Sorry about the F-word. A caller who last week left a threatening voicemail for an Oak Park church that has been “fasting from whiteness” for Lent sent an apology—along with a potted Easter lily.
■ This weekend brings a rare concurrence of Easter, Passover and Ramadan.
■ Columnist Steven Richard Sheffey offers a list of the “Top 10 Signs You Might Be at a Republican Seder.”
COVID rising. The Illinois Public Health Department warns that case rates—especially “stealth omicron” infections—are increasing in many parts of the state …
■ … especially Downstate.
■ The state’s ex-top doc, Ngozi Ezike, has a new job—as CEO of a Chicago hospital.
■ Mayor Lightfoot’s backing down from her insistence that 1,500 laggard Chicago cops get vaccinated.
■ Politico: “Bidenworld projects calm about COVID but bite their nails in private.”
Ticket relief. Lightfoot’s proposing two new programs to help Chicagoans driven into financial crises by the city’s addiction to ticket revenue.
■ The family of a longtime Chicago chef missing since last week finally found him—being treated as a “John Doe” case at Stroger Hospital after being “carjacked, robbed, brutally beaten and left for dead.”
■ At a virtual town hall yesterday, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx was on the defensive over her office’s handling of carjacking cases.
‘Russia, Ukraine’s kicking Uranus.’ Stephen Colbert suggests the Neptune missiles credited with sinking the Russian navy’s flagship—you know, the one Ukrainian border guards told to f__k off—were named after the wrong god.
■ The Associated Press: “Ukraine’s port of Mariupol holds out against all odds.”
■ Now, Russia says, it’s going to aim more missiles at the Ukrainian capital.
■ CNN documents the atrocities piling up across Ukraine.
Happy centennial, Harold. On this, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, columnist Mary Mitchell remembers him as “the mayor who could unify Black people in this city in a way that we hadn’t seen before and haven’t seen since.”.jpeg)
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■ The Tribune celebrates Washington’s commitment to “government transparency, access and diversity.”
■ A “peace parade” in his honor begins on the South Side this afternoon at 1.
■ Here’s how Washington’s election night victory sounded on WXRT-FM, April 12, 1983 …
■ … and it was always fun to begin a newscast introduced by the mayor this way.
■ Also: He did a lovely job reading A Visit From St. Nicholas.
‘This is the premier paper in Chicago now.’ Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg … let’s say celebrates … the paper’s weekday newsstand price increase to $2.
■ The Chicago Reader union plans a rally next Thursday to #SaveTheReader.
■ Cumulus Media—owner of 13 Illinois radio stations, including WKQX and WLS-AM and -FM—is the target of a $1.2 billion takeover bid.
■ Veteran radio DJ Julian “Jumpin” Perez is runnin’ for alderman.
Dingus of the Week. Columnist Lyz Lenz bestows that honor on … bosses: “If you take wage workers, expose them to a deadly virus for two years without adequate healthcare, adequate protection, or a living wage, there are consequences.”
■ Union workers protested in downtown Chicago yesterday, demanding Amazon and other major corporations doing business in Illinois pay their “fair share” of taxes.
■ Following a report that found almost half of all U.S. warehouse injuries happened at Amazon joints, the company’s new CEO is promising to do better.
‘Does somebody think I made a gay book?’ The author of the children’s book It’s OK to Be a Unicorn! was surprised to learn that an Ohio school district decided he couldn’t read it to elementary school students.
■ Editorial Board columnist and Yale fellow John Stoehr: “Don’t Say Gay” laws create the secrecy real groomers need.
■ Chicago Public Square reader and supporter Ed McDevitt: “Many of us read Make Way for Ducklings to our children. … Not one of them became a duck.”
■ Florida’s governor has signed a law banning abortions after 15 weeks, effective July 1.
■ Esquire’s Charlie Pierce: “Here’s the thing about authoritarian politics. In the short term, they always work.”
Back Square, get a shirt. Become a new Chicago Public Square supporter before Sunday at the annual Enthusiast level—only about 60¢ an issue—and one of those stylish new Square T-shirts is yours, free.
