What’s New

Moon Alert

There are no restrictions to shopping or important decisions. The moon is in Aquarius.

Aries (March 21-April 19)

Today you want to rouse others to support a cause or rally for freedom from some kind of tyranny. (The tyranny of peanut butter sandwiches for lunch?) Possibly, a friend or a member of a group will do something that surprises you today or catches you off guard. Heads up!

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

You might find yourself at odds with a parent, a boss or a police person at some point today. It could be something mild. It might be something rebellious. (Different details for different folks.) Nevertheless, you might have a reaction if someone tells you what to do. (Oops.)

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

Travel plans might be delayed, changed or canceled. Alternatively, you might suddenly have to travel when you did not expect to do so. Someone from another culture or from far away might surprise you. Political and religious situations will intrigue.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

Keep an eye on issues related to shared property, taxes, debt and insurance matters as well as inheritances because something unexpected might catch you off guard. Someone might disagree with a previous agreement? This person might even be you.

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22)

Your focus on money continues along with your desire to tweak your digs and entertain at home. (Leos are great hosts.) Tread carefully with partners and close friends because someone close to you will surprise you. They might suggest something unusual. They might also thwart your plans?

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

Today something unexpected with your pet, your health or your job might catch you off guard. Or perhaps you have some genius-like ideas about how to improve your health or your job? Fortunately, with the sun in your sign, things will tend to go your way.

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

Social plans might change today or be canceled. Or perhaps you’ll receive a surprise invitation? Be wise and do what you can to avoid sports accidents as well as accidents with your kids. This means slow down, take it easy and be vigilant.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

This is a popular time for you, and with fair Venus in your sign, you are charming and diplomatic with everyone. Nevertheless, your home routine will change today. A small appliance might break down or a minor breakage could occur. Perhaps a family disagreement? Be smart and stay chill.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)

You continue to look fabulous to everyone because the sun is casting you in a flattering spotlight. Make the most of this because this happens only once a year for four weeks. Meanwhile, be aware of everything you say and do because this is a mildly accident-prone day for you. Caution.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

Travel and adventure totally appeal to you because you want a change of scenery and some excitement. Nevertheless, keep an eye on your money and your possessions today because something unexpected could occur. You might find money; you might lose money. Protect your possessions.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)

Today the moon is in your sign at odds with your ruler Uranus, which will make you feel restless, impulsive and rebellious. Guard against jumping to hasty conclusions. Nevertheless, enjoy feelings of independence and high spirits as you relate to everyone around you. “Tally ho!”

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)

Remember that you need more sleep right now while the sun is opposite your sign. Respect your need for more rest. Today is a bit restless for you, which is why you have that feeling that you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. Relax. You’ve got this

If Your Birthday Is Today

Actor Kyle Chandler (1965) shares your birthday. You are an inventive, resourceful person who is a natural problem solver because you have a fine mind. You are also trustworthy, dependable and reliable. You are fun-loving in a youthful way,; but also levelheaded. This year you will work hard to build something constructive in your life both literally and figuratively. Physical exercise is important for you this year.

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About 9:15 p.m., he was walking with a large group of people in the 6000 block of South Racine Avenue, when someone approached them on foot and fired shots.

By

Sun-Times Wire

Sep 16, 2021, 11:55pm CDT

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Illinois men’s basketball head coach Brad Underwood will receive a contract extension that will keep him through the 2026-27 season. The deal is pending approval at a UI Board of Trustees meeting on Sept. 23.

Underwood’s proposed contract will move his total annual compensation into the top 10 nationally and is fully guaranteed through the next four seasons. It also includes bonus opportunities for advancing in the NCAA Tournament and other metrics.

Illinois earned the fourth NCAA Tournament No. 1 seed in school history after winning 14 of 15 games over a two-month stretch. The Illini won their first conference tournament title since 2005, and their 19 wins against conference foes in 2021 set a school record.

Illinois’ 29-11 record in Big Ten play the last two seasons with Underwood is the best mark in the conference.

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Nurses work 18-hour shifts while administrators are pulled from their offices and outfitted with personal protective equipment to help staff the hospital’s bustling COVID-19 testing site.

Other workers scramble to clear an intensive care unit bed that’ll immediately be filled by another coronavirus patient.

For the others waiting in line for critical care — including heart attack victims, car crash survivors and others who haven’t come down with severe respiratory symptoms from the virus — they’re looking at a five-hour ambulance ride to find the nearest available ICU bed.

And that’s only if the ambulance isn’t already behind schedule from its last out-of-state run with an infected patient.

It’s not a look back to 2020. It’s a September night in southern Illinois this week, nine months after life-saving vaccines were deployed in the pandemic fight.

Thursday marked the fourth straight day with ICU beds filled to capacity in the state’s least vaccinated region, which is home to more than 400,000 residents.

Only about 37% of residents across those 20 counties in the state’s southern tip have gotten a shot, barely half the statewide rate. Combine that with a Delta variant-fueled case spike and a decline in the number of health care workers, and southern Illinois hospitals have found themselves stretched to the breaking point yet again.

“Doctors, nurses and so many other critical workers are tired,” said Airen Herrmann, the hospital coordinating manager for the region. “We’ve been at this for 18 months, and every time you think we’re on the downward slope, that things are returning to some semblance of normality, we get smacked in the face again. It’s really demoralizing.”

Herrmann, who directs the resources that are being stretched alarmingly thin among southern Illinois’ 22 hospitals, said admissions are just as high as they were last winter when the state weathered its worst resurgence.

“The difference is there’s been natural staff attrition since then. People have been burnt out. Some have chosen to leave the field or take early retirement,” he said, adding that COVID-19 has also thrown off school cycles, meaning fewer rookie health care workers are being thrown into the COVID-19 fire.

So while the region’s hospitals still have the physical space and equipment to care for the latest influx of coronavirus patients, there simply aren’t enough workers to take care of them. That’s left staffers to make cold calls to dozens of other hospitals looking for places to send ICU patients as far as Nashville, St. Louis and Kansas City.

Of southern Illinois’ 88 ICU beds — a number that’s usually “totally adequate” for the region, Herrmann said — availability sank to only a few last month, and finally fell to zero Monday as the regional case positivity rate soared over 10%

The system has received a boost from state-contracted health care workers who were sent in, helping increase the total number of ICE beds to 94 on Wednesday, but it still hasn’t been enough.

“The good news is that’s six patients who didn’t have to be transferred many hours outside the region,” Herrmann said. “The bad news is when each of those beds opened, someone else needed it right away.”

Graph not displaying properly? Click here.

The Illinois Department of Public Health said by the end of the week, it’ll have sent more than 100 additional health care workers to the region. The state agency also helped receive federal approval to start sending civilian patients to three V.A. hospitals.

“However, all of these emergency actions are temporary fixes and Illinoisans need to follow the commonsense mitigations in place to stop the spread and stem the tide of hospitalizations due to COVID-19,” IDPH spokeswoman Melaney Arnold said in an email. “Getting vaccinated is crucial to reducing the burden on our health care and hospital systems.”

That message has fallen mostly on deaf ears in places such as Alexander County, the state’s southernmost county and home to its lowest rate of fully vaccinated residents, just 16.9%.

In Chicago — where Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said she’s hopeful the city is “turning the corner” on the Delta surge — about 66% of residents 12 or older have completed their vaccine series. Statewide, it’s just over 61%.

The disparity in southern Illinois is the result of “a plethora of disinformation that has been regurgitated to toxicity,” said Rosslind Rice, communications director for Southern Illinois Healthcare, which operates four hospitals in the region.

“We’ve been pounding away saying the disease is the enemy, not each other. But we’re running out of ways to say it,” Rice said. “We’ll still do whatever it takes to have that conversation to change one mind. You trust us to take care of you when you’re sick, when you have COVID — why don’t you trust us anymore when we tell you the vaccine is safe?”

For help finding a vaccine appointment, visit coronavirus.illinois.gov or call (833) 621-1284.

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Corliss basketball coach Harvey Jones resigned on Wednesday. Jones will remain employed at the school for the rest of the school year but has stepped down as athletic director and basketball coach.

“I’ll have more to say in the future,” Jones said. “Now I can just say that I won’t be coaching this season.”

Jones, who expressed frustration with some behind the scenes issues at Chicago Public Schools, plans to move on to coach at the college level.

Jones was 72-29 in four seasons with the Trojans. He built the program into a major contender in the city and a small school state powerhouse. Corliss finished fourth in Class 2A in 2018-19.

It’s unclear who will take over the Trojans. Basketball practice starts Nov. 8.

Jones, a former assistant at Simeon, achieved success by cobbling together players that started at Red Division powerhouse high schools but wound up transferring out for various reasons.

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This page has been criticizing the Chicago Park District a quite a bit lately — and not without good reason.

The agency seems to commit some kind of blunder each week, with the latest being the district’s utterly senseless resistance to putting life rings throughout all points on the lake, rather than just locations where swimming is allowed.

Miguel Cisneros, 19, drowned Aug. 22 after jumping into the water from Pratt Pier in Rogers Park. Swimming there is prohibited so the park district didn’t put life rings there.

But after the Columbia University sophomore drowned, Rogers Park residents, on their own, put life rings on the pier. And the park district removed the safety devices.

The large, donut-shaped floatable life rings are designed to be tossed in the water for potential drowning victims to grab hold.

Last week, Park District Supt. Mike Kelly changed course and is putting life rings at Pratt Pier and at staffed locations along the lakefront.

But that he made the announcement virtually through gritted teeth says everything.

“I don’t love that decision. I cannot stress enough, folks,” he said. “We’re in the life-safety business. We’re in the teach-kids-to-swim business. Anything that gives a semblance of comfort to going in that water where it says, ‘Do Not Swim’ [encourages people to break the rules], but we’re gonna do it,” Kelly said.

Gee, thanks, Mike.

If the park district is truly in the life-safety business, then it’s a mystery to us why the agency and its leader wouldn’t want people to be and feel safe at all points through the lakefront.

A short-sighted solution

The installation of the life rings, according to Kelly, is part of a larger safety plan that includes additional lakefront signage and fencing and outreach designed to teach more youth to swim by the fourth grade.

Fair enough, except the district will put the rings only in places marked safe to swim — which is a maddeningly short-sighted “solution” and doesn’t really fully solve the problem.

For his part, Kelly last week said he doesn’t regret the decision to remove the life rings residents placed on Pratt Pier. And he has no qualms about his current plan either.

“No . . . I don’t regret [it]. I don’t regret. I think I made the right decision then. I think I’m making the right decision now,” Kelly said.

He’s not.

About ‘more than Miguel’

From its bungling of the recent lifeguard scandal, to its continued embrace of combining two quiet, working-class golf courses at the South Shore Cultural Center and Jackson Park into a single, Tiger Woods-designed PGA-level supercourse, the district has forgotten that it exists for the public good.

And the life ring issue is another example.

Cisneros’ mother, Maria Diaz, is calling for life rings across the lakefront, including places where swimming isn’t sanctioned.

“This is not only about Miguel,” said Diaz, whose family is suing the park district, alleging Cisneros’s death could have been prevented had there been life rings at the pier. “It’s about preventing other families from going through this tragedy.”

She’s right. And despite what Kelly thinks, the rings won’t encourage a tide of unauthorized swimming.

As Mayor Lori Lightfoot rightly said: “The life rings are important. To my simple mind, they’re like a fire extinguisher. You don’t want to encourage people to burn the buildings down. But if there’s an emergency, you have it there. The life rings are the same thing.”

We agree.

Send letters to [email protected].

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Nurses work 18-hour shifts while administrators are pulled from their offices and outfitted with personal protective equipment to help staff the hospital’s bustling COVID-19 testing site.

Other workers scramble to clear an intensive care unit bed that’ll immediately be filled by another coronavirus patient.

For the others waiting in line for critical care — including heart attack victims, car crash survivors and others who haven’t come down with severe respiratory symptoms from the virus — they’re looking at a five-hour ambulance ride to find the nearest available ICU bed.

And that’s only if the ambulance isn’t already behind schedule from its last out-of-state run with an infected patient.

It’s not a look back to 2020. It’s a September night in southern Illinois this week, nine months after life-saving vaccines were deployed in the pandemic fight.

Thursday marked the fourth straight day with ICU beds filled to capacity in the state’s least vaccinated region, which is home to more than 400,000 residents.

Only about 37% of residents across those 20 counties in the state’s southern tip have gotten a shot, barely half the statewide rate. Combine that with a Delta variant-fueled case spike and a decline in the number of health care workers, and southern Illinois hospitals have found themselves stretched to the breaking point yet again.

“Doctors, nurses and so many other critical workers are tired,” said Airen Herrmann, the hospital coordinating manager for the region. “We’ve been at this for 18 months, and every time you think we’re on the downward slope, that things are returning to some semblance of normality, we get smacked in the face again. It’s really demoralizing.”

Herrmann, who directs the resources that are being stretched alarmingly thin among southern Illinois’ 22 hospitals, said admissions are just as high as they were last winter when the state weathered its worst resurgence.

“The difference is there’s been natural staff attrition since then. People have been burnt out. Some have chosen to leave the field or take early retirement,” he said, adding that COVID-19 has also thrown off school cycles, meaning fewer rookie health care workers are being thrown into the COVID-19 fire.

So while the region’s hospitals still have the physical space and equipment to care for the latest influx of coronavirus patients, there simply aren’t enough workers to take care of them. That’s left staffers to make cold calls to dozens of other hospitals looking for places to send ICU patients as far as Nashville, St. Louis and Kansas City.

Of southern Illinois’ 88 ICU beds — a number that’s usually “totally adequate” for the region, Herrmann said — availability sank to only a few last month, and finally fell to zero Monday as the regional case positivity rate soared over 10%

The system has received a boost from state-contracted health care workers who were sent in, helping increase the total number of ICE beds to 94 on Wednesday, but it still hasn’t been enough.

“The good news is that’s six patients who didn’t have to be transferred many hours outside the region,” Herrmann said. “The bad news is when each of those beds opened, someone else needed it right away.”

Graph not displaying properly? Click here.

The Illinois Department of Public Health said by the end of the week, it’ll have sent more than 100 additional health care workers to the region. The state agency also helped receive federal approval to start sending civilian patients to three V.A. hospitals.

“However, all of these emergency actions are temporary fixes and Illinoisans need to follow the commonsense mitigations in place to stop the spread and stem the tide of hospitalizations due to COVID-19,” IDPH spokeswoman Melaney Arnold said in an email. “Getting vaccinated is crucial to reducing the burden on our health care and hospital systems.”

That message has fallen mostly on deaf ears in places such as Alexander County, the state’s southernmost county and home to its lowest rate at 16.9% fully vaccinated residents.

In Chicago — where Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said she’s hopeful the city is “turning the corner” on the Delta surge — about 66% of residents 12 or older have completed their vaccine series. Statewide, it’s just over 61%.

The disparity in southern Illinois is the result of “a plethora of disinformation that has been regurgitated to toxicity,” said Rosslind Rice, communications director for Southern Illinois Healthcare, which operates four hospitals in the region.

“We’ve been pounding away saying the disease is the enemy, not each other. But we’re running out of ways to say it,” Rice said. “We’ll still do whatever it takes to have that conversation to change one mind. You trust us to take care of you when you’re sick, when you have COVID — why don’t you trust us anymore when we tell you the vaccine is safe?”

For help finding a vaccine appointment, visit coronavirus.illinois.gov or call (833) 621-1284.

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South Shore quarterback Chris McDonald is an ear opener as soon as the Tars take the field. The senior is clearly in full command of his offense, but it is his snap count that is noticeable. It is loud and confident and strange.

It’s a high-pitched scream/yell. Sometimes once, sometimes twice. Opposing defensive lines have had trouble getting used to it all season. McDonald drew Corliss offsides a few times in the game, but it impacted South Shore’s first three opponents even more heavily.

“The coaches told me to switch it up and to brand ourselves to make our own things. I listen to some older guys do it in college,” McDonald said. “I just want to get the defense shifting and make them not ready.”

The Tars dropped most of McDonald’s passes in their 14-6 win against Corliss on Thursday at Eckersall Stadium. But offense isn’t really what South Shore is about this season.

Corliss’ touchdown in the second quarter, a five-yard run by Malachi McClure, is the first score the Tars have allowed.

“We just try to play hard and play physical,” Senior Imani Gilbert said. “We knew giving up some points was bound to happen eventually so we just had to bounce back and stay in the game.”

South Shore (4-0, 2-0 Chicago Lake Street) took an 8-6 lead just before halftime on an 18-yard touchdown run by Kris Nelson, who finished with eight carries for 63 yards.

McDonald punched in a one-yard touchdown run with 3:36 left in the game to provide the final margin.

“[McDonald] is the first person in and the last person out,” South Shore coach Robert Miller said. “Chris studies film at lunch, studies film on the off days. He and [Nelson], those guys are working all day and all night. They go longer than I do.”

South Shore has outscored its opponents 104-6 this season. The mood on the sidelines is energetic and upbeat.

“We aren’t the biggest and we aren’t the fastest team but we will keep hitting you constantly,” Tars senior Keandre Darby said. “Our mindset is to kill a man with 1,000 cuts.”

The Trojans (3-1, 1-0) had a chance to tie the game on their final drive but couldn’t manage to score. Corliss coach Ketih Brookshire said he was missing multiple starters due to COVID. Only 19 players dressed for the game.

“We fought and I’m proud of the kids,” Brookshire said. “We played a lot of young guys in new positions. It’s a big hit when you are missing your quarterback and fullback and two tackles. That hurt. We’ve been on a roll this season but now we ran into COVID.”

McClure, a sophomore, was playing quarterback for the first time. He attempted just two passes, both were incomplete, and had 14 carries for 14 yards.

Sophomore Quincy Robinson had 15 carries for 74 yards for the Trojans.

Corliss, which had outscored its opponents 94-8 heading into the game, will face Little Village next week.

“Everything was clicking and enthusiasm was up around the building,” Brookshire said. “So the kids will take the loss hard. I will need to get them back up. But we will be alright.”

South Shore will face Juarez next week. The Tars schedule is favorable the rest of the way, an undefeated season is not out of the question. Chicago Conference teams are not eligible for the IHSA state playoffs.

“This is my second year here, I came from Robeson,” Miller said. “I brought some work ethic. We are all fire and no quit, all gas and no breaks. We are just putting the work in and these kids will not be denied. If I called practice right now they would be up for it.”

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Patrick Finley and Jason Lieser make their Bears-Bengals predictions and wonder if the city would revolt were the Bears to lose at Soldier Field on Sunday. Also: how much will Justin Fields play? What’s up with Eddie Goldman? And will the Bears finally throw deep?

New episodes of “Halas Intrigue” will be published regularly with accompanying stories collected on the podcast’s hub page. You can also listen to “Halas Intrigue” wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Luminary, Spotify, and Stitcher.

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LOS ANGELES — Jane Powell, the bright-eyed, operatic-voiced star of Hollywood’s golden age musicals who sang with Howard Keel in “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” and danced with Fred Astaire in “Royal Wedding,” has died. She was 92.

Powell died Thursday at her Wilton, Connecticut, home, longtime friend Susan Granger said. Granger said Powell died of natural causes.

Powell performed virtually her whole life, starting about age 5 as a singing prodigy on radio in Portland, Oregon. On screen, she quickly graduated from teen roles to the lavish musical productions that were a 20th-century Hollywood staple.

Her 1950 casting in “Royal Wedding” came by default. June Allyson was first announced as Astaire’s co-star but withdrew when she became pregnant. Judy Garland was cast, but was withdrawn because of personal problems. Jane Powell was next in line.

“They had to give it to me,” she quipped at the time. “Everybody else is pregnant.” Also among the expectant MGM stars: Lana Turner, Esther Williams, Cyd Charisse and Jean Hagen.

Powell had just turned 21 when she got the role; Astaire was 50. She was nervous because she lacked dancing experience, but she found him “very patient and understanding. We got along fine from the start.”

“Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” proved to be a 1954 “sleeper” hit.

“The studio didn’t think it was going to do anything,” she recalled in 2000. “MGM thought that `Brigadoon’ was going to be the big moneymaker that year. It didn’t turn out that way. We were the ones that went to the Radio City Music Hall, which was always such a coup.”

The famed New York venue was a movie theater then.

Audiences were overwhelmed by the lusty singing of Keel and Powell and especially by the gymnastic choreography of Michael Kidd. “Seven Brides” achieved classic status and resulted in a TV series and a Broadway musical.

“Blonde and small and pretty, Jane Powell had the required amount of grit and spunk that was needed to play the woman who could tame seven backwoodsmen,” John Kobal wrote in his book “Gotta Sing Gotta Dance: A Pictorial History of Film Musicals.”

After 13 years at MGM, though, Powell quit the studio, reasoning that she was going to be fired “because they weren’t going to be doing musicals anymore.”

“I thought I’d have a lot of studios to go to,” she said in 2000, “but I didn’t have any, because no one wanted to make musicals. It was very difficult, and quite a shock to me. There’s nothing worse than not being wanted.”

She found one musical at RKO, “The Girl Most Likely,” a 1958 remake of “Tom, Dick and Harry.” Aside from a couple of minor films, her movie career was over.

She was born Suzanne Lorraine Burce in Portland, Oregon, in 1928. She began singing on local radio as a small child, and as she grew, her voice developed into a clear, high-pitched soprano.

When the Burce family planned a trip to Los Angeles, the radio station asked if Suzanne would appear on a network talent show there. The tiny girl with a 2 1/2 -octave voice drew thunderous applause with an aria from “Carmen” and was quickly put under contract to MGM.

Her first movie was a loanout to an independent producer for “Song of the Open Road,” a 1944 mishmash with W.C. Fields (at the end of his career) and Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.

The character’s name in “Song of the Open Road” was Jane Powell, and MGM decided that that would be her movie name.

She played teens in such films as “Holiday in Mexico,” “Three Daring Daughters” and “A Date With Judy.” But she pleaded with the studio bosses to be given grown-up roles and finally succeeded in “Royal Wedding.”

Frothy romances and musicals continued to dominate her career, including “Young, Rich and Pretty,” “Small Town Girl” and “Three Sailors and a Girl.”

After her movie career ended, musical theater offered plenty of work for a star of her prominence and talent. She sang in supper clubs, toured in such shows as “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” and “I Do! I Do!” and replaced Debbie Reynolds in the Broadway run of “Irene.”

She frequently appeared on television, notably in the Judy Garland role in a new version of “Meet Me in St. Louis.”

As she approached her 70s, she focused on drama, appearing in New York theater in such plays as “Avow,” portraying mother of an unmarried, pregnant daughter and a son who wanted to marry his male partner.

In Chicago, Powell appeared at the Goodman Theatre in 2003 in an early version of a musical with book and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Then known as “Bounce,” the piece went on to run in New York, heavily rewritten and without Powell, with the new name “Road Show.”

Powell’s first four marriages ended in divorce: to Geary Steffen (son Geary, daughter Suzanne), Patrick Nerney (daughter Lindsay), James Fitzgerald and David Parlour.

Powell met fifth husband Dick Moore when he interviewed her for his book about child actors. As Dickie Moore, he had been a well-known child actor in the 1930s and ’40s and gave Shirley Temple her first screen kiss in “Miss Annie Rooney” (1942). Moore, head of a New York public relations office, and Powell married in 1988. He died in 2015.

Jane Powell’s survivors include her daughter, Lindsey Nerney, Granger said.

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