100%. Pfizer says a study of its COVID-19 vaccine suggests it’s universally effective in kids age 12 to 15 …
■ Chicago opens new mass-vax sites Monday on the North and South Sides, together capable of jabbing 5,000 people a day.
■ Patch columnist Mark Konkol on Loretto Hospital’s vaccine antics: “Let the tiny hospital repent, heal and move on. Loretto’s poor, neglected neighborhood needs it to survive.”
■ Walgreens is apologizing for canceling some people’s second vaccination appointments.
■ The virus is on the rise in Chicago—with hospitalization and positivity rates increasing in March.
■ The Tribune’s Eric Zorn: The “real fools” are those who believed the pandemic would be “mostly gone” by April.
Cops and guns. The Sun-Times reports the feds have opened a criminal investigation of a Chicago police officer who last year shot an unarmed man at the Red Line Grand station twice—once after he’d run away.
■ A passerby caught the confrontation on video.
■ Another Chicago officer shot someone during a “foot pursuit” early today.
■ An independent watchdog report finds the Chicago Police Department making progress on reform—but much still undone. (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
■ Updating coverage: The trial of ex-Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin, accused of murdering George Floyd, resumed with testimony from a firefighter who yesterday broke into tears as she recalled being kept from helping Floyd as he died.
Free the CTA? The Metropolitan Planning Council’s retiring president, MarySue Barrett, says the end of the pandemic brings a chance for radical rethinking of Chicago’s transit network—like “a pilot to make transit greatly reduced or even free.”
■ Updating coverage: President Biden was set today to announce a $2 trillion plan to overhaul America’s infrastructure …
■ … including $621 billion over eight years for transportation-related programs …
Trump fan, gubernatorial candidate. Count suburban businessman, country club owner and Donald Trump admirer Gary Rabine in the Republican race to replace J.B. Pritzker.
■ The Sun-Times: Rabine “could not say whether he believes … Biden fairly won last year’s presidential election.”
■ Trump pal and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz is under investigation for possible violation of federal sex trafficking laws.
■ Funny thing: In 2017, Gaetz cast the only vote—from either party—against a crackdown on human trafficking.
■ Trump’s getting sued by two Capitol cops injured in the insurrection that they say he “inflamed, encouraged, incited.”
■ Attorney General Merrick Garland has launched an overhaul of the government’s approach to hate crime enforcement.
■ The Conversation explores “Germany’s strange nostalgia for the antebellum American South.”
‘You either are for more people voting, or you want to suppress the vote.’ Dozens of the nation’s most prominent Black business executives are pressuring companies to fight oppressive voting rules advancing in legislatures across the country.
■ Columnist Will Bunch on Atlanta-based Coca-Cola’s failure to oppose Georgia’s repressive law: “You know who wanted you to stop buying Coca-Cola products as a means to protest systemic racism in America? The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. … Thus, so will I.”
■ Columnist Neil Steinberg doesn’t have to look hard to spot Trump’s influence in one suburb’s electioneering: “What happened in Georgia can happen here, too.”
Spring things.
■ Street sweeping resumes Thursday in Chicago—bringing with it the prospect of $60 tickets for those whose vehicles are in the way.
■ The Chicago Riverwalk is near a reopening.
■ Beginning Thursday, Art on theMart—visuals projected on the former Merchandise Mart (now “theMart”) facade along the river—will feature images from and about space, curated with the Adler Planetarium.
Facebook fails.
■ PolitiFact: Fake COVID-19 vaccine claims persist on Facebook, despite a “ban.”
■ Snopes: Facebook has yet to shut down a group linked to the Capitol riot.
■ But Facebook is promising you more control over how your news feed works.
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