What F'nHappened This Week? September 18, 2026
What F'nHappened This Week? September 18, 2026
El Grito, a Flower Expo, a 59-37 Scorigami, a crowded mayoral field, and a Kennedy Center that might get “ripped down.”
By F'nAround Staff
El Grito Chicago: Two Days, Zero Regrets
F'nAround spent two days at El Grito Chicago in Grant Park's Butler Field, and we're still recovering. Two stages, a full vendor row of Mexican-owned businesses, and a crowd that showed up early and stayed late. We did interviews, shot content, ate our body weight in elote, and watched the city show up for itself in a way that felt genuinely joyful instead of performatively patriotic.
Our own F'nFoodies were in the mix too, working the crowd and the camera. More interviews and video are coming, but if you were there, you already know: this was one of the best-run cultural festivals we've covered all year. (F'nAround)
Chicago Flower Expo: The Expo Was Stacked and Fernway Kept It Going
F'nAround hit Flower Expo Illinois at The Geraghty this week, where the trade floor was packed with brands, operators, artists, vendors, and the conversations that only happen when most of the Illinois cannabis industry ends up under one roof. Fernway kept the day going with the after-party, complete with tattoos, a Khalifa poster raffle, Taylor's Tacos, and the kind of networking that makes the official end time feel more like a suggestion.
Fernway hooked us up with sunglasses and the newest version of its stealth battery. Verano brought back the smoke balloons and the infused cold drinks for a hot day, the gummies were stacked, and the floor ran from Sunny D to Roadtrip, Tonic, Banks, AI, Rove, Airo, and plenty more. Mike, as tradition now apparently requires, started the Expo with a flight from Breeze. After he took it like a champ, Breeze replaced Joe's Robert Graham camera bag with a new Breeze bag. That sentence makes no more sense with context, but the bag is real.
The most revealing moment of the week came in conversation: several industry attendees seemed genuinely unaware that the Cook County jury trial had already happened. The signed verdict forms record a win to Joseph Phelan on Count V, breach of contract, against Robert V. Fitzsimmons II, NuMed Partners LLC, NuMed Managers Inc., and IESO LLC, jointly and severally. The jury also found for Phelan and Juan Finch Jr. on the defamation, false light, and tortious interference counterclaims. That is not rumor or industry gossip. It is what the verdict forms say. (F'nAround)
The Dunkin' x Bears Collab Is Here
Dunkin' dropped a limited-edition co-branded Chicago Bears Dad Hat, free with the purchase of a medium or larger beverage at participating Chicagoland locations starting Thursday, September 17 at 1 p.m., while supplies last. The donut chain also reintroduced the official Bears treat, the “Da Donut,” and added a new “Da Brew” iced coffee with blueberry and pecan, available through November 3.
Nothing says football season in Chicago like a donut shop doing more for morale than the offensive line. (Secret Chicago, ABC7)
The Bears Dropped 59 and Broke the Scoreboard
The Chicago Bears opened their season by beating the Carolina Panthers 59-37, producing an NFL “Scorigami”: a final score never before seen in league history.
Fifty-nine points. In a season opener. On the road. It was the most points the Bears have scored since 1980, and the combined 96 points made it the highest-scoring Week 1 game in NFL history. Caleb Williams was 21 of 29 for 269 yards with two passing touchdowns and two more on the ground. D'Andre Swift piled up 124 yards and three rushing scores. Even Bryce Young got his (361 yards, three touchdowns) in a losing effort. The 59-37 final was the 1,096th unique score in NFL history. Somewhere, Jon Bois smiled. (Reuters, USA Today)
The Bears host the Vikings in the home opener on Sunday, September 20. If you need us, we'll be the ones refreshing the scoreboard.
October Baseball Might Actually Happen Here
Take a breath, Chicago. Both teams are in this. The Cubs sit at 85-68, holding the top National League wild-card spot on the tiebreaker, tied with the Phillies. The Brewers already ran away with the NL Central, because of course they did. The Padres are 84-69 in the third wild-card spot with Arizona four back.
And the White Sox, yes, those White Sox, are 78-75 and tied with Cleveland atop the AL Central, holding the No. 2 seed on a tiebreaker with a magic number of nine. Nine. For a playoff berth. In September. We have lived long enough to see it.
Elsewhere: the Dodgers clinched another NL West title, the Padres have won 10 of 11, and Phillies ace Aaron Nola carved up the Mets 3-0 over seven scoreless innings to pull Philadelphia even with the Cubs. The ugly note: Mets first baseman Jared Young was carted off on a stretcher with concussion symptoms after taking a knee to the head on a play at first. Get well soon. (USA Today, Reuters)
Around the NFL: Bills, Backups, and Bad Luck in Atlanta
Bills 36, Texans 31: Josh Allen put up four total touchdowns, including the game-winning 34-yarder to Joshua Palmer with 1:36 left, in Houston. Lions 31, Saints 30 in overtime: Jahmyr Gibbs went for 156 yards and two scores and Detroit survived.
Quarterback triage: Seattle's Sam Darnold is out with a hip/glute tendon injury, so Drew Lock starts Week 2. Minnesota's Kyler Murray suffered a concussion in a comeback win over Green Bay; Carson Wentz threw three touchdowns in relief and could start Sunday in Chicago. The 49ers beat the Rams in Australia, and the Rams' shiny new toy Myles Garrett is already on injured reserve with a knee, out at least four weeks.
Thursday night: Bills 41, Lions 31, christening the new Highmark Stadium. Allen had five total touchdowns and 248 passing yards, and his 83rd career rushing touchdown tied Jim Taylor for 18th all time. Buffalo is 2-0. And in Atlanta, Cooper Rush labored through Week 1 and might have to go again, with Tua Tagovailoa nursing an oblique and Michael Penix Jr. still working back from a late-2025 torn ACL. Somebody in that building is having a bad month. (Reuters, USA Today, AZCentral)
Swift Gets Paid
Bears running back D'Andre Swift agreed to a three-year, $33.75 million extension with $27.5 million guaranteed, keeping him under contract through 2029. ESPN's Adam Schefter reported the agreement on Friday, September 11; the team announced it Saturday. It's his second contract with Chicago after the three-year, $24 million deal he signed in 2024.
Pay the man who just scored three touchdowns in the opener. This one was easy. (ESPN, Reuters)
Twelve People Want to Be Mayor
The September 15 Chicago Sun-Times front page lined up a dozen contenders for the 2027 mayoral race. The lineup: Mayor Brandon Johnson, Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza, former Chicago Housing Authority CEO Matt Brewer, U.S. Representative Mike Quigley, former Alderman George Cardenas, lobbyist and businessman John Kelly, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas (who says she plans to run but hasn't formally launched), businessman and perennial candidate Willie Wilson, Lisa Nee, Joe Holberg, and Danielle Carter-Walters.
Two days before that front page, the incumbent made it official: Johnson launched his reelection bid on September 13 with a campaign video and a launch event at the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center on the South Side. He enters the race carrying a 23 percent approval rating in a recent University of Chicago Mansueto Institute poll, which is either brave or delusional, and the line between those two has never been thinner. (NBC Chicago, Fox32, Chicago Sun-Times)
Mayoral candidate Willie Wilson, meanwhile, introduced a five-point proposal to keep the Bears at Soldier Field, including a letter to Bears Chairman George McCaskey. Wilson's plan cited the team's roughly $629 million in annual revenue and the $500 million-plus economic impact of a potential Super Bowl. Say what you want about Willie Wilson, the man understands that in Chicago, stadium politics is jobs politics. (Fox32)
The Stadium Saga Has Three Zip Codes Now
The Bears' stadium drama added a new area code this week. Records show a Bears executive met with top Illinois official Andy Manar even as team president Kevin Warren insists the club's “sole focus” is a new stadium in Hammond, Indiana. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, meanwhile, confirmed the team is still “looking at” the 326-acre Arlington Heights site it already owns.
Translation: the Bears are dating Indiana, texting Illinois, and still married to the land in Arlington Heights. The only certainty is that Soldier Field's colonnades will outlive all of us. (FOX 32)
Trump Backed Bailey Again
President Donald Trump reiterated his endorsement of Republican Darren Bailey for Illinois governor on September 13, telling reporters “I’ve already endorsed him. I’m all for Bailey” and calling Governor JB Pritzker “a disaster.” The remarks came before Trump boarded a flight back from Ireland and were reported September 14. The original endorsement dates to 2022; Bailey welcomed the renewed backing while keeping his message on Illinois.
It's a familiar script: Trump blesses the downstate conservative, Pritzker's orbit shrugs, and the rest of us check whether anyone's polling has moved. (NBC Chicago, Capitol News Illinois)
The Kennedy Center Is Getting the Full Trump Treatment
The Kennedy Center fight escalated from farce to demolition threat this week. President Trump said the building could be “ripped down” if his administration didn't get recognition, while his hand-picked board voted to close the Center for two years for a $257 million renovation.
A federal judge blocked the administration from adding Trump's name to the building, and Representative Joyce Beatty sought emergency relief to stop what her lawyers called a pretextual “temporary” closure. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper then issued a minute order requiring 30 days of written notice before any significant physical alterations, including demolition. Cooper denied Beatty’s request for an emergency hearing and let the closure stand for now, ordering a status report by September 23.
The details kept coming: Trump, speaking to reporters in North Carolina, said his administration “should certainly have recognition” at the Center, adding, “Because frankly, if we don't do that, it's going to close. It'll end up being ripped down.” Lawyers for Beatty cited the remarks in a court filing, along with a photo of Trump on Air Force One studying material titled “Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED.” (Reuters noted the photo wasn't independently verified.) Trump has also said he won't pursue the renovations unless Cooper's name ruling is overturned on appeal. Fencing is going up around the building. None of this is normal. All of it is on brand. (USA Today, Reuters, NPR)
Boots, Bling & BBQ: Mike Shows Up for Good Shepherd
Mike is supporting the Good Shepherd Center's Boots, Bling & BBQ fundraiser, because some weeks the news is just good people doing good things. The Center does real work for real families, and showing up matters more than showing off.
We'll have more on the event as it gets closer. For now: mark the calendar, bring your appetite, and wear the boots. (Good Shepherd Center)
A Serial Killer Exhibition Walks Into a Newsroom
F'nAround got press access to the Serial Killer Exhibition, and yes, we're going. True crime is having a moment, a reckoning, and possibly an intervention, all at once. We'll be there with questions about how you exhibit this stuff responsibly, or whether you can at all.
Full review coming. Bring a friend. Don't bring a first date. (F'nAround)
SAS: Rogue Heroes Is Coming to F'nReviews
Our F'nReviews team is lining up a review of SAS: Rogue Heroes, the World War II series about the founding of the Special Air Service. Early word says it's stylish, violent, and allergic to subtlety, which sounds like our kind of television. After finishing it Joe was upset they announced a new season because why binge a show if it’s not complete.
Review drops soon. (F'nReviews)
The $20 Burrito Discourse
Back in August, the internet spent a few days relitigating the $20 burrito, by which we mean the entire cost-of-living crisis compressed into a tortilla. Prices are up, paychecks are stretched, and everybody has a theory. Ours: the burrito is innocent. The economy did this.
We'll be over here eating elote and minding our business. (F'nAround)
A Speakeasy Opens, a Museum Closes
Tomorrow at 8 p.m., a dragon-themed basement speakeasy called The Lair throws its grand opening beneath Stardust at 710 N Clark St in River North. The pitch is low lights, velvet shadows, fire-breathing energy, a specialty cocktail program with rare spirits, and DJs until 3 a.m. Regular hours will be Thursday through Saturday, 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. The site is giving away free tickets for opening night. Chicago has never met a hidden bar it did not like, so this one is already playing to the home crowd. (lairbar.com)
After eight years in the West Loop, the WNDR Museum is closing for good. The official closing party is Friday, September 25 at 7 p.m. at 1130 W Monroe St, hosted by the West Central Association Chamber of Commerce, which gets most of the proceeds. It is 21-plus, the dress code is "DRESS TO WNDR" (metallics, mirrors, iridescent fabrics, neon accents), with DJs, performances, and one last walk through the installations. Tickets are available through the WCA Chicago event page. Say what you will about immersive art, but the place gave Chicago eight years of content and at least a few genuinely strange evenings. (WCA Chicago)
Also in Chicago
Riot Fest opens today at Douglass Park and runs through Sunday, with Twenty One Pilots, Tool, and Pierce the Veil and Alanis Morissette headlining across the three days. The undercard is stacked (Iggy Pop, Pixies, Nas, Patti Smith), but the two most Chicago details on the schedule: weather legend Tom Skilling delivering live forecasts from the Roots Stage, and 95-year-old William Shatner debuting his heavy metal band, The *uckers, on Sunday. We have no further questions. (Riot Fest, USA Today)
The new Northern Illinois Transit Authority, which replaced the RTA, held its first board meeting on September 10, electing Tom Kotarac as chair and naming Jamie Rhee interim executive director. The board voted to expand the Access reduced-fare pilot to CTA and Pace starting October 1, cutting fares roughly in half for SNAP recipients, an estimated $650 a year for daily commuters. Competent governance is so rare we felt obligated to note it. (Metro Magazine, Fox32)
And on the Red Line: a 15-year-old girl has been charged with murder after 29-year-old Kyle Bickham was pushed from a moving train on September 7. His family gathered near the 69th Street station this week demanding answers about how the train's doors were forced open mid-ride and why no security was aboard. Those are good questions. Somebody should answer them. (Fox32)
Texas Shut Down a Whole Police Department
The Texas Commission on Law Enforcement ordered the entire Trinidad Police Department disbanded after finding it “failed to meet minimum standards” and “was unable to provide evidence that the agency provides public benefit to the community.” Investigators found the department had no bulletproof vests, no evidence room, and was missing 18 required policies, including use of force and active-shooter response. The Henderson County Sheriff's Office is taking over enforcement, and the Texas Rangers are still investigating city and police officials.
The backstory: resident Jennifer Combs was arrested in May on a felony false-alarm charge over an April Facebook post raising concerns about the city's water; a grand jury declined to indict, the charge was dropped, and Combs has since filed a federal lawsuit alleging political retaliation. The police chief resigned in June. Trinidad had also issued a boil-water notice, which tends to undercut the “false alarm” theory. (FOX 4)
The Eye Black Fine Heard Round the League
Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair was fined roughly $11,500 for writing “Hind Rajab,” the name of a Palestinian child killed in Gaza, on his eye black during Houston's 36-31 Week 1 loss to Buffalo. (Outlets differ slightly on the exact figure; call it eleven and a half large.) It was his second such fine: he was docked $11,593 in January for “stop the genocide” eye black in the playoffs.
Dallas Mavericks star Kyrie Irving posted on September 16: “I'll take care of his fine.” The NFL will keep fining players for messages on eye black, players will keep paying them or finding friends who will, and the league will keep pretending this is about uniform policy. (USA Today, ESPN)
Netanyahu's New Bills Target Critics
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed this week to pass legislation revoking the citizenship of anyone who “defames Israel's soldiers,” plus a second bill increasing statutory defamation damages twentyfold. The trigger: “NAZA,” a documentary by Israeli journalists Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor alleging mass civilian deaths were built into IDF targeting decisions in Gaza. The film won a major prize at the Venice Film Festival on September 12.
The Committee to Protect Journalists warned of the press-freedom implications. The bills are proposed, not yet law, and Israel holds elections October 27, which polls suggest Netanyahu's coalition could lose. Whether this is policy or pre-election theater, the message to journalists is the same. (Reuters, CPJ)
Macklemore vs. the Tour Industrial Complex
Macklemore delivered a pro-Palestinian speech, “Free Palestine,” before performing “Hind's Hall” at MetLife Stadium on September 4. Days later he was out as an Ed Sheeran tour opener. Sheeran characterized the removal as the tour promoter's decision; Macklemore said Sheeran told him Patriots owner Robert Kraft, whose group owns Gillette Stadium, barred him and rallied other venue owners. Opening acts Finneas, Lukas Graham, Aaron Rowe, and the backing band Beoga withdrew in solidarity.
On September 16, Macklemore pledged his full $1 million in net tour earnings to six Palestinian aid organizations and challenged Kraft to match it. Kraft pledged $2 million at Sheeran's request. Then Ms Rachel, the children's entertainer and Palestine Children's Relief Fund ambassador, announced September 17 that she will match Macklemore's $1 million donation to PCRF and urged “every wealthy White celebrity” to do the same. The tour lost its opener and accidentally started a telethon. (USA Today, CNN, Fox News)
The Deportation Machine Keeps Finding New Gears
ICE detained Denis Javier Palacios Hernández in Virginia on September 16. He was one of the 222 political prisoners expelled by Daniel Ortega's government in February 2023 and stripped of Nicaraguan nationality. He holds a valid U.S. work permit with a pending asylum case, and now faces the prospect of being sent back to the country that expelled him. Separately, ICE detained Nicaraguan journalist Luis Galeano in Florida on September 14; Representative Maria Elvira Salazar publicly urged authorities to halt any deportation, warning that returning him would endanger his life.
And in a first: the Justice Department deported Nazira Haji Zada, a 47-year-old Afghan national living in Fort Worth, through the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, a secretive tribunal Congress created in 1996 that had never heard a single case until now. She was never charged with a crime, conceded the “alien terrorist” designation, and waived appeal. The evidence against her remains classified. Her own lawyers couldn't review it. Thirty years, zero cases, and the first one runs on secret evidence. (TimesNG via EFE, Times Now World, Reuters, NPR)
Vance Asks for “Another Chance.” Charlamagne Declines.
Vice President JD Vance went on the All-In podcast and asked voters to “give us another chance” ahead of the midterms, arguing the administration needs more time. Charlamagne tha God gave him “Donkey of the Day” on the September 17 Breakfast Club.
The midterms are seven weeks out and the closing argument is “please.” Bold strategy. (CNN, Breakfast Club)
The National Desk, Speed Round
The Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration's bid to restrict mail ballots ahead of the midterms on September 14, with the majority writing the push is likely to lose on the merits. Justices Alito and Thomas dissented; Justice Kavanaugh agreed the restrictions shouldn't take effect now but signaled he might back the administration later. Attorney General Todd Blanche says the anti-fraud push continues. (AP)
Trump's September 12-13 trip to Ireland produced three headlines: he met President Catherine Connolly and Taoiseach Micheál Martin, said a united Ireland “would be a fantastic thing” (drawing pushback from London and unionists), and announced he would remove the 10 percent tariff on Irish whiskey before presenting the Irish Open trophy to Shane Lowry at his Doonbeg course. Diplomacy, but with golf. (CNN, Reuters)
At the Republicans' first-ever midterm convention in Dallas, Trump pitched $5,000 “dividend checks” to every American adult, but only if the GOP keeps both chambers in November. The response was, per NPR's Mara Liasson, “surprisingly tepid, even among Republicans,” which makes sense when the price tag tops $1 trillion and the man has a trail of unfulfilled payout promises behind him. (NPR)
The U.S.-Iran war keeps choking the Strait of Hormuz: both sides fired on tankers this week, oil prices surged, planned Iran-Gulf talks in Oman on reopening the strait were postponed, and Reuters reported U.S. officials secretly met Iran-backed Houthi representatives in Muscat after the Houthis seized Red Sea coastline. Trump wrote on Truth Social that he likes the U.S. position “much better, with almost total control of the Hormuz Strait.” (CNN, Reuters)
The Fed raised rates on September 16, a unanimous quarter-point hike to 3.75 to 4 percent, the first increase in three years, with more hikes signaled before year-end. Days earlier, Trump had said at the Irish Open that the U.S. “should be paying the lowest interest rate in the world.” This after the CPI posted its largest increase in four months, under a Fed now chaired by Trump's own pick, Kevin Warsh. The arsonist is critiquing the fire department, and the fire department just turned up the heat. (Reuters, USA Today, CNN)
The Boston-based 1st Circuit sounded skeptical on September 16 of the administration's bid to gut three congressionally created agencies via mass firings and grant terminations: the Minority Business Development Agency, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. Judges said the DOJ's position would let the executive dodge judicial review of dismantling agencies Congress created. (Reuters)
And the midterm weather report: Democrats lead 50.2 to 41.6 on the generic congressional ballot in the RealClearPolling average, Quinnipiac has 49 percent wanting Democrats to retake the House versus 38 percent for Republicans, Trump's approval sits at 33 percent approve to 59 percent disapprove in the Quinnipiac poll, and prediction markets now favor a Democratic sweep of both chambers at around 59 percent. Which explains a lot of the items above. (Delaware News Journal, USA Today)
Snap Didn't Launch the Glasses This Week
Correction to our own framing: Snap's Specs AR glasses were actually unveiled back on June 16 at the Augmented World Expo. This week's September 16 event in Los Angeles was a consumer “first in-depth look” demo with CEO Evan Spiegel ahead of shipping this fall. The specs, pun intended: dual Snapdragon processors, hand tracking, spatial mapping, live translation, an AI assistant, a four-hour battery plus a charging case for 20 hours total, $2,195 with a $200 refundable deposit, in the U.S., UK, and France.
The genuinely new story: Australia is considering barring camera-equipped smart glasses in government workplaces, which would be a first of its kind. Oslo banned the glasses in schools last month, and England and Wales have prohibited Meta's smart glasses in courts. The future is here, and it keeps getting escorted out of the building. (TechCrunch, Reuters, Android Authority)
Apple Finally Folded the iPhone
Apple's September 9 “Surprise and Shine” event, led by new CEO John Ternus, brought the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max (A20 Pro chip, 48MP main camera with variable aperture, 18MP Center Stage front camera, 50 percent charge in about 15 minutes), starting at $1,199 and $1,299 and on sale today. The headliner was the iPhone Duo, Apple's first foldable: a 7.6-inch inner display with 50 percent more screen area than the 18 Pro Max, a 5.4-inch outer display, titanium frame, dual batteries, and dual 48MP cameras, starting at $1,999. Preorders open October 16; it goes on sale October 23.
iOS 27 dropped September 14 with the long-promised Siri AI, built on Apple Intelligence and partly trained on Google's Gemini models. Your phone now folds in half and finishes your sentences. The group chat will never recover. (USA Today, Engadget, MacRumors)
How Is This a Real Headline?
Brazilian police arrested a suspected serial killer after a 48-hour manhunt, catching Jorlan Lopes da Silva, 33, disguised as a woman and carrying a 2-year-old child who was not his own in Mulungu, Paraiba. He's suspected in 15 or 16 killings over roughly three months since his release from prison in late May, and after his arrest reportedly claimed as many as 80 murders over two decades, starting at age 13. The dress gave him away when it shifted and exposed a tattoo. You cannot write this. (People, New York Post)
In Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, a crocodile attacked and killed a handler during a feeding demonstration at Adventure Park on September 5, dragging him toward the water in front of visitors. He died early the next morning. Police shot the crocodile. The park is closed indefinitely. Some jobs don't need a performance review. (LADbible)
In Daytona Beach, 24-year-old Elizabeth Boucher allegedly crashed her Ford Bronco into a parked Honda while intoxicated on August 30, pushing it across a lawn, then punched the car's owner when confronted. She told the arresting officers, while handcuffed, that she thought everyone was friends. Charges include DUI, DUI with property damage, refusing testing, battery, resisting without violence, and possession of a controlled substance. The bodycam footage is doing numbers. (New York Post, People)
Plainfield, Illinois police recovered 650 rolls of toilet paper tied to a Plainfield North homecoming prank, dubbing the bust “Operation Clean Sweep.” Separately, residents reported masked teenagers pulling up in multiple vehicles and causing chaos with toilet paper, eggs, ketchup, and laundry detergent pods. Double-digit juvenile complaint calls across two evenings. The suburbs remain undefeated at finding new ways to disappoint their parents. (Fox 32, NBC Chicago)
Former Gateway Church pastor Robert Morris appeared with a bruised eye in an updated Texas sex-offender registry photo, and the internet did what the internet does. Morris pleaded guilty in 2025 to five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child, received a ten-year suspended sentence with six months in jail, and was released in March. His attorney, Bill Mateja, told the Christian Post on September 16 that Morris fainted in his garage the prior week, struck a car door, fell onto a concrete floor, and broke three facial bones, possibly after taking blood pressure medication on an empty stomach. That's the attorney's account; no independent medical records have been published. The internet remains unconvinced, because the internet is the internet. (Christian Post)
Former child actor Bobb'e J. Thompson (That's So Raven, Role Models, 30 Rock) was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison on a federal gun charge. The case dates to a September 2025 traffic stop in Iowa where police clocked him at 104 in a 70 and found a loaded stolen handgun in a backpack, alongside dispensary-bought marijuana. He pleaded guilty in April. U.S. District Judge Leonard T. Strand handed down the sentence in Sioux City: 30 months, plus three years of supervised release. The backpack had range. (DOJ, UNILAD)
In Bucharest, roughly 20,000 people sat down at a 3.1-mile table built from recycled materials, stretching from the Palace of Parliament along Unirii Boulevard. It broke the Guinness World Record for the longest recycled-materials table and raised money for Romania's first pediatric psychiatry hospital. Somewhere a wedding planner is taking notes and crying. (AP)
A geomorphologist doing habitat restoration for the threatened California red-legged frog spotted a nine-inch Pacific mastodon molar “just sitting there in the middle of the creek, halfway in, half out of the water” in a San Mateo County preserve. A paleontologist called it the most complete mastodon molar he'd seen from the area. It was donated to Stanford, where researchers plan to carbon date it. She went looking for frogs and found the Ice Age. (AP)
A Viral Clip, Properly Caveated
A clip circulated this week appearing to show President Trump gesturing and pointing toward the cockpit at the open door of Marine One, then descending the steps without returning two Marines' salutes. The White House's official “Rapid Response 47” account posted only the later tarmac walk, describing it as a routine Labor Day departure from New Jersey and omitting the exchange entirely. A lip reader offered a speculative reading (“That's enough for me today”); a body language expert described apparent irritation, also speculative. We're including it because everyone's seen it, and because the only honest caption is: the clip doesn't show what was said or why. (Dagens, Bored Panda)
The SIU Hemp Symposium Is Today
The 7th annual Southern Illinois Hemp and Cannabis Symposium runs today at SIU Carbondale, 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Gower Translational Research Center. Nine speakers, including the Illinois Department of Agriculture's David Lakeman and UIC's Reggie Gaudino, plus student posters, exhibitors, and an evening reception. If you're in southern Illinois and in the industry, you're already late. (SIU News)
Michigan Dropped a $2 Million Hammer
The Michigan Cannabis Regulatory Agency finalized a $2 million fine against Michigan Investment 10 LLC, ordered the closure of its adult-use processor license, and revoked its medical processor license. The case dates to a 2023 suspension and a 2024 contested hearing. Industry press in 2023 identified the Pinconning-based processor as the producer behind the Muha Meds brand; the state's release doesn't name the brand, so attribute accordingly.
Two caveats for the careful: no source we've found calls it a record, but the largest prior published fine we could find was $100,000 against Sky Labs in 2025, so this is very likely the largest single enforcement action in the state's regulated history. When the fine jumps twentyfold, the message isn't subtle. (Michigan CRA, MJBizDaily, Michigan Marijuana News)
The Hemp Deadline Moved, Barely
Congress passed H.R. 6500 and the president signed it September 3, delaying the broader federal ban on naturally derived cannabinoids above 0.4 mg per container into December: roughly a one-month reprieve. Products with cannabinoids “not capable of being naturally produced by cannabis” kept the November 12 deadline. It did not create a permanent framework; it bought the industry about 30 days and Congress another news cycle. Note the date: this one was signed before our week began. Everything since has been commentary. (NORML, Bloomberg Government)
Ohio Vape Scare
Vext Science's Herbal Wellness Center in Jackson, Ohio voluntarily closed after two customers reported “serious adverse health effects” from vape pens, and one nearby emergency room death occurred within days of the closure. The autopsy is pending and no link is confirmed. The Ohio Division of Cannabis Control requested the closure; Vext put its Vapen-branded cartridges on “precautionary hold.” Follow-up testing on the same lot as one patient's product found no harmful contaminants, which answers some questions and raises others. This is the kind of story that deserves real reporting instead of a press release, and we'll be watching it. (Signal Cleveland/Akron, MJBizDaily)
Retailers Are Doing the Regulators' Job in Arizona
Story Cannabis, which runs 11 dispensaries in Arizona, blacklisted all products tested by two troubled labs: Kaycha Labs of Tempe, hit with an $88,500 fine for inaccurate contaminant and potency results, and Level One Labs of Scottsdale, whose methods inflated potency numbers. The ban applies to certificates of analysis dated October 1 onward. When the retailer has to enforce lab integrity because the regulator won't, that's a story about the regulator. (Arizona Republic)
Schedule III Survived a Stay, Not the War
The D.C. Circuit refused on September 9 to stay the April order moving cannabis to Schedule III, ordered expedited briefing, and denied intervention to MedPharm Iowa and Tri-Mountain Pure (they can file as amici). But industry attorney David Adelstone is warning state operators not to treat Schedule III as permanent: the merits fight is coming, likely over the five-factor versus two-factor medical-use test. The procedural win is real. So is the warning label. (Morningstar via AccessNewswire, Harris Sliwoski)
Ivy Hall Goes Medical
Ivy Hall won Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation approval to serve medical patients at ten locations, effective September 10, the first wave of the new “15-37” medical-permit process for adult-use shops. Medical patients get excise-tax exemption, higher purchase limits, and priority service. Two of the ten, Bucktown and Logan Square, join later pending Chicago permitting. It's the first concrete result of the policy shift, and it lands right as the Schedule III fight raises the stakes on taxes and DEA registration for everyone. (Cannabis Business Times)
FOIA Friday: The Paper Trail Never Lies
The week's Illinois paper trail starts with a number: 180. After more than six months, the Illinois Attorney General's Office finally reached file 180 of the more than 3,000 files F'nAround has been trying to open since February - records we have described throughout the timeline as being placed in a bureaucratic top drawer. Reaching 180 is movement. It is also roughly six percent of the larger file list, which means the calendar is still moving much faster than the production.
The other Illinois paper trail runs through the September 10 medical expansion. IDFPR approved 37 existing dispensaries to begin serving medical patients, including five nuEra locations in Champaign, DeKalb, East Dubuque, Aurora, and Harvey. F'nAround responded by requesting the underlying application, approval, effective-date, and good-standing records for those five locations because some of those locations were used to wire money to a witness that executive Laura Jaramillo Bernal described under oath in detail as what can be interpreted as color of the law money laundering instead of witness bribery. So of course, we have to know when they approved money laundering as good standing. Was it before or after the jury verdict against them? Michigan, meanwhile, dropped what is likely its largest single cannabis penalty, and the federal government gave the hemp industry about one more month. The paper trail keeps growing. We'll keep reading it. (F'nAround, IDFPR, Illinois News Joint, Michigan CRA)
F'nAround Introduces Published Work
Big news from the business side: F'nAround launched “Published Work,” the place for the books, chapters, comics, poetry, essays, how-to guides, replication models, investigative work, FOIA-driven reporting, and whatever else escapes our brains. The subscription costs $1 million per week. Per subscriber. Because we're dicks.
Want everything at once? Bring the commas. If you want to negotiate the subscription price, the payline is $1,000 just to begin the conversation. Is it a joke? Is it a filter? Is it both? Yes. (F'nAround)
Next Week
Tacos & Tequila Festival hits Northwestern Medicine Field in Geneva on September 26, and F'nAround has press access. Our Serial Killer Exhibition review drops soon, along with the SAS: Rogue Heroes review. The WNDR Museum closing party lands next Friday, September 25. Stay tuned, stay hydrated, and don't believe everything you read or hear.
See you next week. (F'nAround)