Comment on Israel's easing of blockade helps Gaza's economy

Illinois lawmakers again failed to take action to keep dangerous hemp products out of the hands of children, prompting a call from Gov. J. B. Pritzker to regulate the industry. The measure had bipartisan support and easily passed the Senate, but stalled in the House of Representatives at the end of the legislative session Wednesday.

A phishing incident involving the emails of workers at University of Chicago Medical Center may have exposed the personal information of about 10,300 people, according to the hospital. The email accounts of several hospital workers were accessed between Jan. 4 and Jan. 30, the hospital said in a news release. When the hospital learned of the incident, it took steps to secure those email accounts, and it launched an investigation. In late March, the hospital determined that the email accounts contained health information, and for some people may have also included Social Security numbers, passport numbers, driver’s license numbers, insurance information, billing information and access information, such as security questions and answers. “UCMC remains committed to protecting the confidentiality of all faculty, staff, students and patients and takes cybersecurity threats to its systems seriously,” the hospital said in a news release.

The longtime president and chief executive officer of a group working to boost tourism in the south and southwest suburbs will retire at the end of June. Jim Garrett, who has held those jobs since 1996, said the move will give him and his wife more time to travel and visit with their children and grandchildren. Previously the Chicago Southland Convention and Visitors Bureau, it was recently rechristened as Visit Chicago Southland. Garrett, a Frankfort resident, notified the group’s board of directors during its quarterly meeting last month.

There’s a new milkman in Chicago. Geoff Hoffmann, co-CEO of his family’s eponymous Winnetka-based private equity firm, emerged as the top bidder Wednesday for the bankrupt assets of the century-old Oberweis Dairy, putting everything from its North Aurora plant to 40 branded ice cream stores under new ownership. The undisclosed offer from the Hoffmann Family of Companies through its investment arm, Osprey Capital, bested Brian Boomsma, owner of Chicago-based Dutch Farms, who made a $20 million stalking horse bid in April for Oberweis. “We think that the brand is as good as it gets in the ice cream and dairy space,” Hoffmann said Wednesday.

When players return to EA Sports College Football 25 this July, they’ll make a familiar choice when they first boot into the game: Pick your favorite school. From there, they’ll get a main screen customized to that college, with its colors, logos, and pictures of the team in action. But there’s one tiny little feature that had me changing the favorite school setting repeatedly in my hands-on-time with College Football 25 at a preview event EA Sports hosted last week in Orlando.

Microsoft and developers Asabo continue to consistently upgrade and enhance Microsoft Flight Simulator, even with a new version of the classic sim in the pipeline. The latest addition is the serious upgrade of several of Europe’s most popular cities with the team saying, “The Microsoft Flight Simulator team and its partners captured these renowned cities in exquisite detail using recent high-resolution aerial imagery, digital elevation data, and TIN (triangulated irregular network) surface modeling.