Vaccine reinforcements. AstraZeneca says its COVID-19 vaccine provides strong protection against sickness and eliminates hospitalizations and deaths from the disease across all age groups …
■ … setting the stage for emergency use authorization as the fourth vaccine brand in the U.S. arsenal.
■ Fresh revelations from Block Club Chicago: The customers of a luxury watch shop that hosted an improper vaccination event just happened to include the embattled chief operating officer of Loretto Hospital.
■ The AP: Rapid rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in some states backfired.
■ Illinois coronavirus cases grew 14% last week.
■ Beginning today, higher education staff, government workers and members of the media are eligible for vaccination in Illinois.
■ Experts envision what this summer will be like as the pandemic—maybe—fades.
‘He wanted them to kill him.’ Prosecutors say a man who shot and wounded two people—including a cop—and fired on four other officers in the Austin neighborhood Saturday was on a suicide mission.
■ It was the third time in a week a Chicago police officer was wounded on the job.
He’s out. The boss of the scandal-scarred Cook County Land Bank Authority is quitting in the wake of several embarrassing reports by the Sun-Times …
■ … including the sale of a couple of West Side lots to a convicted drug dealer under federal indictment (August link).
‘Misguided.’ N’DIGO’s Hermene Hartman condemns a Chicago alderman’s proposal to crack down on so-called “house museums.”
■ The School of the Art Institute’s opposed, too (middle of Newcity’s newsletter).
The Atlanta difference. In contrast with other mass shootings, no central fund has been created to aid families of victims in Tuesday’s rampage—forcing good Samaritans to scour GoFundMe on their own.
■ The AP profiles the eight dead: Mothers, grandmothers and a brother.
■ Last Week Tonight host John Oliver rebukes President Biden for classifying hate crimes against Asians as un-American: “Far be it for me to explain this to someone who seems like he’s lived through most of American history: Anti-Asian racism has long been a fact of American life.”
■ Arizona State University professors: “Harmful stereotypes of Asian women in American popular culture date back to at least the 19th century.”
■ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg: “I’m all behind #StopAsianHate; I just don’t … see the utility of flooding Twitter with it.”
Is Biden ‘the legitimate president of the United States’? Illinois Congressman Brad Schneider’s communications director says an affirmative answer to Schneider’s question should be a baseline for giving TV time to Republicans (middle of CNN’s Reliable Sources newsletter).
■ Trump-rebuking Rep. Adam Kinzinger is planning a fundraiser to be headlined by George W. Bush advisor and Fox News contributor Karl Rove.
Happy birthday, Obamacare. As the Affordable Care Act turns 11 this week, a new book explains “the real reason” Republicans couldn’t kill it.
■ Today brings details on a new $24 million Chicago Public Schools program to address student trauma and mental health care—a boon of pandemic relief funding.
Whew. The largest asteroid to pass by Earth this year made its closest approach Sunday morning (Central time) and didn’t hit us.
■ It was in a hurry: 80,000 mph.
‘A rabbit hole of self-delusion and obsessiveness inside which Zack Snyder has not only taken up residence but knocked down a wall and installed a second bathroom.’ Critic Christopher Borrelli compares Zack Snyder’s Justice League (on HBO Max) to “a man wearing a top hat on the subway at 4 a.m.—you should not approach or engage in any way, but … you can’t help wonder about what’s going on.”
■ The Onion: “Snyder Remains Optimistic New Justice League Cut Will Be Complete By Time First Viewers Finally Reach Act 3.”
