‘Fully open by July 4.’ Mayor Lightfoot and Gov. Pritzker say that’s their goal for Chicago and Illinois …
■ … including a Chicago Auto Show post-pandemic reinvention for July.
■ Fourth of July pyrotechnics are in the works for Chicago and the suburbs.
■ Virtual weddings—presided over by a judge via Zoom—are off and running in Cook County.
■ Bloomberg: “If you just examine the trajectory of all new infections in the U.S., you’ve got to admit it’s getting better” …
■ … but ProPublica sees a crisis of cancers that went undiagnosed in the pandemic.
■ The Atlantic takes aim at “Liberals Who Can’t Quit Lockdown.”
Shots for kids. The FDA is poised to OK Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for children as young as 12 as soon as next week.
■ Walgreens is launching mobile vaccine clinics—offering walk-up shots.
■ NBC News: Walgreens and CVS have wasted more vaccine doses than most states combined.
■ Get vaxxed: Find your shot at chi.gov/covidvax.
‘The politics … are ugly.’ Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson is quitting—and blaming the Chicago Teachers Union.
■ A Tribune editorial: “Who could blame her?”
■ Chalkbeat and Block Club Chicago survey parent and teacher reaction.
One lousy cable. A construction crew accidentally toppled a pole near Elmhurst early Monday afternoon, damaging a fiber line that carried Comcast TV and internet to thousands of Chicago-area customers …
■ … isolating schools and workers-from-home for more than seven hours …
■ … and anecdotally overwhelming at least one wireless company (looking at you, AT&T) unprepared for a surge of people resorting to their phones as internet hotspots. (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
‘Watch what I’m going to do.’ A witness tells police a man now charged with four counts of attempted first-degree murder said that Saturday before he drove his truck into a group of people picnicking in Logan Square.
■ The guy has a long criminal history.
■ New research suggests the Chicago Police Department’s use of ShotSpotter gunshot detection technology isn’t worth … oh, let’s say … shot.
Center of attention. The State of Illinois’ iconic but dysfunctional and neglected Thompson Center is officially on the market.
■ Whoever buys it has to pledge to keep the CTA’s Clark/Lake station running.
Basecamp’s blowup. The Verge goes behind the scenes of an all-staff meeting that prompted a third of the Chicago software company’s employees to quit Friday.
■ A Wall Street Journal editorial—not unsurprisingly—takes management’s side: “A company isn’t obligated to make itself into a political public square.”
■ The Associated Press, the Center for Public Integrity and Univision: The pandemic aggravated the problem of U.S. companies illegally underpaying workers—especially their poorest employees.
■ The Markup: Facebook pledges to remove discriminatory credit and loan ads.
Divvy rewards. Chicago’s bike-sharing system is offering perks to users who ride bikes from crowded docking stations to others running low on wheels.
■ Here’s how to become a “Bike Angel.”
■ A hat-tip to John Greenfield’s @KassWatch account on Twitter, following Kass “so you don’t have to.”
■ Wednesday at 6 p.m., Trib journalists host an online community forum to update the struggle to save the paper and its siblings across the country from a hedge fund’s clutches.
■ Columnist Rex Huppke pleads for a Trib savior: “If you buy the paper … I would be happy to mow your lawn.”
Chicago Public Square wouldn’t be here without support from readers whose contributions—one-time tips (nice!) or recurring pledges (nicer!)—keep it coming. Thank you, one and all.
■ Sad news for news consumers: Nuzzel—part of Chicago Public Square’s “secret sauce” (2016 link)—has been bought by Twitter and will shut down Thursday.
■ Correction. A bad link from yesterday’s Square to WBEZ’s commemorative NPR 50th anniversary T-shirt promotion inadvertently auto-filled-in your Square columnist’s name and email address. Here’s a link without that flaw.