Who gets shots? National Institutes of Health infectious disease chief Anthony Fauci says at least some COVID-19 vaccine could be available by the end of the year …
■ … but, asked yesterday by Chicago Public Square who in Illinois would receive a vaccine first, Gov. Pritzker indicated he doesn’t have a plan for that yet.
■ The Guardian: How will vaccines reach the planet’s poorest people?
■ Across the U.S., COVID-19 cases have reached their highest level in two months.
Dining in the streets. Chicago’s opening more corridors to outdoor restaurant service.
■ Pritzker’s spelled out the rules under which Illinois schools can reopen this fall.
‘Hear that, kids? Just let it roll off your back. Or your neck as it’s being crushed.’ The Beachwood Reporter’s Steve Rhodes finds Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White’s advice on discrimination not useful.
■ An ex-cop who heads the Chicago City Council’s Public Safety Committee says the weekend’s drug-crime-fueled violence didn’t surprise him: “During the time that we were sheltered, there was … a serious decrease in drug sales. Well, guess what? … They have to open their business, too.”
■ Community activist Ja’Mal Green: “How do you expect things to change if … we are containing [people] in neighborhoods without investment?”
■ Neil Steinberg at the Sun-Times: “‘Where’s the outrage?’ is Fox Speak for ‘Fix it yourself.’”
■ Block Club Chicago: “Chicagoans routinely organize and protest against gun violence in their neighborhoods all the time.”
Troubled White Guys Dept.
■ Max Temkin, a cofounder of Cards Against Humanity—“a game for horrible people”—is quitting after ex-employees accused him of being a horrible person.
■ A Chicago Public Schools investigation reveals a principal who quit last week, Kurt Jones, applied racist nicknames to staff members, belittled parents and threw chairs.
■ The board of Free Spirit Media, a nonprofit offering production training to teens and young adults, has put its celebrated founder and executive director, Jeff McCarter, on administrative leave as it investigates alumni and ex-employees’ complaints that he’s engaged in “tokenism, racism, sexism, misogyny … and narcissism.”
■ Black news website The Triibe has cut ties with Free Spirit “until these issues are addressed.”
■ BuzzFeed News: “How Diverse Is Joe Biden’s 2020 Staff? His Campaign Won’t Say.”
‘An ugly, ugly history.’ Citing allusions to lynchings, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx has called an end to the traditional severing of neckties for prosecutors who’ve won their first guilty verdict from a jury.
■ NASCAR’s only Black driver, Bubba Wallace, says he’s “pissed” at questions about his integrity after an FBI report concluding a rope found hanging in his garage was a coincidence.
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Protests work … The city council in Charleston, South Carolina, has unanimously authorized removal of a statue of slavery advocate and Vice President John Calhoun.
■ Baptists and Walmart are taking stands against the Confederate flag.
… but not always. At the Wisconsin State Capitol, protesters smashed windows, attacked a state senator, and tore down a statue of an abolitionist who died trying to end slavery.
■ The owner of Chicago’s venerable Central Camera returned to the Wabash Avenue scene of its destruction three weeks ago—and says his plans to reopen are unchanged.
Right-turn wrongs. A City of Chicago trucker turning right struck, ran over and critically injured a 31-year-old female bicyclist on Milwaukee Avenue …
■ … at least the seventh time since 2016 a right-turning truck has killed or injured Chicago cyclists—all of them female or gender non-conforming.
■ Say farewell to the Segway.
Skyrocketing complaints. Chicago police report a more than 700% increase in calls about fireworks.
■ Business is up nationwide for fireworks retailers.
‘You’ve really insulted me.’ Ex-national security adviser John Bolton’s interview with Stephen Colbert didn’t go so well for Bolton.
■ Colbert questioned Bolton’s willingness to serve Donald Trump: “How did you not know beforehand that he was just callow?”
■ Sun-Times critic Richard Roeper calls Irresistible, a new movie from Colbert’s ex-Daily Show boss, Jon Stewart, “timely and entertaining.”
Earthwatch.
■ Parts of the Arctic are “literally on fire.”
■ Microplastics have shown up inside an animal on one of the world’s most remote islands.
Salad daze. Grocery chains in a dozen states—including Jewel, Aldi and Hy-Vee in Illinois—are recalling garden salad mixes suspected in Cyclospora infections.
■ The intestinal parasite made its way into at least 23 people in Illinois—16 of them hospitalized—last month and this.
Square mailbag. Reader Barry Koehler writes: “I’d like to see a poll of your readers indicating their willingness to do indoor dining, given the upcoming Phase 4 move.” Your wish is our command, Barry. Vote here.
