“At bottom, corruption is the theft of honest government service from the people. But the people of Illinois must like it and paying a corruption tax because they vote the same types in year after year. And those who don’t like paying? They leave.”

In a statement, the mayor’s office said, as of Friday, the city isn’t formally planning or permitting events. However, officials are hopeful “some events that align with health guidelines” may be possible later in the year, signaling the hope for a somewhat normal summer.

“Self-censorship on campus has really become a sickness. I’ve experienced cancel culture, so has Audrey (Unverferth, co-founder) and other people we know, and at one point this summer, we said we are done,” co-founder Evita Duffy.

The White House said they are deploying federal teams to work with state and local jurisdictions. “The new United Center mass vaccination site is a game changer for Chicago and the entire region,” said Mayor Lightfoot. “This is what Presidential leadership looks like—bold, collaborative, and science-based.

Mark Konkol: “Simply put, letting more people get in line for shots that aren’t available makes it harder for old people who are at more at risk of dying from COVID-19 to get inoculation appointments. The opinion of a renowned epidemiologist overseeing a vaccine distribution that has been more equitable and efficient than the state as a whole must not matter to the Pritzker administration.”

The restaurant was cited twice on Dec. 8 for the incident, according to a city spokesperson. The city’s Department of Administrative Hearings issued the restaurant a $2,000 fine following a Feb. 16 hearing. He could have been fined up to $10,500 for both citations.

Angelica Guerrero-Cuellar, who was sworn in Feb. 25, was one of the 10 candidates from whom Edward Guerra Kodatt was initially selected by Madigan. Madigan refused to discuss the Kodatt debacle after Guerrero-Cuellar’s selection.

Budget Director Annette Guzman and Chief Financial Officer Ammar Rizki are authorized under an emergency resolution passed in the spring to move around coronavirus relief funding without direct approval from the board. They said the sheriff’s office received a vast portion of it because employees needed it to socially distance the jail on top of keeping up with an explosion in the electronic monitoring population.

Several hundred workers were recently terminated at a sorting facility at O’Hare, where 500 career employees, 122 mail handler assistants and 200 “peak season” additional assistants work. “They have been let go due to the post office being over our contractually mandated 24.5% allowance of MHA employees,” said June Harris, president of the National Postal Mail Handlers Union, Local 306.

The fires set downtown by rioters after Floyd’s death were only one element, though, in a year that saw a major increase in arson. Over the course of 2020, hundreds of other arson fires were reported in Chicago. The number of fires authorities deemed suspicious was up nearly 65% last year over 2019.

In Cook County, 444 TIF Districts across 96 municipalities accounted for more than $1.3 billion in property tax revenue last year — or 8.4% of the entire $15.6 billion billed.