The new rules. Gov. Pritzker is rolling out new orders giving local police authorities more flexibility to enforce pandemic safety measures (updated link) …
■ … and signing a law providing new support and protection for frontline workers. (Link revised.)
That’s two. Another Chicago alderman has tested positive for COVID-19 …
■ … a day after appearing with Mayor Lightfoot.
■ Ohio’s governor tested positive … until he didn’t.
COVID courtship. A Northwestern University professor says the pandemic may have turned back the clock on hook-up culture: “More friendship and mutual caretaking … earlier, and sex … later.”
■ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg says mask resistance in a pandemic is consistent with “timeworn notions of masculinity.”
■ Columnist Irv Leavitt is puzzled that “so many people in high places now insist … meanie scientists are unqualified to advise us to put a piece of cloth over our noses and mouths.”
■ The Daily Beast: “COVID-19 Could Mess With Survivors’ Brains for Years to Come.”
■ Illinois’ average daily coronavirus caseload has more than doubled over the last month.
And the verdict: Guilty. Chicago’s first jury trial of the pandemic has wrapped up.
■ The Tribune: Musicians are leaving Chicago—and the U.S.—to find places they can perform.
A ‘Nixon moment.’ Trib columnist Eric Zorn says it’s time for Illinois Democrats to do to scandal-tainted House Speaker Michael Madigan what congressional Republicans did to President Nixon 46 years ago today and “tell him in so many words: His time’s up.”
■ Better Government Association president David Greising: “It would be fair ” for voters to withhold their trust” from Pritzker’s income tax reform plans “if he won’t do the right thing about his Madigan problem.”
Is that NRA money in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?* New York’s attorney general is suing to dissolve the National Rifle Association on grounds it diverted millions of dollars from charitable work …
■ … for the benefit of four top leaders who allegedly used the NRA as their “personal piggy bank.”
■ Separately, the Washington, D.C., attorney general is suing the NRA Foundation, accusing it of much the same crime.
■ Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham, apparently of a mind that this would be bad: This is a sign of things to come if Joe Biden becomes president.
■ Facebook has banned ads from the pro-Trump political action group The Committee to Defend the President for the “repeated sharing of content determined … to be false.”
Just a Thursday in Chicago. The city’s gunfire toll yesterday: At least one dead and six hurt.
■ The Onion: “Minneapolis Announces Plan To Replace Police Officers With Thousands Of Heavily Armed Social Workers.”
Unemployment break. The benefits program for out-of-work Illinoisans has been extended through the pandemic—adding another 20 weeks of payment to the typical 26.
■ Even through the pandemic, Chicago’s haul from its long-criticized tax-increment financing districts has hit a record …
■ … likely triggering a new round of debate over how and where to spend that cash.
■ Groundbreaking’s set for the first building in the city’s controversial Lincoln Yards riverfront development.
‘Jubilant and mischievous.’ A new streaming movie about the American Civil Liberties Union is winning great reviews and—as of Square’s email deadline—a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
■ By The Associated Press’ count, the ACLU has filed 237 lawsuits against the Trump administration.
■ Why Square’s publisher has supported the ACLU for close to half a century.
America’s pastime. Also baseball. An Oakland Athletics’ bench coach is apologizing for what seemed like a Nazi salute.
■ He tells the San Francisco Chronicle: “I’m cringing inside picturing myself like that. … It’s like standing there with my middle finger up.”
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* Reference to this surprisingly old joke.