Le Journal

He took it.Give Donald Trump credit. Truly a wonder. A continual marvel of what human beings are capable of doing: the Great Pyramid of Giza, Hoover Dam, and Donald J. Trump.I'm serious. Despite decades of his toddler pettiness being ground in our faces, daily if not hourly, the man still manages to surprise. How can that be? Maybe because we cling to our traditional values, and confronted with someone who is an utter moral void, untouched by conscience, self-awareness or humility, the mind just rebels and insists on assigning him a notional decency he actually doesn't possess. Last week, Maria Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader, gave the U.S. president her Nobel Peace Prize, the latest in a series of blatant buy-offs attempting to curry favor. The Swiss delivered a gold brick. Qatar gifted a plane. Machado handed over her Nobel.And he took it. The irony of a man who thunders against DEI as undercutting achievement through merit, then turning around and accepting a prize earned by a Latina, hardly needs to be pointed out. Opinion bug Opinion Maybe my mind boggles extra hard at this because I'm so averse to awards. Sour grapes, perhaps, since I seldom win one. But unlike the president, I don't go out of my way trying to win them either. I have never, for instance, applied for the highest award in journalism, the Pulitzer Prize, because A) applying seems a waste of time; B) I know how political the award process is, being familiar with Tribune panjandrums on the awards committee and C) I am too busy writing stuff.Not that I wouldn't take one. From the Pulitzer Prize Board at Columbia University. Not from any random past winner. Though it's fun to imagine a scenario similar to what played out last week in the surreal farce called Washington, D.C."Hey buddy," Mark Konkol says, over the phone. "You know, I was reading another one of your hard-hitting columns and was struck, yet again, by how unfair it is that I was given the Pulitzer Prize while your high-caliber professional journalism is somehow always overlooked. So I'm going to hop on my motorcycle and blast up to Northbrook and give you mine, along with my heartiest congratulations."That would horrify me. I would beg Mark not to do it. Honors can curse as well as uplift. They're a monkey's paw. Even legitimately won prizes. I wasn't the paper's charities, foundations and private social services reporter for long, but managed to write a story on how the MacArthur Foundation's "genius" grants ruin people's lives. Recipients kill themselves, get divorced, have breakdowns, stop creating whatever it is that snagged the award in the first place. Not all winners, obviously. But enough for a story.The MacArthur Foundation didn't send out a press release tipping me off to this. I just knew it had to be so, and went looking. Because every rose comes with thorns. With honor, mitigation. In 2009, Barack Obama was abashed, almost horrified, when nine months into his first term he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He said he didn't deserve it. He was right.Trump is the opposite. Look at his frenzy of self-honor. Renaming buildings, ships, accepting that joke FIFA peace prize. Won't someone tell him that the whole point of an honor is that other people are bestowing it? "Self-praise is self-damnation," as Cervantes writes. Besides, no amount of honor can fill the gaping hole where a person's soul should be. No end in sight. Every day, something worse. Every brag, a blot. This is why highlighting any particular act of wrongness is a loser's game. Over the weekend, Trump wrote to Norway's prime minister saying, since he wasn't given the Nobel Peace Prize, he no longer needs to "think purely of Peace" and can seize "complete and total control of Greenland." As if invading Greenland isn't bonkers enough— and setting aside that the Nobel is given by a 5-member Norwegian committee, not the country itself — Trump found a way to make it even crazier. Framing it himself as a tantrum,…

Chicago area residents are urged to stay indoors and dress in layers ahead of bitter temperatures at the end of this week, Chicago and Cook County officials said. Temperatures are expected to drop on Thursday night below zero and remain there throughout the day on Friday into Saturday, according to the National Weather Service. A hazardous weather outlook issued Tuesday will remain in effect through Monday."Don't spend time outdoors unless you have to," said Gino Izzi, senior meteorologist at the weather service. "If you have to spend time outdoors, you're going to want to wear a lot of layers, multiple layers of loose-fitting clothing. The more layers you put on between yourself and the outside is better."Meanwhile, before the colder temperatures roll in at the end of the week, Izzi said a system that could blanket the Chicago area with 1 to 2 inches of snow will move through Tuesday night but end before rush hour Wednesday. The north suburbs could see heavier snowfall, while the south suburbs could see lighter amounts, Izzi said. Snow will lead to hazardous travel conditions for part of the area late evening-early WED AM. A cold front then moves through WED evening bringing snow showers and gusty winds to 35 mph which may cause blowing and drifting snow. Dangerous cold then returns late week. #ILwx #INwx pic.twitter.com/vCrWZsL4tX— NWS Chicago (@NWSChicago) January 20, 2026 On Wednesday, temperatures could get up into the 20s, with some areas getting up to 30 degrees. While these temperatures aren't warm, Izzi said Wednesday has the potential to be the warmest for a while. Izzi didn't rule out the potential for lingering snow showers or snow squalls Wednesday evening as temperatures drop into the teens. A deep freeze will set in Thursday. On Friday, the air temperature is not expected to get above zero, while the wind chill is expected to plummet, said Izzi. "This looks noteworthy, impressive and unusual," Izzi said, "but not unprecedented or probably not record-breaking."