‘This bill’s for you.’ Speaker Nancy Pelosi hailed House passage today of a massive Democratic plan to “Build Back Better”—including child care assistance, free preschool, prescription drug cost cuts for senior citizens, more funding for the fight to slow climate change, tax credits for clean energy development, and renewed tax breaks for the needy.
■ All Republicans and one Democrat voted against it.
■ Time details the high points of what’s in it.
■ Chicago Congressman Mike Quigley says it’s a jackpot for Chicago and Illinois.
■ The plan now heads to the Senate, where things may not go so well.
■ Meanwhile, The New York Times reports: “Wisconsin Republicans … want to eliminate a bipartisan elections agency—and maybe send its members to jail.”
‘A young generation on the warpath over climate change already has gone overboard.’ A Tribune editorial encourages environmentalist Greta Thunberg to get off the lawn.
■ Meanwhile, the Trib’s news team warns about an apparently climate-driven rise in toxic algae blooms this year: “More than a dozen of the water bodies sampled in Illinois had toxin levels above recreation standards.”
■ Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg spotlights the destruction society’s insistence on straight sidewalks has wrought among great oaks.
Two-month high. The number of new COVID-19 cases in Illinois yesterday totaled more than any day since early September …
■ … and the number of deaths marked a two-week peak.
■ Axios checks Chicago’s COVID positivity rates by ZIP code.
■ Austria is bracing for a full national COVID lockdown beginning Monday.
■ The U.S. today was nearing final approval of booster shots for all adults.
■ A St. Louis University law professor explains why Moderna won’t share rights to its COVID-19 vaccine with the government that paid for its development.
‘Colossal failure.’ Chicago Public Schools’ CEO says that, for years, 12 employees and a volunteer at a Logan Square school had inappropriate relationships with students or helped cover up that misconduct.
■ Ten of them will be fired.
■ The school’s former principal was promoted in June—but has also since been fired.
Emanuel exonerated? A letter from Chicago’s former inspector general, Joe Ferguson, to a U.S. senator attempts to clear ex-Mayor and potential U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel of wrongdoing in his handling of the 2014 police shooting of Laquan McDonald.
■ Ferguson’s letter asserts “a complete absence of factual basis to support the claim … Emanuel was involved … in a ‘cover-up.’”
■ Patch columnist Mark Konkol sees things differently: “It might not be illegal, but Emanuel relied on legacy policies to conceal and suppress video of Laquan McDonald’s murder.”
MSNBC banned. The judge in Kyle Rittenhouse’s Kenosha murder trial is blocking the network from the courtroom after one of its freelancers allegedly followed the jury bus in what may have been an attempt to photograph jurors.
■ Also outside the courthouse yesterday: A guy carrying an AR-15 rifle and shouting obscenities about Black Lives Matter.
Help for the lost. Chicago’s highly useful but bewilderingly complex underground Pedway is—finally—getting some clear new navigational signs.
■ The CTA’s first new stretch of track in 28 years—carrying Brown Line trains over the Red and Purple Lines just north of Belmont—is open at last.
■ An Australian urban planning professor: “Electric cars alone won’t save the planet. We’ll need to design cities so people can walk and cycle safely.”
Moon-eyed. Sleep through the historic lunar eclipse overnight? Chicagoans who didn’t got a good view.
■ Adler Planetarium caught it on video.
■ After you make your pledge, you’ll get an email asking your address and your cap color preference: White, black or navy blue.
■ Questions? Write to Caps@ChicagoPublicSquare.com.