A week of change. Chicago’s streetcams are set to begin ticketing anyone who exceeds a speed limit by as little as 6 mph.
■ Here’s a map of where those cameras are to be found—or, maybe more accurately, where they’ll find you.
■ Beginning tomorrow, the city will begin clearing away objects people have been using to secure dug-out parking spots.
■ Tens of thousands of Chicago kids have returned to classrooms for the first time in months.
‘If we end up with a hierarchy that says all rich white people get Pfizer, and all poor Black people get J&J, that would be a problem.’ A Chicago community leader is among those sounding an alarm about COVID-19 vaccine distribution plans.
■ The Kaiser Family Foundation: Vaccine hesitancy is shrinking.
‘When you’re handcuffed naked in your own home because the police screwed up a search warrant, shouting should be in your f__king Miranda rights.’ Chicago cops play a central role in John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight takedown of armed police raids.
■ His conclusion: “Drug raids just have to stop, and raids in general should only be used as a last resort to save lives that are in immediate danger.”
■ A veteran Chicago officer apparently committed suicide took his own life overnight at a North Side police station.
‘Get rid of them all.’ At the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Donald Trump tramped back onto the national stage Sunday, calling out Illinois Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger and other Republicans who voted to impeach or convict him.
■ The AP: Trump “exacerbated intraparty divisions by … promoting lies about the election.”
■ In a new video for his anti-Trump “Country First” political action committee, Kinzinger warns, “Fear … leads to the conflict that will tear America apart. Enough is enough.”
■ Congress is beginning debate on what could be the biggest round of U.S. elections reforms in a generation.
‘His 10-year plan is a disaster.’ Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin is calling for the resignation of Trump’s postmaster general.
■ But the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for Chicago—John Lausch, who got the job with support from Durbin and Sen. Tammy Duckworth—has won a reprieve from President Biden.
‘In a perfect world, Biden would have been tougher.’ Media writer Tom Jones reviews the president’s “whiff” on punishing the Saudi crown prince for a journalist’s murder.
■ The Onion: “Democrat Reassures Friend This One Of The Good Syrian Airstrikes.”
‘This is the end of the line, literally.’ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg shares the work of Chicago’s Night Ministry, which provides “a sort of field hospital/free commissary/clinic for the homeless” overnights at the CTA’s Blue Line terminus in Forest Park and its Red Line terminus at 95th Street.
■ Steinberg colleague David Roeder: Chicago’s gentrifying Near West Side looks “ready to spring back to business.”
Chicago at the Globes. Tales of the city—including The Trial of the Chicago 7 for best screenplay; Judas and the Black Messiah for supporting actor, Daniel Kaluuya as Black Panther chairman Fred Hampton; and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom for best movie actor, the late Chadwick Boseman—did well in last night’s Golden Globe Awards.
■ Chicago native and The Queen’s Gambit executive producer William Horberg* accepted the award for best TV series.
■ Chicago shaped co-hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s on-screen chemistry.
■ Accepting the award for best comedy film, Sacha Baron Cohen praised his Borat Subsequent Moviefilm “co-star”—“a fresh, new talent, who came from nowhere and turned out to be a comedy genius. I’m talking, of course, about Rudy Giuliani.”
‘Will anybody notice?’ Media reporter Robert Feder looks ahead to tonight’s relaunch of the WGN America cable channel as NewsNation.
■ Chicago-born Ebony magazine was set for a digital rebirth today.
■ Newcity’s email newsletter about Chicago culture is going daily.
■ The Atlantic: “America Didn’t Need Sports After All.”
‘This Superman is decidedly Christian.’ The author of the forthcoming book Is Superman Circumcised? The Complete Jewish History of the World’s Greatest Hero reviews the new Superman & Lois TV series.
■ Journalist, novelist and comics writer Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me) is set to write a new Superman movie.
And finally … The end is here for another roll call of Chicago Public Square supporters whose contributions keep this thing coming your way: Shara M., Ted Cox, Maureen Gannon, Ed Nickow, JoBeth Halpin, Jerry Delaney, Anne White, H E Williams, Fredric Stein, Christine Cupaiuolo, Paul Wedeen, Jeanne Mcinerney, Mike Gold, David Boulanger, Bill Oakes, Arthur Golab, Martha Intrieri, Jan Menaker Brock, Adam Broad, David Weindling, Laurie Huget, John Culver, Christine Hauri, Mike Trenary, Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin, Frank Heitzman, Ronald B. Schwartz, Bruce Dold, Collin Canright, Jane Skelley Carroll, Julia Gray, Jim Prescott, Joe Hallissey, John Metz, Julia Winn, Tim Colburn, Jude Feld, Susan Beach, Mena Boulanger, J.J. Sedelmaier, Jon Hilkevitch, Susy Schultz, Hank DeZutter, Judy Hoffman, Judith Gaietto-Grace, Reed Pence, Owen Youngman, Elan Long, Meghan Strubel, Ann Spittle, Anne Rooney, William Tracy, Cynde Seegers, Cynthia Farenga and Jill Chukerman. You can join them in The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians for any amount you choose.
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* Son of Chicago Public Square reader Joan Chandler (November link, at the bottom).