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WASHINGTON—A “Grand Bargain” from major center-left and center-right think tanks that proposed common-ground solutions to the country’s pressing issues was met with approval but some criticism from Biden economic advisers who reviewed it at an event on Dec. 3. “I very much agree with the tax system critiques,” Bernstein said onstage at the Brookings Institution on Dec. 3. The report “Toward a Potential Grand Bargain for the Nation” calls for taxation to be tilted toward a more progressive direction, advocating an inheritance tax system and, as one of two options, a value-added tax for most households in place of income taxes. Bernstein was concerned about the absence of discussion of money for the Internal Revenue Service in the report. “Funding the IRS should be an absolute, required part of any Grand Bargain,” the White House official said. Bernstein also departed from the report on industrial policy, which was popular with elements of the Biden and Trump administrations. The Grand Bargain characterized industrial policy as interventionist, stating that it often amounted to circumstances in which “the government picks winners and losers.” “The train has left the station on that, given the extent of money in politics and the depth of lobbying. The federal government will not stop picking winners and losers,” Bernstein said. He also said the lack of discussion on housing in the report was “such an acute shortfall.” Additionally, the absence of anyone closely tied to the incoming Trump administration underscores this challenge. “This report touts itself as a bipartisan effort. I’ve read through the names in the report. I don’t see anyone in there who I could see being even potentially hired by the Trump administration,” said Jeff Stein, The Washington Post reporter moderating the talk. The White House’s Bernstein was joined by Ben Harris, an economist who worked for Joe Biden during his vice presidency and presidency, when Harris was assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy. Harris echoed Bernstein on what he described as an urgent need for more IRS funding. Some report contributors who spoke, including William Hoagland of the Bipartisan Policy Center, stressed that the Grand Bargain wasn’t designed with political feasibility front of mind, at least in the short term. “Politically, we’re in a bad place,” said Brookings’s Isabel Sawhill, who noted that interest payments on the debt now exceed defense spending—an inauspicious first in the nation’s history. The Trump administration will come into power with Republicans controlling the House and Senate. While the GOP has historically called into question the financial viability of Social Security, which consumes one-fifth of the federal budget, Trump campaigned on ending taxes on Social Security benefits. “Neither candidate has presented plans to fix Social Security’s finances,” the committee wrote.Picnic trip turns fatal for three univ students

CHICAGO — With a wave of her bangled brown fingertips to the melody of flutes and chimes, artist, theologian and academic Tricia Hersey enchanted a crowd into a dreamlike state of rest at Semicolon Books on North Michigan Avenue. “The systems can’t have you,” Hersey said into the microphone, reading mantras while leading the crowd in a group daydreaming exercise on a recent Tuesday night. The South Side native tackles many of society’s ills — racism, patriarchy, aggressive capitalism and ableism — through an undervalued yet impactful action: rest. Hersey, the founder of a movement called the Nap Ministry, dubs herself the Nap Bishop and spreads her message to over half a million followers on her Instagram account, @thenapministry . Her first book, “Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto,” became a New York Times bestseller in 2022, but Hersey has been talking about rest online and through her art for nearly a decade. Hersey, who has degrees in public health and divinity, originated the “rest as resistance” and “rest as reparations” frameworks after experimenting with rest as an exhausted graduate student in seminary. Once she started napping, she felt happier and her grades improved. But she also felt more connected to her ancestors; her work was informed by the cultural trauma of slavery that she was studying as an archivist. Hersey described the transformation as “life-changing.” The Nap Ministry began as performance art in 2017, with a small installation where 40 people joined Hersey in a collective nap. Since then, her message has morphed into multiple mediums and forms. Hersey, who now lives in Atlanta, has hosted over 100 collective naps, given lectures and facilitated meditations across the country. She’s even led a rest ritual in the bedroom of Jane Addams , and encourages her followers to dial in at her “Rest Hotline.” At Semicolon, some of those followers and newcomers came out to see Hersey in discussion with journalist Natalie Moore on Hersey’s latest book, “We Will Rest! The Art of Escape,” released this month, and to learn what it means to take a moment to rest in community. Moore recalled a time when she was trying to get ahead of chores on a weeknight. “I was like, ‘If I do this, then I’ll have less to do tomorrow.’ But then I was really tired,” Moore said. “I thought, ‘What would my Nap Bishop say? She would say go lay down.’ Tricia is in my head a lot.” At the event, Al Kelly, 33, of Rogers Park, said some of those seated in the crowd of mostly Black women woke up in tears — possibly because, for the first time, someone permitted them to rest. “It was so emotional and allowed me to think creatively about things that I want to work on and achieve,” Kelly said. Shortly after the program, Juliette Viassy, 33, a program manager who lives in the South Loop and is new to Hersey’s work, said this was her first time meditating after never being able to do it on her own. Therapist Lyndsei Howze, 33, of Printers Row, who was also seated at the book talk, said she recommends Hersey’s work “to everybody who will listen” — from her clients to her own friends. “A lot of mental health conditions come from lack of rest,” she said. “They come from exhaustion.” Before discovering Hersey’s work this spring, Howze said she and her friends sporadically napped together in one friend’s apartment after an exhausting workweek. “It felt so good just to rest in community,” she said. On Hersey’s book tour, she is leading exercises like this across the country. “I think we need to collectively do this,” Hersey explained. “We need to learn again how to daydream because we’ve been told not to do it. I don’t think most people even have a daydreaming practice.” Daydreaming, Hersey said, allows people to imagine a new world. Hersey tells her followers that yes, you can rest, even when your agenda is packed, even between caregiving, commuting, jobs, bills, emails and other daily demands. And you don’t have to do it alone. There is a community of escape artists, she said of the people who opt out of grind and hustle culture, waiting to embrace you. The book is part pocket prayer book, part instruction manual, with art and handmade typography by San Francisco-based artist George McCalman inspired by 19th-century abolitionist pamphlets, urging readers to reclaim their divine right to rest. Hersey directs her readers like an operative with instructions for a classified mission. “Let grind culture know you are not playing around,” she wrote in her book. “This is not a game or time to shrink. Your thriving depends on the art of escape.” The reluctance to rest can be rooted in capitalist culture presenting rest as a reward for productivity instead of a physical and mental necessity. Hersey deconstructs this idea of grind culture, which she says is rooted in the combined effects of white supremacy, patriarchy and capitalism that “look at the body as not human.” American culture encourages grind culture, Hersey said, but slowing down and building a ritual of rest can offset its toxicity. The author eschews the ballooning billion-dollar self-care industry that encourages people to “save enough money and time off from work to fly away to an expensive retreat,” she wrote. Instead, she says rest can happen anywhere you have a place to be comfortable: in nature, on a yoga mat, in the car between shifts, on a cozy couch after work. Resting isn’t just napping either. She praises long showers, sipping warm tea, playing music, praying or numerous other relaxing activities that slow down the body. “We’re in a crisis mode of deep sleep deprivation, deep lack of self-worth, (and) mental health,” said Hersey. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from 2022 , in Illinois about 37% of adults aren’t getting the rest they need at night. If ignored, the effects of sleep deprivation can have bigger implications later, Hersey said. In October, she lectured at a sleep conference at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, where her humanities work was featured alongside research from the world’s top neuroscientists. Jennifer Mundt, a Northwestern clinician and professor of sleep medicine, psychiatry and behavioral sciences, praises Hersey for bringing the issue of sleep and rest to the public. In a Tribune op-ed last year, Mundt argued that our culture focuses too heavily on sleep as something that must be earned rather than a vital aspect of health and that linking sleep to productivity is harmful and stigmatizing. “Linking sleep and productivity is harmful because it overshadows the bevy of other reasons to prioritize sleep as an essential component of health,” Mundt wrote. “It also stigmatizes groups that are affected by sleep disparities and certain chronic sleep disorders.” In a 30-year longitudinal study released in the spring by the New York University School of Social Work, people who worked long hours and late shifts reported the lowest sleep quality and lowest physical and mental functions, and the highest likelihood of reporting poor health and depression at age 50. The study also showed that Black men and women with limited education “were more likely than others to shoulder the harmful links between nonstandard work schedules and sleep and health, worsening their probability of maintaining and nurturing their health as they approach middle adulthood.” The CDC links sleeping fewer than seven hours a day to an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and more. Although the Nap Ministry movement is new for her followers, Hersey’s written about her family’s practice of prioritizing rest, which informs her work. Her dad was a community organizer, a yardmaster for the Union Pacific Railroad Co. and an assistant pastor. Before long hours of work, he would dedicate hours each day to self-care. Hersey also grew up observing her grandma meditate for 30 minutes daily. Through rest, Hersey said she honors her ancestors who were enslaved and confronts generational trauma. When “Rest Is Resistance” was released in 2022, Americans were navigating a pandemic and conversations on glaring racial disparities. “We Will Rest!” comes on the heels of a historic presidential election where Black women fundraised for Vice President Kamala Harris and registered voters in a dizzying three-month campaign. Following Harris’ defeat, many of those women are finding self-care and preservation even more important. “There are a lot of Black women announcing how exhausted they are,” Moore said. “This could be their entry point to get to know (Hersey’s) work, which is bigger than whatever political wind is blowing right now.” Hersey said Chicagoans can meet kindred spirits in her environment of rest. Haji Healing Salon, a wellness center, and the social justice-focused Free Street Theater are sites where Hersey honed her craft and found community. In the fall, the theater put on “Rest/Reposo,” a performance featuring a community naptime outdoors in McKinley Park and in its Back of the Yards space. Haji is also an apothecary and hosts community healing activities, sound meditations and yoga classes. “It is in Bronzeville; it’s a beautiful space owned by my friend Aya,” Hersey said, explaining how her community has helped her build the Nap Ministry. “When I first started the Nap Ministry, before I was even understanding what it was, she was like, come do your work here.” “We Will Rest!” is a collection of poems, drawings and short passages. In contrast to her first book, Hersey said she leaned more into her artistic background; the art process alone took 18 months to complete. After a tough year for many, she considers it medicine for a “sick and exhausted” world. “It’s its own sacred document,” Hersey said. “It’s something that, if you have it in your library and you have it with you, you may feel more human.” lazu@chicagotribune.comJimmy Carter's underrated legacy: A strong, ethical America and a more peaceful world | Opinion

In a nutshell: The 3dfx Interactive brand is long gone, but its legacy lives on through custom redesigns like the VoodooX, which pay homage to the legendary PC hardware product line. The creator of VoodooX was forced offline for a few months but is now nearly ready to resume work on the card's design and test whether the latest changes have improved performance. Oscar Barea has been working on the VoodooX card for a few years now. The 3dfx hardware enthusiast aims to design, develop, and build a fully functional Voodoo video card based on the VSA-100 chip – the final 3D accelerator developed by 3dfx before the company was acquired by Nvidia. Barea is one of the few resourceful developers who never forgot 3dfx Interactive , the company that revolutionized PC gaming graphics with its groundbreaking 3D hardware acceleration technology. For almost a year, Barea had to put the project on hold as he remodeled his house, leaving him without access to his "lab room" for more than eight months. Recently, he resumed work on the VoodooX, building a new version of the card featuring HDMI, DVI, and VGA interface support. The updated design also boasts a sleek white PCB, which Barea describes as a fitting "Christmas design" in one of his latest tweets. With the latest build, Barea managed to fix minor bugs in the VoodooX design and rerouted the memory signal for improved performance. Barea now plans to test the updated 3D accelerator to ensure it works as intended and to evaluate its performance using demos and games. 3Dfx Voodoo X project - I had some time free and I starting enssambly the baby- very soon we will know how it performs with the new changes. ☺️☺️☺️ pic.twitter.com/wjnLgSAzMS Barea began designing and testing his VoodooX card in 2022, using brand-new VSA-100 chips that had never been used in pre-existing graphics cards. Earlier this year, he mentioned testing a switch to toggle the memory configuration for each VSA-100 chip between 32MB and 64MB. Official VSA-100 specifications reportedly support up to 64MB per chip. The VSA-100 chip – where VSA stands for Voodoo Scalable Architecture – was the most powerful 3D accelerator ever developed by 3dfx. The company intended to compete with Nvidia's GeForce line of GPUs, but the few VSA-100 cards that made it to market (Voodoo4 and Voodoo5) failed to sell enough units to keep the company afloat. Nvidia completed its acquisition of 3dfx's assets and intellectual property in 2002, while the original company officially declared bankruptcy on October 15, 2002. Nvidia refused to provide technical support for 3dfx products, but the community stepped in after the 3dfx driver source code leaked in 2003. Now, decades later, 3dfx enthusiasts like Barea are still finding new ways to revive and innovate with this once-obsolete graphics technology. Meanwhile, PC emulators such as PCem, 86Box, and DOSBox-X offer a quick and "easy" way to run classic 3dfx-compatible games within properly emulated Windows or DOS environments.

ROME (AP) — Robert Lewandowski joined Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi as the only players in Champions League history with 100 or more goals. But Erling Haaland is on a faster pace than anyone by boosting his total to 46 goals at age 24 on Tuesday. Still, Haaland's brace wasn't enough for Manchester City in a 3-3 draw with Feyenoord that extended the Premier League champion's winless streak to six matches. Lewandowski’s early penalty kick started Barcelona off to a 3-0 win over previously unbeaten Brest to move into second place in the new single-league format. The Poland striker added goal No. 101 in second-half stoppage time. Ronaldo leads the all-time scoring list with 140 goals and Messi is next with 129. But neither Ronaldo nor Messi play in the Champions League anymore following moves to Saudi Arabia and the United States, respectively. The 36-year-old Lewandowski required 125 matches to reach the century mark, two more than Messi (123) and 12 fewer than Ronaldo (137). Barcelona also got a second-half score from Dani Olmo. The top eight finishers in the standings advance directly to the round of 16 in March. Teams ranked ninth to 24th go into a knockout playoffs round in February, while the bottom 12 teams are eliminated. Haaland converted a first-half penalty to eclipse Messi as the youngest player to reach 45 goals then scored City's third after the break to raise his total to 46 goals in 44 games. Ilkay Gundogan had City's second. But then Feyenoord struck back with goals from Anis Hadj Moussa, Santiago Gimenez and David Hancko. Inter Milan beat Leipzig 1-0 with an own goal to move atop the standings with 13 points, one more than Barcelona and Liverpool, which faces Real Madrid on Wednesday. The Serie A champion is the only club that hasn't conceded a goal. Bayern Munich beat Paris Saint-Germain 1-0 — the same score from the 2020 final between the two teams. PSG ended with 10 men and remained in the elimination zone. The French powerhouse has struggled in Europe after Kylian Mbappe’s move to Real Madrid. Atalanta moved within two points of the lead with a 6-1 win at Young Boys. Also, Arsenal won 5-1 at Sporting Lisbon; and Bayer Leverkusen routed Salzburg 5-0. AC Milan followed up its win at Real Madrid with a 3-2 victory at last-place Slovan Bratislava in an early match. Christian Pulisic put the seven-time champion ahead midway through the first half by finishing off a counterattack. Then Rafael Leao restored the Rossoneri’s advantage after Tigran Barseghyan had equalized for Bratislava and Tammy Abraham quickly added another. Nino Marcelli scored with a long-range strike in the 88th for Bratislava, which ended with 10 men. Bratislava has lost all five of its matches. Argentina World Cup winner Julian Alvarez scored twice and Atletico Madrid routed Sparta Prague 6-0 in the other early game. Alvarez scored with a free kick 15 minutes in and Marcos Llorente added a long-range strike before the break. Alvarez finished off a counterattack early in the second half after being set up by substitute Antoine Griezmann, who then marked his 100th Champions League game by getting on the scoresheet himself. Angel Correa added a late brace for Atletico, which earned its biggest away win in Europe. Atletico beat Paris Saint-Germain in the previous round and extended its winning streak across all competitions to six matches. AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer