‘Someone’s going to get killed.’ In a gripping news conference, one of Georgia’s top election officials—a self-identified Republican—angrily demanded President Trump and the state’s two embattled Republican U.S. senators condemn the nutcases threatening violence over nonexistent voting fraud.
■ See the video: “I can’t begin to explain the level of anger I have right now over this, and every American—every Georgian, Republican and Democrat alike—should have that same level of anger.”
■ Trump’s sycophantic attorney general, Bill Barr: “We have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”
■ Poynter’s Tom Jones explains why The Washington Post ran an ad that claimed the election was rigged.
Shots aimed. Chicago’s top doc says the city could get its first coronavirus vaccinations within the month …
■ … but lower-risk residents—including kids—may not get them until summer.
■ Pfizer’s won emergency use approval in the U.K. for its COVID-19 vaccine.
‘A very dark couple of weeks.’ Despite promising news about vaccines, a global health policy expert says the nation’s in for a rough ride in the near future.
■ The White House coronavirus task force: “We are in a very dangerous place.”
■ An American Academy of Pediatrics spokesperson: Want to open schools safely? Close bars and malls.
■ Molson Coors’ CEO tells Bloomberg the pandemic has changed the way the world drinks beer— maybe forever.
■ Politico: The pandemic has accelerated a robot revolution.
Gov. Mancow? Politico says newly retired WLS-AM morning host Erich “Mancow” Muller is … mulling … a reactionary campaign for Illinois’ top office.
■ The race to replace Secretary of State Jesse White is heating up, too.
Dude, where’s your car? Hundreds of vehicles have been towed with the onset of Chicago’s annual winter parking ban.
■ A Tribune editorial condemns Mayor Lightfoot for excusing her security detail’s scofflaw driving: “It’s an especially bad look for a mayor whose latest budget is balanced in part on the intent of catching more of us speeding.”
‘We want Rahm as an albatross rotting around our civic necks.’ Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg says he’s down with the notion of Chicago’s ex-mayor as U.S. Transportation secretary.
■ The Trib’s John Kass: “Emanuel has his own sins, and Chicago counts them by its scars.”
■ Letter to the editor: Square reader Joe Hass: “Emanuel’s asshole behavior is legendary; he shouldn’t be allowed in charge of a dead person, much less a live one. He was a lousy chief of staff, a worse mayor and a pointless cable TV talking head. In what reasonable universe would you allow someone like that to fail up to a Cabinet post?”
■ Something on your mind? Letters@ChicagoPublicSquare.com.
‘The state of the planet is broken.’ U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is sounding a new alarm about the climate crisis …
■ … calling on humanity to end a suicidal “war on nature.”
■ Hear and see his interview in Chicago radio veteran John Siuntres’ Word Balloon podcast.
The line’s dead. Trib columnist Eric Zorn eulogizes his home’s decades-old landline phone service—and a phone number that “was like a member of the family.”
■ A distinctive 129-year-old Fulton Market building—longtime home to a restaurant that closed in 2016—is set for demolition.
■ Chicago’s first and only official city cultural historian is retiring.
Cookies! The Trib’s named the winning recipes in its annual Holiday Cookie Contest.
■ Ipsos research: COVID-19’s impact on the holidays includes more online and local shopping, but gifts for fewer people. (Ipsos newsletter editor Ben Meyerson is your Square proprietor’s son.)
