Water warning. A Tribune analysis concludes more than 8 of every 10 Illinoisans live in a community where brain-damaging lead was found in the tap water of at least one home during the past six years.
■ Hundreds of feet below the surface of Lake Michigan, the Trib reports, a first-of-its-kind look at temperatures shows what the report’s author calls “a lot of change.”
Waves goodbye. Strong winds drove huge waves against Chicago’s lakefront Thursday …
■ … bringing some good surfing …
■ … ahead of what could be a lovely weekend.
End ‘in sight.’ Gov. Pritzker says he’s more optimistic than ever that Illinois will emerge from the pandemic …
■ … and he’s laid out a “bridge” to Phase 5, the final steps toward a return to normalcy.
■ Chicago Public Square a year ago: “How long will this last? One disease researcher’s guess: ‘The best-case scenario is that we have [a] vaccine in 12 or 18 months and then our lives go back to normal.’”
■ Illinois’ COVID-19 death toll has passed 21,000.
Vaccine cutoff. Mayor Lightfoot has ordered an end to the flow of coronavirus shots for Loretto Hospital in the Austin neighborhood after administrators admitted they’d vaccinated people who weren’t eligible.
■ Block Club Chicago’s revelations continue: “Shots were also administered to more than 200 members of the suburban church attended by Loretto CEO George Miller.”
■ WBEZ: Loretto offered vaccines to a handful of Cook County judges and a “second person” of their choosing—in possible violation of Chicago’s guidelines.
■ Lawyer and law blogger Jack Leyhane: “Perhaps the real story here is that … Chicago is not getting people vaccinated nearly as quickly as the rest of the state.”
‘I got my first COVID vaccination … in a manner embarrassing enough that I decided to never share the specifics.’ But then the Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg changed his mind and wrote a column about it.
■ An immunologist addresses people considering skipping a second shot: “A single dose is very effective—but … you should still get both.”
■ Walgreens and Uber are teaming up to get drivers their shots.
■ The Conversation: Three ways employers can fight vaccine skepticism.
■ The U.S. was poised to pass the 100 million-vaccination goal today—weeks ahead of President Biden’s schedule.
‘It’s exclusively targeting younger staff.’ The Daily Beast reports dozens of White House staffers have been sacked by the Biden administration because they’ve used marijuana in the past.
■ Gov. Pritzker’s administration says COVID-19 vaccine priority for smokers applies to cigarette users, not pot smokers.
‘Mayoral control isn’t working.’ Reformers are pushing a referendum to strip the mayor of power to hire and fire Chicago’s police superintendent and negotiate police contracts—and instead, give that authority to a citizen commission.
■ Cook County’s new public defender says he wants to use the office to advance changes demanded by the Black Lives Matter movement.
■ The Sun-Times says embattled Chicago Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson— a grandson and nephew of two Chicago mayors—faces the prospect of fines for voting to approve development of property he’d sold just months earlier.
That ‘does not lead you to commit murder.’ A sex researcher talks to the Trib’s Heidi Stevens about sex “addiction” and the shooting spree in Atlanta.
■ An Amherst sociology professor: Whether or not these attacks meet a legal definition for hate crime, they “fit a long history of viewing Asian Americans in particular ways that make discrimination and violence against them more likely.”
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson tracks the demonization of China through the Trump administration.
‘We condemn … Illinois State Representative Chris Miller.’ The Illinois House has slapped Miller on the wrist for his role “in a rally that led to a violent insurrection of the Capitol.”
■ He was in D.C. that day with his wife, U.S. Rep Mary Miller.
Google this. Pledging to hire “thousands” of new workers in Chicago, New York, Atlanta and Washington, D.C., Google is launching a new “Investing in America” initiative …
■ … with emphasis, it says, on “more jobs and investment to diverse communities as part of our previously announced racial equity commitments.”
‘Remember a time when … citizens were more or less on the same page—or rather, the same channel.’ Critic Aaron Barnhart hails Chicago-based MeTV’s Sunday-night resurrection of The Ed Sullivan Show.
■ The Second City will sell tickets next week for its first in-person performances in more than a year.