What they want. With classes canceled again today in a pandemic standoff between Chicago Public Schools and the teachers’ union, Chalkbeat Chicago spells out what both sides say they’re seeking.
■ Across the country, millions of workers not granted sick days are being forced to choose between their jobs and the health of those they encounter in the workplace.
■ Popular Information: Most Red Lobster workers who get sick are forced to show up to work.
■ In the wake of CDC guidance relaxing isolation and quarantine guidelines, Amazon’s cutting paid leave for workers with COVID-19.
■ Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg spotlights the pandemic staffing crisis at a small Chicago hospital whose facilities have been described as “no better than those in Third World countries.”
Don’t ask Amy. Ex-Tribune colleagues Eric Zorn and Amy (“Ask Amy”) Dickinson have had a falling-out since he questioned her assertion of “anyone’s right to hold their vaccination status privately” …
■ … resulting in her blocking him on Twitter.
■ Beginning this week, some at-risk Americans will be eligible for a fourth COVID shot …
■ … which a new study says can boost coronavirus antibodies fivefold.
■ The Onion sarcastically serves up “Terrifying Excuses Anti-Vaxxers Use To Avoid The COVID-19 Shot.”
Bears down. The Bears have fired their general manager and their head coach …
■ … a day after what Midway Minute proprietor Kevin Kaduk calls “a fitting end” to the team’s season.
‘Sidney Poitier's role affected my life in a personal way. As a white girl, then woman, who dated black men throughout my life.’ Columnist Caren Jeskey reflects on the death of a cinema icon …
■ … who critic Michael Phillips remembers for a scene “that lit a fire everywhere”: The slap heard around the world.
■ The Washington Post has assembled a list of more than 1,700 congressmen who once enslaved Black people—and analyzed how they shaped the nation. (Sadly, this important journalism is behind a paywall.)
Sitcom sadness. Full House star and America’s Funniest Home Videos host Bob Saget is dead at 65.
■ A star in a different era, Dwayne Hickman of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, has passed on at 87.
Want to catch up on all those Star Trek shows you never watched? Cord Cutter Weekly (middle of the latest edition) explains how to get Paramount+ free for two months—even if you cancel right away.
■ What Decider calls “a terrific piece of feature-style journalism” on HBO Max, Beanie Mania, reveals how the ’90s Beanie Baby hysteria “started with a few white ladies in Naperville.”
How icy was it in Chicago this weekend? This much.
■ The Conversation: How Earth’s tilt creates short, cold January days.
Happy birthday … to the ChicagoPublicSquare.com domain, registered five years ago Sunday …
■ … although it didn’t go public until the end of the month.