One step more. A government advisory panel’s endorsement of Pfizer’s coronavirus shot leaves a final regulatory hurdle before the launch of what the AP calls “an epic vaccination campaign.”
■ The CTA reveals almost 900 CTA workers have caught the coronavirus—and 18 of them drove two busy routes.
■ Should the government pay people to get vaccinated? A pair of law professors say it wouldn’t work.
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■ In a move rare among politicians, but increasingly a hallmark of Gov. Pritzker’s leadership, he apologized for wrongly dismissing a question about National Guard involvement at the state’s pandemic-ravaged veterans homes.
■ Better Government Association CEO David Greising on COVID-19 protections: “Pritzker needs to … trust his impulse to continue cracking down.”
Well, those toilet paper hoards aren’t going to defend themselves. Illinois State Police report a record crop of gun sales and firearm permit applications for the year to date.
■ The phrase Jesusland began trending on Twitter after radio blowhard Rush Limbaugh floated—and then retreated from—a claim the U.S. was trending toward recession secession.
■ Your Square proprietor’s alternative suggestion.
■ Vaunted journalism startup The Correspondent will be down and out by the end of the year.
‘Reason to feel good about America.’ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg says, all things considered, the nation stood strong against Donald Trump’s assault.
■ Two Republican Illinois congressmen are joining a Texas lawsuit aiming to undo Joe Biden’s victory (second item in the Politico Illinois Playbook) …
■ … a suit filed by an attorney general whose own senior staff members have accused him of bribery and who’s under investigation by the FBI.
■ They can’t undo Time magazine’s pick of Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as “Person of the Year.”
■ The Electoral College meets Monday to settle things once and for all—maybe …
■ … on a day Earth will experience a comet, a meteor shower and a total solar eclipse.
Cops get sentimental. The Chicago Police Department has launched an online dashboard to track how the public feels about police performance and neighborhood safety.
■ You can add your feelings by taking an anonymous survey.
■ Mayor Lightfoot’s catching heat for the watering down of a proposal to guarantee police give anyone arrested a phone call within an hour.
■ Southeast Side residents are condemning as racist plans to put a car-shredding operation in their neighborhood.
■ Plans to rename Lake Shore Drive in honor of the city’s first non-indigenous settler, a Black man, are back in the City Council spotlight.
Smart carts’ start. The Chicago area’s first Amazon Fresh grocery store features carts that scan what shoppers put in—and take out—making for speedier checkouts.
■ Crain’s Chicago Business (behind a hard paywall): The Discover credit card company is moving to add up to 1,000 jobs at a call center on Chicago’s South Side.
‘I know I was being super careful.’ WGN-TV and radio entertainment critic and talk-show host Dean Richards* returns to the air this weekend, two weeks after testing positive for COVID-19.
■ Real-life tension on journalist Dan Weissmann’s Arm and a Leg podcast about health care: “My family shops for fights over health insurance.”
‘This is not a normal year.’ Nevertheless, Tribune critic Chris Jones can recommend 10 online Chicago theater shows for the holiday season …
■ … and his Trib colleagues round up 12 pandemic-safe holiday activities.
■ Six Flags Great America is hosting a drive-through holiday exhibit—but it’s not free.
■ Brookfield Zoo is closing for two months and at least temporarily cutting 40 staffers.
‘We couldn’t afford candles.’ In a socially distanced ceremony to mark the start of Hanukkah, Gov. Pritzker made a pandemic state budget joke.
■ From 2008: Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart sing the best Hanukkah-Christmas mashup ever.
Chicago Public Square is free for all thanks to generous support from readers. You can join them with a one-time tip (tubular!) or an ongoing pledge (tubulest!) in any amount you choose. If you can’t chip in now, no guilt: You help Square grow simply by opening and reading each day. Or by sharing it with a friend. Thanks to all.
■ Thanks to Aaron Barnhart and Pam Spiegel for catching typos above.
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* And three-time teammate to your Square publisher.