Daywatch: COVID ‘FLiRT’ variants are spreading
Good morning, Chicago. Here are the top stories you need to know to start your day.
Good morning, Chicago.
A new family of COVID variants nicknamed “FLiRT” is spreading across the country, as vaccination rates in Chicago — as well as nationwide — remain concerningly low for some public health experts.
While symptoms and severity seem to be about the same as previous COVID strains, the new FLiRT variants appear to be more transmissible, said infectious disease expert Dr. Robert Murphy.
“A new, more contagious variant is out there,” said Murphy, executive director of Northwestern University’s Institute for Global Health and a professor of infectious diseases at the Feinberg School of Medicine. “COVID-19 is still with us, and compared to flu and RSV, COVID-19 can cause significant problems off-season.”
Read the full story from the Tribune’s Angie Leventis Lourgos.
Here are the top stories you need to know to start your day.
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In Chicago, President Joe Biden reminds voters of the ‘chaos’ under Donald Trump
Chicago, where Biden is expected to be formally renominated for president at the Democratic National Convention in August, has become a reliable ATM for Biden’s presidential campaign. Vice President Kamala Harris also is set to speak at a Chicago-area fundraising event on May 16. An estimate of how much money was raised Wednesday was not immediately available. On his March 8 trip, Biden raised an estimated $2.5 million.
Mayor Brandon Johnson talks school funding, Bears stadium and ‘less high-profile budget needs’ during Springfield visit
Johnson’s budget requests at the Illinois State Capitol came on the same day a state Senate committee approved legislation opposed by the mayor’s key ally, the Chicago Teachers Union, that would extend a school closure moratorium for all of the city’s public schools by two years. The CTU has labeled the measure, initially drawn up to protect selective-enrollment schools, as “racist,” as the union presses to invest more money in neighborhood schools.
Frustrations rise after 9-year-old girl attacked by unleashed dog in Horner Park: ‘She was traumatized’
Nine-year-old Natalie Sieracki spent her sister’s softball game cartwheeling on the grass in Horner Park Saturday evening. She didn’t notice the large, unleashed dog nearby until it attacked her.
The attack has left some residents with mounting frustrations toward unleashed dogs in public. Just a few hundred feet from the attack is a gated, 25,000-square-foot designated dog park.
Northwestern hit with three new lawsuits alleging systemic sexual hazing in football program
Three new lawsuits were filed against Northwestern this week bringing to 25 the number of hazing accusers who have sued the school.
The lawsuits’ recent history has been somewhat chaotic. Settlement talks broke down this spring. Northwestern is also being sued by ex-head coach Pat Fitzgerald, who accuses the school of wrongfully firing him after the hazing scandal escalated. In a move with wide-ranging implications for all the lawsuits, a judge ruled last month that the hazing accusers’ cases should, for now, be consolidated with the Fitzgerald case.
Proposal for 36-story apartment tower in Old Town draws cheers, jeers at community meeting
The area hasn’t seen a new skyscraper in decades, and Fern Hill Co. wants the City Council to greenlight a 36-story apartment tower on North Avenue between Wells Street and LaSalle Drive next to the nearly century-old Moody Church. The proposed 500-unit building, called Old Town Canvas, would include 100 affordable units.
Calumet City aldermen propose taking Mayor Thaddeus Jones’ credit card after disputed charges
Thousands of dollars in charges made on Calumet City’s municipal credit card that aldermen say could not be fully explained by Mayor Thaddeus Jones led aldermen Tuesday to recommend policy changes, including taking away Jones’ access to the card.
How a rare lefty splitter has helped fuel Shota Imanaga’s historic start for the Chicago Cubs
Five years ago in Japan, Shota Imanaga searched for a new pitch.
He wanted to incorporate something that would use the same arm path as his four-seam fastball. Imanaga didn’t like his tendency to pull his arm down when throwing changeups, so he tinkered. The left-hander landed on a split-finger grip that felt good in bullpen sessions, and eventually he threw it in games.
Once he saw Nippon Professional Baseball hitters’ reaction to the splitter, Imanaga knew he had a potentially great pitch.
A Red Orchid’s new play ‘Turret’ has a father’s ghost — and Michael Shannon trapped in a bunker
“Turret,” which opens Sunday at the Chopin Theatre in Wicker Park, stars the Chicago actor turned Hollywood star Michael Shannon, who practically had the word dystopian stapled to his forehead when he was a baby.
‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ review: Simian, begin again
“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” leaps roughly 300 years into the future, after the death of the great Caesar, rough-hewn, tender-hearted warrior leader. In the 2011-17 trilogy, Andy Serkis made this motion-captured ape king wholly his own, emotionally as well as physically. He’s gone now, writes Tribune critic Michael Phillips. But building on those films’ technology, the amalgam of motion-capture techniques and astonishingly subtle digital artistry in “Kingdom” represent the visual gold standard in big-budget screen fantasy.
‘Bodkin’ review: A true crime podcast descends upon rural Ireland, with mediocre results
True crime podcasts are enough of a phenomenon that they’ve become a premise for scripted, fictional TV shows, writes Tribune critic Nina Metz. Following on the heels of “Only Murders in the Building” (Hulu), “Based on a True Story” (Peacock) and “Truth Be Told” (Apple TV+), we can add “Bodkin,” a seven-episode thriller on Netflix about a trio who arrive in the sleepy Irish town of the title to investigate the disappearance of three strangers who went missing 20 years earlier.