Opening yay. After 447 days and more than 5,400 COVID-19 deaths in Chicago, the city and the State of Illinois are ending capacity limits for businesses and major events.
■ Gov. Pritzker says Illinoisans should “feel the hope and joy of this moment while also recognizing that this pandemic is still very present.”
■ Illinois is one of just a few states on track to meet President Biden’s 70% vaccination goal by July 4—and all of them are states he carried.
■ To welcome people back and celebrate Chicago’s restaurants, the city plans to close three major streets occasionally through the summer for outdoor dining and concerts.
■ Chicago Public Square a year ago today: Illinois Senate Republicans “want to force the state’s reopening during the pandemic by tomorrow—a thing Gov. Pritzker rejects because science.”
■ As Block Club Chicago explains, not all precautionary rules are going away.
Mask asks. Face coverings will still be required in many settings, including public transportation.
■ As CTA bus drivers are called on to keep enforcing mask rules, their union is asking for more protection against people like this guy.
It won’t be cheap. As demand for, well, lots of things rises, prices are headed up.
Foxx hole. For the second time in her tenure, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office will come under investigation by a special prosecutor …
■ … this time over a staffer’s confession that he had a personal relationship with a jail informant who helped convict a man since cleared in the deaths of two Chicago cops.
■ A federal prosecutor says Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson lied to federal agents about loans he got from a Bridgeport bank shut down in an alleged fraud scheme.
McDonald’s hacked. The world’s largest hamburger chain says its computer systems in South Korea and Taiwan have been breached.
■ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg: “Why do we panic when hackers shut down oil pipelines, but cheer when protesters do?”
■ The Triibe: Illinois lawmakers are lining up for a vote on a bill to “create green energy jobs for Black Chicago communities, reduce light bills and improve the quality of life and air in those neighborhoods.”
Failing to beat off criticism. Seven months after getting caught masturbating on camera during a New Yorker staff Zoom call, legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin has returned to CNN …
■ Media writer Tom Jones finds Toobin’s mea culpa unconvincing: “I’m stunned CNN brought him back.”
■ A CNN insider quoted in The Daily Beast: “It’d be nice if occasionally CNN held itself to the same standards it correctly holds Fox to.”
As seen in Chicago. Photos capture yesterday’s partial solar eclipse along the lakefront.
■ As city beaches welcome back crowds, the Chicago Park District has a Drowning Prevention Action Plan.
■ Consumer Reports offers a guide to safe summer activities for kids through what’s left of the pandemic.
Triple your money. Thanks to generous foundation grants, any donation you make to an individual Chicago Independent Media Alliance member—including Chicago Public Square—will be not just doubled … but tripled. A donation of $20 becomes $60, a donation of $50 becomes $150, and, well, you get the idea. Donate now and your gift to #SaveChicagoMedia will be triple-matched.*
* To have your donation triple-matched, select the organization or organizations you’d like to support. You can also choose to split a single donation across all organizations, but those gifts won’t get matched.