It’s boosterin’ time. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has officially cleared COVID-19 booster shots for people age 65 and older, residents of long-term care facilities who got the Pfizer vaccine at least six months ago, people ages 50 to 64 with underlying medical conditions, and those 18 to 64 at increased risk because of their workplace or institutional settings.
■ A Texas A&M cognitive neuroscientist says even mild cases of COVID-19 leave a mark on the brain.
■ Biden’s coming to Chicago next week to cheer on workplace vaccine mandates.
■ A Tribune editorial condemns “the president’s unwillingness to hold a news conference.”
Now it’s a party. The U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection has subpoenaed some of Donald Trump’s most loyal aides—including ex-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, ex-Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Dan Scavino and ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon.
■ The Daily Beast: Prosecutors seeking cooperating witnesses in the Trump Organization investigation hope to pit two families against one another.
■ Early versions of a three-volume report on the Arizona recount of the 2020 election reportedly conclude that, um, yeah, Trump lost.
■ Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani has, for almost three months now, apparently been banned from Fox News.
‘Smart money bets on chaos.’ Ex-Trib columnist-turned-blogger John Kass foresees a racial brawl over the remapping of Chicago’s wards.
■ A Boston man whose disarming of a robber on a CTA train in 2019 was caught on video that went viral says he may move here and run for mayor.
■ A podcast from Washington’s public radio WAMU details Chicago’s status as the largest surveilled city in the U.S.
■ Consumer Reports and MIT Technology Review spotlight the unintended consequences of police programs to give Amazon Ring doorbell cameras to survivors of domestic violence.
Citywide hijacking team. CWBChicago says a man caught driving an SUV carjacked in Old Town is linked to a series of such crimes—but so far, he’s been charged with just misdemeanors.
■ Three dogs lost in the carjacking of a pet daycare van have been reunited with their owner.
■ Trib columnist Rex Huppke suggests a new Chicago tourism slogan: “Please excuse our violence. We certainly do!”
‘Dehumanizing.’ That’s how one resident of a West Humboldt Park homeless encampment describes the actions of a city cleanup crew that moved in and tossed away all his belongings as he slept.
■ The city says it warned people.
Cowabunga. Those high winds and big waves along Chicago’s shoreline were a boon to surfers …
■ … but not so much for lakefront runners.
■ Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg asks of the push for life rings along Chicago’s waterfront: Does anyone ever get saved by the things?
■ A Penn State professor of energy and environmental economics: The rising number of weather-related blackouts shows government and utilities aren’t planning the right way.
‘Homer-happy’ clincher. Midway Minute celebrates the White Sox’s anointing as Kings of the American League Central Division.
■ A sports marketing expert tells the Sun-Times nothing short of a new stadium along the lakefront—not another overhaul of Soldier Field—will keep the Bears in Chicago.
Surprise. Guess who’s now the most-watched late-night TV show host. (Hint: Think Fox News.)
■ A machine trained by a team of music historians, musicologists, composers and computer scientists has finished Beethoven’s unfinished Ninth 10th Symphony.
‘Heartbreaking and frustrating, but hopeful, too.’ Patch contributor Georgi Presecky reviews Storm Lake—a movie about a local newspaper’s fight to stay afloat.
■ Screenings in Chicago will be accompanied by panel discussions with the film’s subject and its co-directors (tonight) and a panel of local journalists (Monday).
■ Sun-Times critic Richard Roeper revisits 1981’s Continental Divide—“a damn solid picture about a damn good journalist,” played by John Belushi.
■ Sorry about yesterday’s edition of Chicago Public Square, which lacked a hyperlink to Roeper’s blistering review of Dear Evan Hansen.
Last call for caps. Want a spiffy Square chapeau? Sign up before Monday to support Square at any continuing level of $5 a month or more (andyoucancancelanytime).
■ Friend of Square Chris Koenig made this edition better.
■ And reader Jeff Hanneman was the first of several to catch an error in the Beethoven item above.