4 to go. Here’s what you can expect Friday, with Phase 4 of Illinois’ reopening plan.
■ Mayor Lightfoot: Wear a mask whenever you leave home.
■ Ride the CTA, get a free mask and hand sanitizer.
■ Express service is coming back to Metra train routes beginning Monday.
■ A celebrated Logan Square restaurant that just reopened a few days ago is shuttered again after a worker tested positive for COVID-19.
■ Chicago’s launching four free coronavirus testing sites.
Bubbles: Worth toil and trouble? A Johns Hopkins expert says forming a COVID-free “support bubble” with other households can work—if everyone plays by the rules.
■ Coronavirus infections are on the rise worldwide.
■ Updating coverage: The U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, was to testify to the House today.
Unmasking the truth. Numeracy advocate and publicist Matt Baron has committed actual math to zero in on the percentage of Trump fans who wore masks at the president’s Saturday night performance.
■ The White House has ended mandatory temperature checks for most visitors and staffers—except for those in close contact with the president and the vice president.
Lightfoot’s ‘credibility is crumbling.’ Steve Rhodes at The Beachwood Reporter says the mayor’s missteps include refusing to take reporters’ questions about bad police department data she’s embraced: “Lightfoot bought it, sold it and owns it.”
■ Rejecting Lightfoot’s tweeted assertion that “our city’s collective heart breaks” over the shooting death of a 3-year-old, Tribune columnist Rex Huppke writes: “If this city’s ‘collective heart’ actually broke to pieces … about a child’s life being cut short by a bullet, we’d all have scarred feet from years of walking on shards.”
■ A Trib editorial appeals to the mayor: “You and police Superintendent David Brown have got to control the war zones erupting throughout this city.”
■ And it’s not just Chicago’s problem.
■ Law enforcement experts and leaders tell CNN one way to address police reform is simple: Hire more women.
■ Early reports suggest Chicago’s protests over police violence haven’t triggered a COVID-19 spike.
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Barr brawl. The chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee is planning to subpoena U.S. Attorney General William Barr …
■ … and freeze the Justice Department budget if Barr refuses to show …
■ … a strategy that has split congressional Democrats.
‘I love Elizabeth Warren.’ But, the Trib’s Heidi Stevens asserts, “She should not be Joe Biden’s pick for vice president.”
■ FiveThirtyEight applies analytical insight to the cases for Warren and for not-Warren.
■ The New York Times: “Why Obsessive K-Pop Fans Are Turning Toward Political Activism.”
What’s with the fireworks? If you’re hearing a lot more in the evenings, Vox explains, you’re not alone.
■ But, The Washington Post reports, the phenomenon is still something of a mystery nationwide.
Working from home … works. Iconic Chicago tech pioneer Howard Tullman says “putting the millions of hours we’re not spending commuting to better use has to be a huge boost to overall productivity” and he says he hopes the pandemic spells “death to overly long and unproductive meetings.”
■ From the archives: A 2014 interview with Tullman when he was CEO of Chicago’s tech incubator, 1871.
iPhone’s next trick. Apple’s iOS 14 software will let users trigger custom actions—such as changing volume, taking a screenshot or awakening voice-driven apps like Google Assistant—by tapping the phone’s back.
■ Amazon is building two new fulfillment centers in the south suburbs, with plans to hire 2,000.
Meatdown. Starbucks is adding Impossible Foods’ plant-based sausage to its menu, as part of an egg-and-cheese breakfast sandwich.
■ The Conversation: The pandemic has laid waste to recycling programs.
■ The Guardian: Sharp rate increases across the country have left millions of Americans unable to pay their water bills.
Sporting news. Top-ranked tennis player Novak Djokovic and his wife have tested positive for COVID-19.
■ A day after a noose was found in his garage stall, NASCAR drivers and crew lined up to hug the circuit’s only Black driver, Bubba Wallace.
■ Transgender activist Charlotte Clymer on Twitter: “I did not have NASCAR doing anti-racism statements better than most big corporations on my 2020 bingo card, but here we are.” (Update, 4:55 p.m.: FBI says it wasn’t a noose, wasn’t a hate crime.)
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