certainly were in position to win the hockey game."The Hawks are now 1-6 in games that have gone to overtime this season — a stat of which Blashill is fully aware. He pointed out that if the Hawks switched post-regulation records with, for example, the Ducks — who are 6-1 in those situations — their overall record would be much prettier. As it stands now, they're 11-9-6.The Hawks actually controlled the vast majority of overtime Tuesday but just couldn't get the puck past embattled Golden Knights goalie Carter Hart, making his first NHL start in nearly two years. They ultimately lost in the fourth round of the shootout.It's worth noting the age disparity between the trios of players each team sent out in overtime was stark, as it usually is for this Hawks team. Starting the session was 20-year-old Connor Bedard, 22-year-old Ryan Greene and 24-year-old Alex Vlasic against 29-year-old Jack Eichel, 33-year-old Mark Stone and 30-year-old Shea Theodore. That trend continued as Artyom Levshunov, Frank Nazar and Oliver Moore got some run."We’ve got some young, young guys out there in critical moments," Blashill said. "That’s good. That’s what this is about: continuing to grow."That doesn't make losing any easier to swallow for the kids right now, but it should prepare them to win in the future."[We] try to work for each other, and [when] it doesn't end up working out, it sucks," Nazar said. "There's spurts in the game where we looked really good and we were outplaying them. [It's about] just continuing to get rid of those small little mishaps."One costly mishap occurred with 2:30 left in regulation when Moore went for an untimely line change, Tyler Bertuzzi backchecked slowly and Vlasic and Louis Crevier lost positioning on the Knights' game-tying goal.That prevented another highlight-reel goal by Bedard — in which he went one-on-one against Theodore on a rush, created space for himself and unleashed a perfect shot past Hart — from holding up as the game-winner. We're watching a truly special season unfold for Connor Bedard, night after night after nightpic.twitter.com/RLgTL2BD6I— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) December 3, 2025 Aside from the one mistake, though, Moore played arguably his best as a Hawk. He answered an early Knights goal with a snipe of his own and consistently made things happen with his speed and work ethic all over the ice."I felt confident from the jump," Moore said. "Frankie and Bert were making really great plays to me with speed, and we were feeding off each other well."