Good morning, Chicago.
Late last night the Chicago Teachers Union said it intends to “step up resistance” if Chicago Public Schools doesn’t improve COVID-19 safety protections. The union didn’t specify what form any resistance might take, but the language marked the most pointed reference to a possible formal work action since school reopened Monday. Read more here from my colleague Tracy Swartz.
Meanwhile, Chicago’s Pride Parade has been canceled for the second year in a row, amid the latest surge of COVID-19 cases. Organizers said yesterday that the decision was a difficult one but that they had to prioritize people’s safety.
— Nicole Stock, audience editor
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The latest surge in COVID-19 cases has hit many parts of the state hard, but perhaps no region has felt it more than southern Illinois, where hospitals say they’re filling their ICU beds, postponing surgeries and even turning away some patients.
In southern Illinois, just 7% of ICU beds were available as of Tuesday night, and the weekly average was even less: 6%. At one point last week, only one ICU bed was available across all 22 hospitals in southern Illinois — a region with more than 400,000 residents, according to the 2020 U.S. census.
Two Chicago police officers charged in January beating of 17-year-old after car chase
Two Chicago police officers have been charged for allegedly punching a teenage boy in the face and head while he was on the ground about to be arrested following a January car chase, prosecutors said.
Officers Jeffery Shafer and Victor Guebara were each charged with aggravated battery and official misconduct, both felonies, and appeared for a bond hearing Wednesday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building.
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed President Joe Biden’s selection of Rahm Emanuel as ambassador to Japan Wednesday, citing the former Chicago mayor’s handling of the 2014 police murder of Laquan McDonald.
Rex Huppke column: Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel as ambassador to Japan? Is this a ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit?
Months after people began sharing their stories online of experiencing abnormal menstruation following a COVID-19 vaccination, clinical research into a potential link is set to begin. The National Institutes of Health announced this week that it awarded funding to five institutions to study whether the coronavirus vaccines are causing menstruation changes.
Suburban Glenview’s Holy Cow makes the Chicago area’s best take on Korean hot dogs, a dish that’s far more imaginative than your standard wrapped-in-cornmeal dog and is all the rage on TikTok, Tribune food critic Nick Kindelsperger writes.