| Rank | Name | Record | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alan | 6-0 | Week 2 winner |
| 2 | Clark | 3-3 | His crystal ball may be cracked |
| Rank | Name | Total Record | Wins | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alan | 12-1 | 2 | Two-week streak! |
| 2 | Clark | 8-5 | 0 |
CHRISMAN - A year after finishing outside the top six at the Chrisman Cow Chip XC Invite, the St. Joseph-Ogden girls’ cross country team returned with a vengeance, claiming the team title in front of bright skies and temperatures that made running three miles ideal.
The Cow Chip, a race first conceived in 1981 by Roger Beals, is known for its flighted competition and open-pasture course, dotted with the occasional pasture pie, adding a quirky twist to the classic cross country challenge. On Saturday, Mother Nature provided near-perfect conditions for east-central Illinois runners with sunny skies and a comfortable 74 degrees.
For St. Joseph-Ogden, the difference this year was clear. Sophomores Grace Bressner and Abby Bello emerged as stars, showing the results of a summer of dedicated training. For Bressner, Bello, and their teammates, the hard work over the summer paid off in measurable improvements and team success.
Bressner, who last year finished the race in 20:23.9, cut her time down to 18:57.45, placing sixth overall. Bello, improving more than a minute and a half from her previous 22:16 finish, crossed in 20:02.52 to claim seventh place. Their performances set the tone for the team, complemented by Taylor Vaughn (21:16.28), Allie Bott (21:16.71), and Tessa Walker (21:30.05), leading St. Joseph-Ogden to a winning team score of 85.
Last year, Unity won the girls title thanks to seniors Emily Decker and Ashlyn Denney, who have since graduated. This season, the Rockets’ top performers were senior Mackenzie Pound and juniors Grace Wherley and Galina Fairbanks. Pound blazed a trail early and finished fifth overall in 18:51.43. Wherley and Fairbanks also made their mark, crossing in 21:55.46 and 21:58.25 respectively, helping Unity secure third place as a team with 108 points.
Urbana University High showcased depth and consistency, placing second as a team with 98 points. Clara Knutson led the way with a 20:04.10 finish, followed by Cadence Scheunemann in 20:38.27. Janny Knutson added an 8th-place finish in 20:47.41, solidifying Urbana’s position near the top.
The top five individual finishers reflected the competitive field across the area: Isabella Keller of St. Anthony dominated with a 16:24.89 finish, followed by teammate Aubrey Denning (17:38.28). Marshall High’s Madeleine Fox (18:42.85) and Molly Farrell (18:49.97) earned third and fourth, respectively, before Pound’s fifth-place effort.
by Ben SzalinskiSPRINGFIELD - Darren Bailey plans to run for governor for a second time in 2026, Capitol News Illinois confirmed with sources close to the campaign.
The former state senator and farmer from Clay County would become the highest-profile Republican to enter the race, having lost the 2022 campaign against Gov. JB Pritzker and a close primary race in 2024 against U.S. Rep. Mike Bost for a downstate congressional seat.
A formal announcement is expected next week. News of the planned announcement was first reported by NBC Chicago on Monday afternoon.
Bailey rose to statewide notoriety in 2020 as a state lawmaker who opposed mask mandates and other COVID-19 emergency actions early in the pandemic. He capitalized on his opposition to Pritzker-imposed restrictions and ran for governor in 2022.
Bailey easily won the Republican primary that year with 57 percent of the vote. His campaign was indirectly helped by Pritzker, who ran TV ads during the primary calling Bailey “too conservative” for Illinois, which helped boost his credentials with Republican voters.
But Pritzker handily won a second term with 55 percent of the vote, defeating Bailey by 13 points in a race the Associated Press called just moments after polls closed. Pritzker spent millions on his campaign as Bailey struggled to compete despite receiving financial help from Lake Forest billionaire Dick Uihlein.
Bailey then tried to unseat Bost in 2024 in the 12th Congressional District but came up about 2,700 votes short. While he received President Donald Trump’s endorsement in the governor’s race, Trump endorsed Bost over Bailey in 2024.
Bailey plans to enlist Cook County Republican Party Chair Aaron Del Mar as his running mate, a source said.
Del Mar ran for lieutenant governor in 2022 alongside Gary Rabine, receiving 6.5 percent of the vote.
He was elected to lead the Cook County Republican Party earlier this year, marking the second time he has held that role after previously leading the party in the early 2010s. He is also a member of the Illinois GOP’s State Central Committee and serves as Palatine Township’s highway commissioner.
Outside of politics, Del Mar has led a career in business and as an entrepreneur.
Bailey ran in 2022 with Stephanie Trussell, a conservative radio host from the suburbs.
It is unclear how Bailey plans to overcome his 2022 loss and what message he will take to voters in 2026.
He focused much of his 2022 campaign on crime and public safety, criticizing the SAFE-T Act and bashing Chicago as a “hellhole.”
The message failed to gain traction with voters, however, as Democrats focused heavily on abortion rights in the months after Roe v. Wade was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Facebook has been Bailey’s primary communication platform to voters, and in recent weeks, he has focused many of his posts on Pritzker and ways he believes the governor has failed Illinois. Like other Republicans, Bailey has criticized Pritzker’s growing national profile.
“In 2026, we have the chance to stop him,” Bailey wrote in a post Monday. “But it will take ALL of us. Every Illinoisan who knows we deserve better. Together, we can end JB’s presidential ambitions before they even begin and finally turn Illinois around.”
Bailey would become at least the fourth candidate to enter the Republican primary for governor, which has been slowly taking shape this fall.
DuPage County Sheriff Jim Mendrick, Lake Forest resident Joe Severino, and conservative media writer Ted Dabrowski have also formed committees to run for governor.
Antioch Mayor Scott Gartner released a statement Sunday saying he was also considering running.
Pritzker is running for a rare third term as governor amid speculation he will also run for president in 2028.
Candidates must turn their petitions in to the State Board of Elections by the end of October.
by Dan Howells & Todd Larsen
by Alphones Deka
by Judith Ruiz-Branch
by Art JipsonSmall local organizations called Active Clubs have spread widely across the U.S. and internationally, using fitness as a cover for a much more alarming mission. These groups are a new and harder-to-detect form of white supremacist organizing that merges extremist ideology with fitness and combat sports culture.
Active Clubs frame themselves as innocuous workout groups on digital platforms and decentralized networks to recruit, radicalize and prepare members for racist violence. The clubs commonly use encrypted messaging apps such as Telegram, Wire and Matrix to coordinate internally.
For broader propaganda and outreach they rely on alternative social media platforms such as Gab, Odysee, VK and sometimes BitChute. They also selectively use mainstream sites such as Instagram, Facebook, X and TikTok, until those sites ban the clubs.
Active Club members have been implicated in orchestrating and distributing neo-Nazi recruitment videos and manifestos. In late 2023, for instance, two Ontario men, Kristoffer Nippak and Matthew Althorpe, were arrested and charged with distributing materials for the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division and the transnational terrorist group Terrorgram.
Following their arrests, Active Club Canada’s public network went dark, Telegram pages were deleted or rebranded, and the club went virtually silent. Nippak was granted bail under strict conditions, while Althorpe remains in custody.
As a sociologist studying extremism and white supremacy since 1993, I have watched the movement shift from formal organizations to small, decentralized cells – a change embodied most clearly by Active Clubs.
According to private analysts who track far-right extremist activities, the Active Club network has a core membership of 400 to 1,200 white men globally, plus sympathizers, online supporters and passive members. The clubs mainly target young white men in their late teens and twenties.
Since 2020, Active Clubs have expanded rapidly across the United States, Canada and Europe, including the U.K., France, Sweden and Finland. Precise numbers are hard to verify, but the clubs appear to be spreading, according to The Counter Extremism Project, the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center and my own research.
The clubs reportedly operate in at least 25 U.S. states, and potentially as many as 34. Active U.S. chapters reportedly increased from 49 in 2023 to 78 in 2025.
The clubs’ rise reflects a broader shift in white supremacist strategy, away from formal organizations and social movements. In 2020, American neo-Nazi Robert Rundo introduced the concept of “White Nationalism 3.0” – a decentralized, branded and fitness-based approach to extremist organizing.
Rundo previously founded the Rise Above Movement, which was a violent, far-right extremist group in the U.S. known for promoting white nationalist ideology, organizing street fights and coordinating through social media. The organization carried out attacks at protests and rallies from 2016 through 2018.
Active Clubs embed their ideology within apolitical activities such as martial arts and weightlifting. This model allows them to blend in with mainstream fitness communities. However, their deeper purpose is to prepare members for racial conflict.
Active Club messaging glorifies discipline, masculinity and strength – a “warrior identity” designed to attract young men.
“The active club is not so much a structural organization as it is a lifestyle for those willing to work, risk and sweat to embody our ideals for themselves and to promote them to others,” Rundo explained via his Telegram channel.
“They never were like, ‘You need to learn how to fight so you can beat up people of color.’ It was like, ‘You need to learn how to fight because people want to kill you in the future,’” a former Active Club member told Vice News in 2023.
These cells are deliberately small – often under a dozen members – and self-contained, which gives them greater operational security and flexibility. Each club operates semi-autonomously while remaining connected to the broader ideology and digital network.
Active Clubs maintain strategic and ideological connections with formal white supremacist groups, including Patriot Front, a white nationalist and neofascist group founded in 2017 by Thomas Rousseau after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Active Clubs share extremist beliefs with these organizations, including racial hierarchy and the “Great Replacement” theory, which claims white populations are being deliberately replaced by nonwhite immigrants. While publicly presenting as fitness groups, they may collaborate with white supremacist groups on recruitment, training, propaganda or public events.
Figures connected to accelerationist groups – organizations that seek to create social chaos and societal collapse that they believe will lead to a race war and the destruction of liberal democracy – played a role in founding the Active Club network. Along with the Rise Above Movement, they include Atomwaffen Division and another neo-Nazi group, The Base – organizations that repackage violent fascism to appeal to disaffected young white men in the U.S.
By downplaying explicit hate symbols and emphasizing strength and preparedness, Active Clubs appeal to a new generation of recruits who may not initially identify with overt racism but are drawn to a culture of hypermasculinity and self-improvement.
Anyone can start a local Active Club chapter with minimal oversight. This autonomy makes it hard for law enforcement agencies to monitor the groups and helps the network grow rapidly.
Shared branding and digital propaganda maintain ideological consistency. Through this approach, Active Clubs have built a transnational network of echo chambers, recruitment pipelines and paramilitary-style training in parks and gyms.
Club members engage in activities such as combat sports training, propaganda dissemination and ideological conditioning. Fight sessions are often recorded and shared online as recruitment tools.
Members distribute flyers, stickers and online content to spread white supremacist messages. Active Clubs embed themselves in local communities by hosting events, promoting physical fitness, staging public actions and sharing propaganda.
Potential members first see propaganda on encrypted apps such as Telegram or on social media. The clubs recruit in person at gyms, protests and local events, vetting new members to ensure they share the group’s beliefs and can be trusted to maintain secrecy.
Based on current information from the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, there are 187 active chapters within the Active Club Network across 27 countries – a 25% increase from late 2023. The Crowd Counting Consortium documented 27 protest events involving Active Clubs in 2022-2023.
However, precise membership numbers remain difficult to ascertain. Some groups call themselves “youth clubs” but share similar ideas and aesthetics and engage in similar activities.
Active Club members view themselves as defenders of Western civilization and masculine virtue. From their perspective, their activities represent noble resistance rather than hate. Members are encouraged to stay secretive, prepare for societal collapse and build a network of committed, fit men ready to act through infiltration, activism or violence.
Law enforcement agencies, researchers and civil society now face a new kind of domestic threat that wears workout clothes instead of uniforms.
Active Clubs work across international borders, bound by shared ideas and tactics and a common purpose. This is the new white nationalism: decentralized, modernized, more agile and disguised as self-improvement. What appears to be a harmless workout group may be a gateway to violent extremism, one pushup at a time.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Art Jipson, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Dayton
Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com.GET THE MORNING HEADLINES
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SJO’s championship performance featured five goals in the first half. Harper scored three times and added an assist, while Tyler Hess contributed two goals with one assist. Lucas Stevens provided two assists, and Hunter Cler added one. Harper completed his four-goal performance with a second-half goal off a feed from Hess.
The tournament victory followed an earlier 7-0 win over Decatur MacArthur on September 4. Harper scored three goals and Hess added two. Lucas Stevens had a goal and two assists, Hunter Cler contributed one assist, Miles Atwood added a goal, and goalkeeper Quinn Stahl recorded one save in the shutout. SJO also received a forfeit win from Mt. Pulaski/Hartsburg-Emden, who withdrew prior to the tournament’s start.
| Rank | Name | Record | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brooks Look | 5-0 | Week 2 winner |
| 2 | Alan | 3-2 | |
| 3 | Denise | 3-2 |
| Rank | Name | Total Record | Wins | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brooks Look | 9-1 | 1 | Week 2 winner |
| 2 | Denise | 7-3 | 0 | |
| 3 | Alan | 6-4 | 0 | |
| 4 | J | 5-0 | 1 | Week 1 winner |
| 5 | Sara | 5-0 | 0 |
