Copwatch. Looks like Chicago’s set at last to adopt a long-pending scheme to put the Chicago Police Department under an elected oversight board.
■ The City Council seems agreeable.
■ The department is putting new effort into stemming the city’s tide of illegal guns.
■ A CTA bus driver who accidentally shot himself while on duty is out on bond, facing a felony count of recklessly discharging a firearm.
Be nice to people from Chicago, Berwyn and Joliet. One—still unidentified—person from each town was a winner in the latest $100,000 drawings for Illinois’ COVID vaccine lottery.
■ The American Academy of Pediatrics is dissenting from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recommending masks in school for everyone—even the vaccinated—over the age of 2.
■ Twitter temporarily yanked cretinous U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s account for spreading COVID-19 misinformation. (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
■ A Sun-Times editorial: The “pandemic of the unvaccinated” threatens us all.
Coming back for more. Gov. Pritzker says he’ll run for reelection.
■ His video declaration on Twitter stresses his leadership through the pandemic: “Look, I may not have gotten every decision right, but at every step along the way I followed the science.”
‘This is the Dawn of Consequences.’ Columnist Rex Huppke reflects on “the first of the Jan. 6 louts to be sentenced for a felony” …
■ … with eight months in prison.
■ Illinois Congressman Rodney Davis is one of five Republicans picked to serve on the select committee to investigate the insurrection.
■ Davis didn’t vote to impeach Donald Trump but he did vote for an investigation (May link).
■ The Conversation: An expert panel concludes 2020 election polls produced “error of an unusual magnitude.”
Thanks for clearing that up. President Biden, who Friday said of Facebook’s spreading of pandemic lies, “They’re killing people,” insisted Monday that he meant what he said—but also now says Facebook isn’t killing people.
■ Wired’s Gilad Edelman: “Who’s winning the war between Biden and Facebook? Fox News.”
■ Critic Aaron Barnhart: Fox News’ “inevitable” answer to Stephen Colbert, Gutfeld!, is the year’s ratings surprise.
‘A wrong made right.’ Media writer Tom Jones hails Attorney General Merrick Garland’s new limits for government spying on journalists’ phone records and emails …
■ … with some exceptions, including cases when reporters have “used criminal methods … to obtain government information.”
Bezos’ ‘best day.’ Amazon founder Jeff Bezos went way up and came back down again this morning—alongside the oldest and youngest people ever to fly in space.
■ Bezos conceded before the flight that critics who’ve condemned it as a waste of money that could be better spent helping people stuck on the ground are “largely right”—but also said his work “building a road to space for the next generations … will solve problems here on Earth.”
Portillo’s, public. The celebrated restaurant chain based in Oak Brook plans to sell itself on the stock market.
■ Ben & Jerry’s says it’ll stop selling its ice cream in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
■ Israel’s prime minister: “Ben & Jerry’s has decided to brand itself as the anti-Israel ice cream.”
Bronzeville revival. A City Council committee has signed off on a $3.8 billion plan to transform the languishing Michael Reese Hospital site into a mixed-use “Bronzeville Lakefront” development, with housing, office, retail, research and health care facilities.
■ A 2016 history details the background on that neighborhood name, “Bronzeville.”
■ A Chicago City Council member who steadfastly opposed Mayor Harold Washington in the 1980s but who later became a champion of human rights and mentored a generation of progressive politicians is dead at 76.
Today’s show of gratitude.
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