Thursday Thirteen #245

Thirteen news stories here in Chicagoland. I am writing this Wednesday night, and basing it on local stories from today's Chicago Sun Times. I've listed them as they appear in the print edition of the paper.

1. Patrick Daley Thompson on trial. An alderman accused of income tax fraud, which would normally not be front page news. This is a massive big deal because this alderman is the nephew of former Mayor Richard M. Daley and the grandson of Mayor Richard J. Daley. There simply is no more famous name here than Daley.

2. Governor Pritzker and the mask mandate. JB is expected to present a plan that will phase out masks in most indoor settings by March 1.

3. Bad cop won't get his pension. Officer Anthony Abbate got drunk and kicked and punched a woman bartender. It was caught on tape and he was convicted of battery. Since he was off duty when he punched and kicked the woman, he thinks he's owed his policeman's pension. A State appeals court disagreed.

4. Richard Roeper weighs in on the Oscar nominations. The paper's movie reviewer says there are no real surprises, but gives me an interesting Oscar tidbit: six of the 10 acting nods went to performers playing real people.

5. Club closed after two shootings. The Point has been deemed "a threat to public safety" after an October gunfight (4 injured) and a shooting before dawn on Sunday morning where a man was struck in the eye.

6. Tensions between Black and LGBTQ communities. Chicago's Black gay community is fighting what has been called a "whitewash" of Black History Month, and they want representation.

7. Catholic school principal disciplined over masks. The Archdiocese put the principal on leave for defying the mandate and declaring masks optional.

8. Judge in Burke trial about to make a ruling. Alderman Eddie Burke has been powerful for as long as I can remember. A grand jury indicted him on racketeering in 2019 but he still hasn't gone to trial. Both sides presented many legal motions and now the judge its trying to sort it all out. (Maybe there will be a trial before I die. Maybe not.)

9. Two teens shot less than an hour apart on the South Side. A 15-year-old was shot twice in the head while walking home at 3:15 in the afternoon. At 4:10, a 16-year-old was shot in the head near the University of Chicago campus. Both boys died. Detectives believe the incidents were unrelated.

10. Man shot to death during carjacking in the South Loop. A man who drove his Mercedes for Lyft and Uber was found in the snow. His car was later recovered, abandoned, on the South Side.

Yes, we have a gun problem here in Chicago. In your town, these shootings would be front-page news but here, we're inured to the violence. Too many guns seeping through the borders from Indiana and Kentucky. Don't get me started!

Jumping to the Nation/World page.

 11. McConnell rebukes the RNC. Senate minority leader disagrees with the censure of Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL).

From the Taste Section.

12. Alpana Singh to open River North restaurant. Alpana is the former host of our local PBS restaurant review show, and her new restaurant will emphasize food/wine pairings.

And now, the big headline in Sports.

13. Bulls can't blame it on covid. All the players are now out of covid protocol, yet they still don't look good.

 What's new, and what's news, in your town?

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