Happy 2/22/22.
Who needs a 4th? The New York Times says new studies conclude that three doses of a COVID vaccine—or even just two—“are enough to protect most people from serious illness and death for a long time” …
■ … but CNN reports the U.S. could recommend a fourth shot by this fall.
■ England’s moving to end all COVID restrictions Thursday and free mass testing April 1.
■ Who’s tracking those who test positive at home in the U.S.? Um …
■ Illinois’ official counsel: “Self-notify all your close contacts.”
■ The pandemic is driving a shortage of monuments and gravestones.
■ An inspired open-records request has netted the Sun-Times a collection of “surprisingly rosy” parting remarks filed by cops who’ve left the department over the last three years.
■ Breaking at Square’s email deadline: All three white Georgia men accused in the fatal shooting of a Black man running along a public road have been found guilty of federal hate crimes.
‘No one should be surprised if it doesn’t sit well with voters.’ A Sun-Times editorial looks askance at House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch’s efforts to get his wife elected a Cook County Circuit Court judge.
■ Politico: A Republican lawmaker kicked off the House floor last week for refusing to wear a mask is suing Welch.
‘So many violations.’ The landlord of an Albany Park building that caught fire Monday—destroying Twisted Hippo Brewery, the Ultimate Ninjas Gym for kids and displacing dozens of apartment dwellers—has a long history of neglect.
■ In a virtual session tonight, City Bureau will release and discuss a guide outlining residents’ rights when a big developer moves into a neighborhood.
■ Here’s how to get free printed copies to share with your ’hood.
Environmentalists’ big win—for now. Axios Chicago assesses the city’s decision to deny an industrial metal shredder a permit to move to the Southeast Side.
■ The owner pledges to sue the city.
■ Slow Boring columnist Matthew Yglesias: “Problems arise when eco-NIMBYism … enhances local communities’ ability to say no, preventing some useful projects from getting built and dumping the harmful stuff in the communities that have the least political clout.”
■ Illinois is on the threshold of a plan to encourage the recycling of carpeting.
‘An attack on global peace.’ The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols says Russian President Vladimir Putin “has declared war against the international order of the past 30 years.”
■ … which BuzzFeed News says puts thousands of lives in danger.
■ A White House national security adviser asserts that Russia has a “kill list” of Ukrainians.
■ Journalist Olga Tokariuk: Ukrainian moms on Facebook are talking about things like “putting stickers on their children’s clothes, when they go to school, indicating their blood type.”
He’s baaa-aaack. The guy who used to be known as @realDonaldTrump before Twitter kicked him off is out with his own social media app, Truth Social …
■ … which suffers from all the glitches you’d expect …
■ … including an error notification that Seth Meyers describes as “a shrug emoji that says, ‘What were you expecting? This thing is a clusterf__k.’”
■ Still, it was topping Apple’s free apps chart.
Hull breach. The Blackhawks are cutting ties with their Hall of Fame forward Bobby Hull—dismissing him from his role as “team ambassador” …
■ … a move Sun-Times Hawks reporter Ben Pope calls “a no-brainer” in light of Hull’s “ugly history of domestic abuse and racism.”
■ The Tribune in 1998: “Bobby Hull to Moscow paper: Hitler had some good ideas.”
■ University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign police are hunting the people responsible for antisemitic flyers dumped on campus over the weekend.
‘The host of Jeopardy!’ vs. ‘Hosting Jeopardy!’ Critic Aaron Barnhart assesses Mayim Bialik’s and Ken Jennings’ work and concludes one of them is the game’s future.
■ The show’s producers had yet to explain officially the difference in intro terminology.
‘Time to break out my brand-new, super awesome news quiz prize hat.’ Sun-Times investigative reporter Stephanie Zimmermann tweeted this picture of herself:
■ She earned that cap by being one of the top scorers in the Square fifth-anniversary quiz. For a change of pace, another cap will go to the first quiz taker to get all 50 answers wrong. Have fun—and don’t forget to include your email address.