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Amazon’s ‘Chicago betrayal.’ Politico’s Shia Kapos notes that Amazon-owned Whole Foods’ withdrawal from the Englewood neighborhood has unleashed outrage against the company and its founder.
■ Flashback to 2014: Mayor Emanuel bragged about the city’s decision to pump $10.7 million into the development to ensure “that residents across … this neighborhood … have high-quality options for food.”
■ Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch: “This is yet another reason why we should tax billionaires like [Jeff] Bezos more.”
■ Columnist Neil Steinberg: “Whole Foods was never a good fit for Englewood.”
■ A week in, a pilot program to give needy Chicagoans $500/month in cash assistance has drawn more than 100,000 applications.
‘Utterly pathetic.’ HBO’s John Oliver calls out environmental racism—noting it took eight government agencies 31 years to alert East Chicago residents about lead in the soil hundreds of times the maximum permitted levels—and even then they did a crappy job of it.
■ See the segment free on YouTube here.
■ Guess which Illinois county has the state’s best conditions for health?
■ The American Academy of Pediatrics has pledged to eliminate “race-based” medicine—including flawed guidelines linking race to a host of childhood ailments.
Four tornadoes outside Chicago. The National Weather Service says a quartet of twisters touched down Saturday in Oak Brook and Boone County.
■ Here’s a bit of one caught on security camera video.
■ Here’s a bit of one caught on security camera video.
■ An Illinoisan was among three University of Oklahoma meteorology students killed in a car crash after chasing a storm through Kansas.
■ The Conversation: Scientists still have no good idea what tornadoes look like on the inside.
Gunfire near a crowded theater. Last night’s performance of Moulin Rouge! The Musical was canceled at the Nederlander Theatre in the Loop after two men were shot and wounded in an alley nearby.
■ Theatergoers were told the cancellation was “due to an earlier disturbance.”
■ Earlier, and down below: Lower Wacker Drive was the scene of street fires and racing …
■ … but, as of Square’s email deadline, no charges had been filed.
‘CPD has certainly provided no explanation.’ Lawyers for a man convicted of killing off-duty Chicago Police Officer Clifton Lewis say police concealed evidence that could have cleared their client.
■ From January 2012: A radio report on the funeral for Lewis.
‘You can’t beat somebody with nobody, and nobody is stepping up.’ Sun-Times columnist Laura Washington notes the dearth of challengers to Mayor Lightfoot.
■ The mayor’s been in no hurry to fill a Chicago school board seat empty for nine months.
‘I hope we don’t get to that point. … But we should be ready.’ Illinois Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger has introduced a resolution that would clear the use of U.S. military force in Ukraine if Russia unleashes chemical, biological or nuclear weapons there.
‘A speech that perfectly roasted those in attendance.’ Poynter’s Tom Jones celebrates Trevor Noah’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner speech …
■ … which you can see in its entirety here.
■ The Daily Beast: Noah left no one unscathed.
■ President Biden got off a few zingers of his own: “I'm really excited to be here tonight with the only group of Americans with a lower approval rating than I have.”
■ Columnist Will Leitch: Biden’s reaction to mockery was “a welcome antidote to what we saw at the Oscars.”
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