‘Foul humans, I am the omicron variant.’ Tribune columnist Rex Huppke shares the text of a letter from the newly discovered COVID-19 spinoff.
■ Surprise: It was spreading far and wide days earlier than first reported.
■ The Conversation: Omicron may be COVID’s way of sticking around, because it seems to cause milder illnesses.
■ Moderna’s chief: “All the scientists I’ve talked to . . . are like, ‘This is not going to be good.’”
■ Omicron’s emergence is a reminder that COVID will thrive as long as poorer countries lack vaccines, giving the virus more possibilities to mutate.
■ The Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel: “Information about Omicron has mirrored some properties of the virus itself.”
■ Columnist Matthew Yglesias: Omicron “is a reminder that not only is the current pandemic not over, but it’s possible things will get worse.”
■ Cartoonist Joe Fournier channels Dr. Anthony Fauci’s reaction to omicron.
■ Block Club: At Chicago public schools in some of the city’s hardest-hit neighborhoods, fewer than five students per school have signed up for the district’s COVID testing program.
Whoops. Patch reporter Jonah Meadows reports that Evanston Township High School was scammed out of close to $50,000 in a months-long data breach that also exposed hundreds of Illinoisans’ personal information.
■ Evanston police say a shooting that killed one teenager and wounded four others looks to have been “targeted.”
‘We do not feel safe.’ Arizona State University students want Kenosha killer Kyle Rittenhouse expelled from the online nursing classes he’s been attending.
■ Columnist Irv Leavitt: “Don’t waste your energy despairing that Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted.”
‘Health insurance you can buy on healthcare.gov is crappy in all the usual ways. Everything else is worse.’ So, health journalist Dan Weissman counsels: “If you are buying health insurance for yourself, healthcare.gov is your best bet.”
■ With 95 percent of its workforce performing remotely, Allstate Insurance Co. is selling its longtime Northbrook HQ to a warehouse developer …
■ … which could trigger a land-use fight.
Watch where you park. Chicago’s wintertime overnight parking ban returns at 3 a.m. Wednesday.
■ The city has a new dome for storing road salt: A 30,000-ton-capacity structure on West Grand.
■ Speaking of domes, the hybrid novel-and-Chicago-history-primer Roseland, Chicago: 1972 offers an “architectural Thunderdome”: Marina City vs. the IBM Building.
The Simpsons nailed it. A 2005 episode of the show is missing from Disney+ in Hong Kong, which means the show delivered another self-fulfilling prophecy.
■ Variety speculates that Venom: Let There Be Carnage may be the next big Hollywood film to run afoul of China—after one of its stars insulted the country.
■ Popular Information: Big corporate sponsors of the Olympics—including Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, Samsung, Toyota, Visa and Panasonic—have been silent on China’s censorship of a tennis player who accused a Chinese politician of rape.
Twit flit. Twitter founder Jack Dorsey is walking away from the CEO job …
■ … but he’s staying on atop the payments-processing company he cofounded, Square.
Media moves.
■ Politico reporter—and Sun-Times and Daily Herald veteran—Natasha Korecki is headed to NBC News as senior national political reporter, based in Chicago.
■ CNN says it’s conducting “a thorough review” of new information that anchor Chris Cuomo was more deeply involved than he’s acknowledged in helping his brother Andrew navigate the sexual misconduct scandal that forced the governor out of office.
■ David A. Graham at The Atlantic: “Chris Cuomo … should resign; if he doesn’t, CNN should sack him.”
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■ … as did listening to this song on repeat through the morning production process.