When COVID calls / ‘Making fools of themselves’ / Hot lines

When COVID calls.
Greetings from a desk in isolation following your Chicago Public Square columnist’s first-ever positive COVID-19 test. Which makes this as good a time as any for a refresher course:
 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spells out what to do if you catch COVID …
 … including how long to isolate yourself.
 NBC Chicago explains when you should test if you’ve been exposed but don’t have symptoms.
 Your stock of COVID tests may not really be expired; check here for revised expiration dates.
 Order more free tests from the feds here.
 Updating the nation’s state of respiratory affairs, Your Local Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina sees COVID on the decline.

An upbeat story. Mayor Johnson’s promising no increase in property taxes in what he’s calling a “people’s budget” for Chicago.
 … revival of the city’s long-gone Environment Department …
 … and the reopening of two city-run mental health clinics.
 The Better Government Association: The department with the largest single-department reduction in headcount—four positions eliminated—is the mayor’s own office.
 A Sun-Times editorial frets about “the kind of financial sleight-of-hand that we’ve seen for decades here in Chicago, creating the very mess Johnson and his administration must now solve.”

‘Making fools of themselves.’ A Tribune editorial condemns mayoral ally Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez and others pushing “a more nuanced” version of a City Council resolution declaring solidarity with Israel: “What is nuanced about killing children in front of their parents? What is nuanced about targeting a music festival with many teenagers, chasing them down and shooting them in cold blood?”
 Former Mother Jones editorial director Ben Dreyfuss: “Hamas is bad. People shouldn’t defend Hamas.”
 The council’s set to consider the resolution Friday.

‘Terror’ tussle. CNN’s Oliver Darcy: “A spirited debate has opened up in media circles over the language used to describe members of Hamas who carried out the horrific weekend attack on Israel: ‘Terrorists’ or ‘militants’?”
 A University of Michigan counterterrorism expert explains how Israel’s vaunted intelligence forces missed Hamas’ preparations for war.
 Columnist Eric Zorn: “Helping Israel … target the militant terrorists who perpetrated and orchestrated the heinous attack is laudable and necessary. Facilitating yet another humanitarian crisis in the name of furious revenge is … likely to lead to … a larger, regional war that will cost thousands more innocent lives.”
 Variety: How network TV scrambled to get reporters into the war zone.

‘There just isn’t any aspect of this situation that is funny.’ A reader who asks to remain anonymous writes about yesterday’s edition: “I do take offense at the listing of two Onion headlines about the war that has just broken out in Israel. … Please consider skipping humor headlines mixed in with your Israel war coverage. … I do love The Onion but at this time there is simply no room for funny about … the senseless carnage we are witnessing.”
 Reader comments and corrections are always welcome here.

‘An embarrassment to the great city of Chicago.’ A federal judge lowered the boom—5 1/2 years in prison—on businessman (and son-in-law of former Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios) James T. Weiss for bribing a couple of Illinois lawmakers and lying to the FBI.

Skittles slandered. USA Today columnist Rex Huppke: “California’s ‘Skittles ban’ doesn’t ban Skittles, but you might want to hide your Peeps”…
 … and don’t be surprised if California’s candy additive restrictions result in recipe changes nationwide.

Hot lines. ZDNet reports that even after the latest operating system upgrade, the new iPhone 15 Pro is still getting too warm.

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