Good afternoon. Here’s the latest news you need to know in Chicago. It’s about a 5-minute read that will brief you on today’s biggest stories.

This afternoon will be mostly cloudy with a high near 83 degrees and a 40% chance of thunderstorms. You can expect similar conditions to continue tonight with a low around 67. Tomorrow will be mostly sunny with a high near 76.

Top story

19 aldermen call special City Council meeting for Friday on violent crime

Nineteen aldermen are calling a special virtual Chicago City Council meeting for 11 a.m. Friday — and threatening to take a vote of no-confidence in Chicago Police Supt. David Brown if he doesn’t show up to testify — about police response to gun violence in the city.

A quorum of 26 aldermen is needed to convene and meet as a committee of the whole to take testimony from Brown or take the vote of no-confidence if he fails to appear. That means that seven aldermen who did not sign the call for a special meeting would have to show up anyway.

Whether or not that will happen is anybody’s guess. Six aldermen have already peeled off in the last 24 hours under pressure from the mayor’s office.

“All we can do is hope for the best. … We’ve got 19 that signed on. There may be a few that show up. And of course, there may be a few that don’t,” said Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), one of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s most outspoken City Council critics.

Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) said aldermen had to call the special meeting after their efforts to try to “work with the administration to have a Public Safety Committee meeting failed.”

Lopez flatly predicted a quorum, though six aldermen have peeled off. He noted “a number” of aldermen who didn’t sign the letter “did express support for the meeting and intend to be there.”

Lopez said he hopes Brown shows up to answer questions and that it doesn’t come to a no-confidence vote that would mirror what the Fraternal Order of Police already has done.

Chicago Police Department spokesman Tom Ahern wouldn’t say if Brown would attend the special meeting. Brown has planned a news conference for tomorrow, presumably to unveil his plan to prevent a third straight weekend of mass shootings over the coming holiday weekend.

Fran Spielman has more on the special meeting here.

More news you need

1. The most infectious variant of the coronavirus yet is expected to dominate Chicago and the rest of Illinois within months. Mitchell Armentrout spoke with local experts about the Delta variant and what makes it so dangerous.
2. Federal prosecutors are considering the death penalty for two men they say shot and killed a security guard before robbing a bank in Gary on June 11. They robbed nearly $10,000 to pay off the bills of an amateur football team, prosecutors said.
3. Families at or below the federal poverty line can now pay $1 for child care as part of a move to expand access to services for Illinoisans as the state recovers from the pandemic. The permanent policy change could reduce monthly child care costs for 80% of the state’s families, Gov. Pritzker said yesterday.
4. Illinois GOP Reps. Rodney Davis and Adam Kinzinger joined with Democrats yesterday to approve a measure to remove statues of Confederate leaders from the U.S. Capitol. Both Kinzinger and Davis have been mentioned as potential candidates for governor in 2022.
5. A Gold Coast man has been charged with murder after police in Dwight noticed the body of his 81-year-old mother in the passenger seat of his car. The cause of death was strangulation, according to the Grundy County coroner.

A bright one

In the past five years, Pastor Donovan Price has been evicted from six homes and lost four cars as a consequence of dedicating his life to being what’s called a “street pastor.”

Being a street pastor isn’t lucrative. But that path has led Price to over 1,000 homicide scenes and countless other shootings since he founded his organization, Solutions and Resources, in 2016.

Last Thursday, the philanthropic group Chicago Beyond announced Price’s organization will receive $1 million over several years to continue his work. He is among a number of groups receiving a large investment to help foster “holistic healing” in Black and Brown communities.

Brian Rich/Sun-Times

Chicago Beyond’s “Holistic Healing Fund” will ultimately provide $10 million to community leaders and organizations that prioritize healing in their work. The fund will support groups working to reverse the harm of systemic racism, disinvestment, gun violence and trauma.

Liz Dozier, founder and CEO of Chicago Beyond, said the Healing Fund is for people like Price who haven’t received much financial support in the past.

Another recipient, the Resident Association of Greater Englewood (R.A.G.E.), focuses on making the community more self-sufficient. It will receive $500,000 from Chicago Beyond for a fund that’s led by residents and will invest in their ideas. Half of that money will also go to further building out the organization.

Manny Ramos has more on the major investments here.

From the press box

After dealing with several days of controversy, Blackhawks fans finally got some good news: Jonathan Toews intends to play next season. The Hawks captain revealed today that he missed the 2020-21 season while dealing with Chronic Immune Response Syndrome.

Columnist Rick Morrisey writes: “It was great to see Toews on that video Wednesday, sounding like Toews, skating like Toews, being serious like Toews. For 13 seasons, the Hawks — and us — were blessed with his presence, and when that presence went away, it was a massive physical and emotional void. How are you supposed to skate with one leg? That’s how it felt.”

With the Cubs at the halfway point of the season, columnist Steve Greenberg says panicking is the logical next step, but recent history says fans should relax and look for a rebound.

Candace Parker, Courtney Vandersloot and first-time All-Star Kahleah Copper will represent the Sky on the Team WNBA roster at this year’s All-Star game. The 12-player team will take on the USA Basketball Women’s National Team in Las Vegas on July 14.

Your daily question ?

What would you like the city to do for your neighborhood? Tell us why. Reply to this email (please include your first name and where you live) and we might feature your answer in the next Afternoon Edition.

Yesterday, we asked you: With the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 reportedly spreading in Illinois, do you plan to take more precautions again? Here’s what some of you said…

“I have completed both vaccines. The reason why I will remain cautious is because I have to think about the little people that aren’t able to get the vaccine, and the others that didn’t take it for whatever reason. I’m asking God to watch over us all during this troubling time.” — Dolores MzDee Wilson

“No. I’m a COVID survivor and still have the antibodies. The scientific data from CDC, WHO, and reputable organizations support that my risk of reinfection is very low, even for the variants, and I don’t need to mask.” — Rebecca Templeton

“I’m torn. I’m so enjoying not wearing my mask, but I think when I’m in larger venues with larger crowds, I’ll be wearing it again (airport, concert, outdoor markets). The variant feels scary even though I’m fully vaccinated.” — Nina Kavin

“No. I got vaccinated quite a while ago. If you’re eligible to get a vaccine and you haven’t and you get sick — well that’s too bad. But, we’re closer to reaching herd immunity.” — Stephen Mueller

“I’m a respiratory therapist, so I can’t even pretend that the pandemic is over since I see these sick patients daily! I never stopped wearing a mask, staying away from large crowds, or doing hand hygiene, so I will continue what I’ve been doing.” — LeNnierre Watkins

“I’m still masking up, taking precautions and staying in to reduce transmission. I’m immunocompromised and would end up in the hospital from regular colds and cases of the flu. I had already been wearing masks way before the pandemic. I also have an immunocompromised child that has additional risk factors so I NEED to keep him safe. So many lives could be saved if we kept our germs to ourselves but most people would rather see others DIE than slightly inconvenience themselves. It is truly saddening to me.” — Melissa Cintron

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NEW YORK — Fired New York Mets general manager Jared Porter was suspended by Major League Baseball through at least the end of the 2022 regular season following an investigation that began after a report that he sent sexually explicit text messages and images to a female reporter in 2016 while he was working for the Cubs.

Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred announced the discipline Wednesday without saying specifically what the investigation had found.

“My office has completed its investigation into alleged inappropriate conduct by Jared Porter,” Manfred said in a statement. “Having reviewed all of the available evidence, I have concluded that Mr. Porter violated MLB’s policies, and that placement on the ineligible list is warranted.”

Porter is eligible to apply for reinstatement after the final game of the 2022 regular season, a timetable that could allow him to apply for front-office openings that October.

Porter was fired by the Mets on Jan. 19, about nine hours after ESPN reported that he sent dozens of unanswered texts to the woman, including a picture of “an erect, naked penis.” ESPN said it obtained a copy of the text history, and some of the messages and photos Porter sent were displayed in the report online.

Porter was fired by the team for cause, and MLB started its investigation.

“We are committed to providing an appropriate work environment consistent with our values for all those involved in our game,” Manfred said.

Porter did not immediately reply to a text message from The Associated Press seeking comment.

The 41-year-old was hired by the Mets on Dec. 13 and given a four-year contract. He spent the previous four seasons with the Arizona Diamondbacks as senior vice president and assistant general manager under GM Mike Hazen.

Porter was hired by the Boston Red Sox as an intern in 2004 and was promoted to player development assistant from 2006-07, coordinator of professional scouting from 2008-09, assistant director of professional scouting from 2010-11 and director of professional scouting from 2012-15.

He followed Theo Epstein to Chicago and spent 2016 as the Cubs’ director of professional scouting, helping the team to its first World Series title since 1908.

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PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction and released him from prison Wednesday in a stunning reversal of fortune for the comedian once known as “America’s Dad,” ruling that the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby.

Cosby, 83, flashed the V-for-victory sign to a helicopter overhead as he trudged into his suburban Philadelphia home after serving nearly three years of a three- to 10-year sentence for drugging and violating Temple University sports administrator Andrea Constand in 2004.

The former “Cosby Show” star — the first celebrity tried and convicted in the #MeToo era — had no immediate comment.

Cosby was arrested in 2015, when a district attorney armed with newly unsealed evidence — the comic’s damaging deposition in a lawsuit filed by Constand — brought charges against him just days before the 12-year statute of limitations was about to run out.

But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said Wednesday that District Attorney Kevin Steele, who made the decision to arrest Cosby, was obligated to stand by his predecessor’s promise not to charge Cosby, though there was no evidence that promise was ever put in writing.

Justice David Wecht, writing for a split court, said Cosby had relied on the previous district attorney’s decision not to charge him when the comedian gave his potentially incriminating testimony in Constand’s civil case.

The court called Cosby’s subsequent arrest “an affront to fundamental fairness, particularly when it results in a criminal prosecution that was forgone for more than a decade.” It said justice and “fair play and decency” require that the district attorney’s office stand by the decision of the previous DA.

The justices said that overturning the conviction, and barring any further prosecution, “is the only remedy that comports with society’s reasonable expectations of its elected prosecutors and our criminal justice system.”

As Cosby was promptly set free from the state prison in suburban Montgomery County and driven home, his appeals lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, said he should never have been prosecuted.

“District attorneys can’t change it up simply because of their political motivation,” she said, adding that Cosby remains in excellent health, apart from being legally blind.

In a statement, Steele said Cosby went free “on a procedural issue that is irrelevant to the facts of the crime.” He commended Constand for coming forward and added: “My hope is that this decision will not dampen the reporting of sexual assaults by victims. … We still believe that no one is above the law — including those who are rich, famous and powerful.”

Constand and her lawyer did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

“FINALLY!!!! A terrible wrong is being righted — a miscarriage of justice is corrected!” the actor’s “Cosby Show” co-star Phylicia Rashad tweeted.

“I am furious to hear this news,” actor Amber Tamblyn, a founder of Time’s Up, an advocacy group for victims of sexual assault, said in a Twitter post. “I personally know women who this man drugged and raped while unconscious. Shame on the court and this decision.”

In sentencing Cosby, the trial judge had ruled him a sexually violent predator who could not be safely allowed out in public and needed to report to authorities for the rest of his life.

Four Supreme Court justices formed the majority that ruled in Cosby’s favor, while three others dissented in whole or in part.

Peter Goldberger, a suburban Philadelphia lawyer with an expertise in criminal appeals, said prosecutors could ask the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for reargument or reconsideration, but it would be a very long shot.

“I can’t imagine that with such a lengthy opinion, with a thoughtful concurring opinion and a thoughtful dissenting opinion, that you could honestly say they made a simple mistake that would change their minds if they point it out to them,” Goldberger said.

Even though Cosby was charged only with the assault on Constand, the judge at his trial allowed five other accusers to testify that they, too, were similarly victimized by Cosby in the 1980s. Prosecutors called them as witnesses to establish what they said was a pattern of behavior on Cosby’s part.

Cosby’s lawyers had argued on appeal that the use of the five additional accusers was improper.

But the Pennsylvania high court did not weigh in on the question, saying it was moot given the justices’ finding that Cosby should not have been prosecuted in the first place.

In New York, the judge at last year’s trial of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, whose case helped sparked the #MeToo movement in 2017, let four other accusers testify. Weinstein was convicted and sentenced to 23 years in prison.

In May, Cosby was denied parole after refusing to participate in sex offender programs behind bars. He said he would resist the treatment programs and refuse to acknowledge wrongdoing even if it meant serving the full 10 years.

Prosecutors said Cosby repeatedly used his fame and family man persona to manipulate young women, holding himself out as a mentor before betraying them.

The groundbreaking Black actor grew up in public housing in Philadelphia and made a fortune estimated at $400 million during his 50 years in the entertainment industry that included the TV shows “I Spy,” “The Cosby Show” and “Fat Albert,” along with comedy albums and a multitude of television commercials.

The suburban Philadelphia prosecutor who originally looked into Constand’s allegations, Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor, considered the case flawed because Constand waited a year to come forward and stayed in contact with Cosby afterward. Castor declined to prosecute and instead encouraged Constand to sue for damages.

Questioned under oath as part of that lawsuit, Cosby said he used to offer quaaludes to women he wanted to have sex with. He eventually settled with Constand for $3.4 million.

Portions of the deposition later became public at the request of The Associated Press and spelled Cosby’s downfall, opening the floodgates on accusations from other women and destroying the comic’s good-guy reputation and career. More than 60 women came forward to say Cosby violated them.

The AP does not typically identify sexual assault victims without their permission, which Constand has granted.

Cosby, in the deposition, acknowledged giving quaaludes to a 19-year-old woman before having sex with her at a Las Vegas hotel in 1976. Cosby called the encounter consensual.

On Wednesday, the woman, Therese Serignese, now 64, said the court ruling “takes my breath away.”

“I just think it’s a miscarriage of justice. This is about procedure. It’s not about the truth of the women,” she said. She said she took solace in the fact Cosby served nearly three years: “That’s as good as it gets in America” for sex crime victims, she said.

___

Follow Maryclaire Dale on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Maryclairedale

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Derrick Johnson had a makeshift mask.

He had the spray bottle of bleach and extra soap that corrections officers provided.

But he still spent every day crammed in a unit with 63 other men in a Florida prison, crowding into hallways on their way to meals and sleeping only feet away from one another at night.

As the coronavirus ravaged the Everglades Correctional Institution, Johnson was surrounded by coughing and requests for Tylenol.

“Prison is not built to compete with a pandemic,” said Johnson, who was released in December.

The pandemic forced prisons to adapt. Bu now, as new cases are declining and restrictions are being loosened, there’s little evidence to suggest that enough substantive changes have been made to handle future waves of infection, an investigation by The Marshall Project and The Associated Press has found.

The two news organizations — which tracked the spread of COVID-19 through prisons nationwide, counting more than a half million people living and working in prisons who got sick from the coronavirus — found that, with crowded conditions, substandard medical care and constantly shifting populations, prisons were ill-equipped to handle the highly contagious virus. Nationwide, it killed nearly 3,000 prisoners and staff.

Corrections systems responded with inconsistent policies, struggling to contain the virus. At the peak of the pandemic peak in mid-December, more than 25,000 prisoners tested positive in a single week.

In recent months, infections behind bars nationwide have slowed to a few hundred new cases each week, and many prisons have eased restrictions for mask-wearing, visitors and other movement in and out, going back to business as usual.

But it’s still a critical moment, with new coronavirus cases low but the threat of infection looming as new variants spread, said Dr. David Sears, an infectious-disease specialist and correctional health consultant.

“The medical community, prison leadership and society at large have learned so much about COVID in a short period of time,” Sears said. “We need to take these lessons and make sure that the things we’ve learned after a lot of real human suffering are not in vain.”

According to the data collected by The Marshall Project and Associated Press, about three in 10 people in state and federal prisons were infected with the virus. But correctional health experts widely agree that’s an undercount.

Aaron Lavinsky / Star Tribune via AP

“A great many of the people who ever had COVID, they were never tested,” said Dr. Homer Venters, a former chief medical officer of the New York City jail system who inspected health conditions in prisons around the country over the past year. “In most prisons, it ran through these places like wildfire.”

One man housed at a low-security federal prison compared the Bureau of Prisons’ public data to what he was seeing inside. At least half of his unit fell ill, he said, but the bureau’s data didn’t reflect that.

“For the first year of the COVID, they never tested anybody in my institution unless they had a fever,” the man said in a call from prison. “The easiest way to not have a positive at your institution is to not test anybody.”

In the pandemic’s early days, testing within the Bureau of Prisons was limited, and staff members at some prisons were told there was no need to test inmates; they should just assume everyone had the coronavirus. The Justice Department’s inspector general found that, at some facilities, inmates who tested positive were left in their housing units for days without being isolated.

The Bureau of Prisons said it follows guidance from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and that inmates who are symptomatic or test positive are placed in medical isolation until they recover.

Even when state and federal prisons conducted tests, they still allowed prisoners who tested positive to come in contact with others.

Texas prison officials transferred more than 100 infected prisoners in East Texas to prisons outside Houston in the first months of the pandemic. Officials said the move would bring the men closer to medical resources. A few days after a group of the sick arrived to his unit, Jason Duncan fell ill.

“The unit nurse came around to take temperatures, mine was checked at 102,” he wrote in a letter at the time. A few hours after having his temperature taken, he fainted. “When I came to, my body was so hot I could not stand at all. I could not breathe, it felt like the life was being [sucked] out of me.”

Eventually, he ended up in a hospital “hooked up to a breathing machine.” Finally, he got a COVID-19 test. “I was given no medication at all,” he wrote, saying he was sent back to the prison, housed in the wing with the sick prisoners who’d been transferred in.

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MILWAUKEE — Another day, another injury to a Cubs backup catcher.

This time, it’s catcher Jose Lobaton who has landed on the 60-day injured list with a right shoulder sprain. Lobaton injured the shoulder on the last play of Tuesday’s 2-1 loss as he tried to avoid colliding with Brewers closer Josh Hader and fell on the shoulder as he stumbled.

The Cubs selected catcher Taylor Gushue from Triple-A Iowa to take Lobaton’s place on the roster. The 27-year-old catcher will be appearing in the big leagues for the first time and was slashing .272/.328/.440 with five homers this season.

Gushue becomes the fifth backup catcher the Cubs have used this season with Austin Romine (left wrist sprain), Tony Wolters, P.J. Higgins (right flexor strain/partially torn UCL) and Lobaton.

“You see a guy go down like that and then get out there and see the facial expressions and emotions, it’s just tough,” manager David Ross said. “It is like a pretty, pretty severe sprain. He was in some real pain. Hopefully, it’s a speedy recovery for him and gets back to help us out later.

“Me and Willson were walking off the field with [Lobaton] hurt shaking our heads and kind of like, another backup catcher [injury]. Just a position that we’re short in. Injuries, adversity, these are things that come up during the season that you have to try to overcome. It stinks for the guys to get hurt.”

Hoerner could return this weekend

While the Cubs have not had the best luck with injuries recently, they may be close to getting second baseman Nico Hoerner back. Hoerner has been on a rehab assignment with Triple-A Iowa and gone 2-for-5 during his stint.

Ross didn’t shoot down the notion that Hoerner could be back with the Cubs this weekend in Cincinnati.

“I think it’s a possibility,” Ross said. “We’ll see. All good signs, but the more and more guys go down, the more it’s a possibility.”

Davis, Rodriguez selected for Futures Game

Cubs top prospect Brennen Davis was selected to play in this year’s Futures Game at the MLB All-Star game. Davis, who was recently promoted to Double-A, is the Cubs highest-ranked position player prospect and the No. 45 prospect in baseball, according to MLB Pipeline. He’s slashing .255/.368/.396 with three home runs this season.

Right-hander Manny Rodriguez was also selected to play in the game. The fireballing right-hander was promoted to Triple-A Iowa on Sunday and has a 2.03 ERA in 13 games this season.

“It’s just super positive,” Ross said. “Manny’s been through a lot in particular, some ups and downs. The injuries. Just got promoted. He’s starting to throw the ball well and just got promoted. Really good for him.

“Brennen is having a great season. First time I got to really see him play in person in spring training. The athleticism, the ability to go get the ball and run the bases. The physique continues to develop at such a young age. I think it’s just super positive to be around that environment of the Futures game.”

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The Barbershop: Dennis Byrne, Proprietor

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Teacher who was fired for denying her”white privilege” gets the green light for her defamation lawsuit.

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By Dennis Byrne,
today at 2:28 pm

For a post on her Facebook page, she was called a racist.

As reported by the Cook County Record:

A former Palatine High School teacher will be allowed to continue with her defamation lawsuit against a Palatine High School board member and Black Lives Matter activist, as she seeks a court order requiring the BLM protest organizer to pay for allegedly accusing her of racism, leading to her termination last summer.

On June 25, Cook County Judge Jerry Esrig rejected an attempt by defendant Tim McGowan to toss the lawsuit filed against him by Jeanne Hedgepeth….

Hedgepeth had filed suit against McGowan in Cook County Circuit Court in March, accusing him of smearing her reputation and of allegedly organizing a campaign to get her fired from the teaching job she had held in Township High School District 211 in northwest suburban Palatine for two decades.

Another example of illiberal liberals who want to silence anyone who disagrees with them. Outrageously, this firing comes from a unit of government, which, by extension, has denied the plaintiff her constitutional right of free speech.

Here’s what she said:

According to published reports, at the time of the protests, Hedgepeth allegedly posted a message to her personal Facebook page, responding to the BLM protests by saying, in part: “I find the term ‘white privilege’ as racist as the ‘N’ word. You have not walked in my shoes either so do not make assumptions about me and my so called privilege. You think America is racist? Then you have been hoodwinked by the white liberal establishment and race baiters like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.”

Might this case have national implications? The “racist” label is applied so often that it has become the new equivalent of the “commie” and “fellow traveler” charges cast against opponents of the far right in the 1950s. How ironic how the far left ridicules the 1950s when the far left is looking more and more like the far right.

The legal definition of defamation is:

Any intentional false communication, either written or spoken, that harms a person’s reputation; decreases the respect,regard, or confidence in which a person is held; or induces disparaging, hostile, or disagreeable opinions or feelings againsta person. Defamation may be a criminal or civil charge. It encompasses both written statements, known as libel, and spokenstatements, called slander.

Certainly, tossing your job because you are a “racist” definitely would qualify as defamation is you can’t prove that a person is one. What the plaintiff wrote here is not racist. It is a legitimate point of view protected by the first amendment.

I hope other targets of this false charge follow her example.

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Jeanne Hedgepeth, Palatine High Schooi, Tim McGowan, Township High School District 211

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Everybody take a deep, cleansing breath. Pull in the air until you can’t pull in any more. Now let it out slowly. Feel that? That’s relief. That’s the wonderful, overwhelming sensation that comes with knowing that Jonathan Toews is OK. That he is not in the grips of a debilitating disease that will cost him his life.

The Blackhawks captain, the team’s beating heart, released a video Wednesday morning and put a name to the illness that kept him off the ice last season and us in the dark: Chronic Immune Response Syndrome (CIRS). It’s a condition associated with exposure to biotoxins, such as mold. Most people’s bodies can process biotoxins. Those with CIRS can’t, causing immune-system dysfunction.

“There’s a lot of things that piled up, where my body just fell apart,” Toews said in the video, which he put on Twitter. “… I just couldn’t quite recover, and my immune system was reacting to everything that I did — any kind of stress, anything that I would do throughout the day, there was always that stress response.

“I took some time, and that was the frustrating part — not really knowing when or how we were going to get over the hump. But thankfully I’ve got a great support team of people that helped me through it, and [I] learned a lot about the stress I put on my body over the years.”

Toews has started skating at the Hawks’ practice facility and signaled that he plans to play next season. Some of you might accuse me of burying the news — he’s going to play again! — but that’s a very, very distant second in the importance department. No. 1 is that he’s still with us and that it appears he’s healthy.

“I appreciate all the support,” he said. “A lot of people were worried, and I definitely felt bad to a certain degree that people were that worried that they thought it was really serious, but in the back of my mind, I knew I’d get through it. It was just a matter of time.”

I’m not sure I understand why he didn’t let the public know of his diagnosis earlier, but that was his right. It’s his life, his body and his condition. Perhaps it took him all this time to feel comfortable with what he had. Maybe he couldn’t process what was happening to a body that had helped bring the Hawks three Stanley Cup titles.

But I can’t tell you how many times over the past six months I heard whispers that Toews had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal illness. That’s how the world works. Somebody always knows somebody who says they know something. Before you know it, Toews is on his deathbed, and we’re wondering if Last Rites is capitalized or not.

We can dismiss all of it as silly now, but at the time, there was nothing silly about it.

The Hawks were never going to tell us what Toews’ condition was, even if they knew it. There are laws against that sort of thing, of course, but secrecy is as part of hockey as much as smelly locker rooms are. (Secrecy might be why they’re facing two lawsuits over an alleged sexual-assault cover-up.) You couldn’t even get an upper- or lower-body designation out of them. Given what Toews’ malady turned out to be, they would have listed “body” as the injury.

It doesn’t matter now. It was great to see Toews on that video Wednesday, sounding like Toews, skating like Toews, being serious like Toews. For 13 seasons, the Hawks — and us — were blessed with his presence, and when that presence went away, it was a massive physical and emotional void. How are you supposed to skate with one leg? That’s how it felt.

Toews didn’t talk about the challenges his illness might present as he works back into playing shape. But all of that is background noise, a discussion for another day. He’s better now. That’s all that matters. We saw, with our own eyes, that he’s OK. Toews or someone else was smart enough to understand the importance of his showing himself to fans and media in a video. For too long, there was nothing visual to make us feel better about the superstar. Now we see. Now we believe.

So take another deep breath and let the relief wash over you, Blackhawks fans. Your captain, the player who always seemed to do the right thing at the right time, is back among you. And life is good.

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Nearly 16 months into the pandemic, COVID-19 is still finding insidious new ways to invade and devastate the human body.

Front of mind for public health officials in Chicago and beyond is the Delta variant of the coronavirus, which already accounts for more than 20% of new cases across the United States and “is likely to be our dominant strain here in the next couple of months,” according to Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady.

Lea este articulo en espanol en La Voz Chicago, un servicio presentado por AARP Chicago.

Overall case counts have bottomed out across Illinois as 69% of eligible residents have gotten at least one vaccine dose, but Gov. J.B. Pritzker is pleading for remaining unvaccinated residents to get a life-saving jab because Delta surges in other countries “are a harbinger of what could happen here.”

It’s hard to say how bad a wave of Delta variant cases could get, but experts say the solution is simple: Get more shots into arms.

Here’s a quick rundown of the latest focus of the pandemic, why experts are so concerned about it, and what it means for Illinois residents:

Where did the Delta variant come from?

It was termed the B.1.617.2 variant when it was first detected late last year in India, where it now makes up the vast majority of cases in that nation’s ongoing, devastating surge.

It’s one of the thousands of variants that form through genetic mutation while the virus has replicated billions of times, according to Dr. Michael Angarone, an associate professor of medicine and infectious disease specialist at Northwestern Medicine.

“As they replicate, that genetic material makes mistakes. It’s like if you type too fast, you’re going to miss a letter,” Angarone said.

Why is it dangerous?

Most variants are inconsequential, but some — like Delta — have proven to spread more easily. That’s what landed it on the list of several “variants of concern” highlighted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Delta variant is unique because its so-called spike proteins allow it to more strongly latch onto cells in the respiratory and circulatory systems, Angarone said.

The previously identified U.K. variant of the virus, which now makes up the majority of cases in the U.S., was about twice as infectious as the original form of the virus that swept the globe. The Delta variant could be up to 60% more infectious on top of that.

“It spreads so easily, even potentially outdoors,” said University of Chicago epidemiologist Dr. Emily Landon. “It’s a huge problem for unvaccinated individuals.”

Angarone said experts are most concerned about a variant springing from a variant, which hasn’t yet happened on a large scale. “That’s when you start to get big changes in how the virus operates — can it bypass the vaccine immunity?”

So do COVID-19 vaccines protect against the Delta variant?

Yes, though they’re slightly less effective against it. Research has shown the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are about 88% effective in preventing Delta cases, compared to 95% efficacy against the original strain of the virus. Another study suggested a similarly slight decrease in effectiveness for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

“Either way, the vaccines are still going to help protect people from ending up in the hospital,” Landon said.

Does the Delta variant make people more sick?

Some research has suggested the strain causes more severe symptoms and potentially a new one — hearing loss — but that’s still being studied.

How many Delta cases have been detected in Illinois?

The Illinois Department of Public Health has identified 103 cases, but that’s only a sliver of the actual total. Just a small fraction of positive cases are evaluated to see if they’re a variant case. From that figure, experts can extrapolate that there are “way more cases,” Landon said, likely thousands.

“The question is, will it take a foothold? Probably, among unvaccinated individuals,” she said.

I’m fully vaccinated. Should I be worried?

Probably not, unless you’re in a largely unvaccinated community that sees a severe outbreak.

That means it’s unlikely there’ll be a massive statewide surge in cases like the early months of the pandemic, not to mention the vicious resurgence Illinois suffered last fall.

Provided

“The vaccines are the walls that keep things contained,” Landon said. “But can one community become completely decimated by the Delta variant, in a neighborhood, in a church? Absolutely. Some areas are going to blow up. Will it overwhelm our health care system? Probably not.”

Angarone said even with the dangerous variants, COVID-19 will more likely end up “kind of like influenza, with a substantial number of people who get really sick, but nowhere near what we saw in early and mid periods of the pandemic.”

“What’s probably going to happen is we have enough immunity to protect most people, but see patches of outbreaks. But this pandemic has taught us that our crystal ball predictions are often wrong,” Angarone said.

How the Delta virus plays out in the U.K. over the next few weeks “will be telling,” he added.

I’ve already recovered from COVID-19. Should I be worried?

Very much so, if you’re not vaccinated. “These specific variants are especially suited to overcome immunity from a recovery,” Landon warned. “You’re certainly less protected.”

Does this mean I should keep masking up, even though the CDC has said it’s generally OK for fully vaccinated people to go maskless?

You’re not required to in Chicago or elsewhere in Illinois in most situations — but it couldn’t hurt.

The World Health Organization updated its guidance last week recommending vaccinated people keep wearing masks to help stem the Delta spread, but Arwady, Chicago’s health commissioner, said the city is sticking with the looser CDC guidelines because the virus is “in very good control locally, even with the Delta here.”

Landon said there’s “no black and white when it comes to prevention, but if we all wore masks inside, it would be much less likely to spread. I think wearing masks inside would be prudent right now. It’s probably not essential, but I wouldn’t throw away your mask yet. Keep thinking about your fellow man.”

What else should I do to help keep the Delta variant at bay?

The golden rules of the pandemic still stand.

“We have to use our sense of what we’re doing and who we’re going to be around,” Angarone said. “Wearing a mask and keeping distance — it’s still very helpful and will apply until we get this completely under control. And our most powerful tool is getting more people vaccinated.”

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With millions of people having stayed home from places of worship during the coronavirus pandemic, struggling congregations are wondering: How many of them will return?

As the pandemic recedes in the United States and in-person services resume, worries of a deepening slide in attendance are universal.

Some houses of worship won’t make it.

Smaller ones with older congregations that struggled to adapt during the pandemic are in the greatest danger, said the Rev. Gloria E. White-Hammond, a lecturer at the Harvard Divinity School who is co-pastor of a church in Boston.

On the Maine coast, the pandemic proved to be the last straw for the 164-year-old Waldoboro United Methodist Church.

Even before COVID-19 swept the world, weekly attendance had dipped to 25 or 30 at the white-clapboard New England church that could hold several hundred worshipers. The number further dwindled to five or six before the final service was held Sunday, said the Rev. Gregory Foster.

The remaining congregants realized they couldn’t continue to maintain the structur, and decided to fold the tent, Foster said.

“We can’t entirely blame everything on COVID,” he said. “But that was just the final blow. Some people have not been back at all.”

Robert F. Bukaty / AP

In Virginia, the Mount Clifton United Methodist Church had a similar fate. The church could seat more than 100. But the number of weekly worshipers dwindled to 10 to 15 even before the pandemic.

Now, the small church built on a hill in the Shenandoah Valley in the 1880s might be rented to another congregation or sold.

“The pandemic was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said the Rev. Darlene Wilkins, who oversaw Mount Clifton. “It just became next to impossible to sustain.”

In the United States, where for decades a dwindlingr share of the population has identified as being religious, about three-quarters of Americans who attended religious services in person at least monthly before the pandemic now say they are likely to do so again in the next few weeks, according to a recent AP-NORC poll. That’s up slightly from the about two-thirds who said in May 2020 that they would if allowed to do so. But 7% said they definitely won’t be attending.

Those findings are in line with a Pew Research Center survey of U.S. residents last summer that found that 92% of people who regularly attend religious services expected to continue at the same or higher rate, with 7% saying they will attend in-person services less often.

Congregations that are successful in reemerging from the pandemic will likely be those that did a better job adapting, White-Hammond said.

According to the Pew poll, eight in 10 congregants surveyed said their services were being streamed online.

Congregations that kept a connection with their members and relied less for donations on physical presence — for instance, the passing of the donation plate — stand a better chance of emerging unscathed, White-Hammond said.

In Charlotte, North Carolina, Temple Beth El was closed during the pandemic but kept congregants in touch through events like a bread-making “challah day.” Volunteers baked more than 900 loaves and delivered them to people for their Shabbat meals.

There will be no returning to “normal” after the pandemic, said Temple Beth-El Rabbi Dusty Klass. “There were people who went home and may never come back to the sanctuary. They may just pray from their couch. It’s up to us to make sure they have the opportunity.”

The All Dulles Area Muslim Society, whose main campus is in Sterling, Virginia, has reopened some of its 11 locations to worshipers with safety measures.

“If COVID is gone 100%, I firmly believe our community would be fully back because people crave … to be together,” said Rizwan Jaka, the society’s chair of interfaith and media relations.

In San Francisco, historic Old St. Mary’s Cathedral survived when members rebuilt after a fire following the 1906 earthquake but has struggled during the pandemic. The 160-year-old Roman Catholic church, heavily dependent on older worshipers and tourists, lost most of its revenue after parishes closed during the pandemic. The Rev. John Ardis dismissed most of the lay staff, cut the salary of a priest and closed the parish preschool.

The plaster is crumbling, the paint is peeling, and dozens of stained-glass windows need to be replaced.

“But those are secondary at the moment,” Ardis said. “Because I’m just basically trying to trying to keep the doors open.”

In Maine, the final service last Sunday at Waldoboro was emotional, as nearly 60 people gathered in the sanctuary, and Foster preached about new beginnings and encouraged people to continue their faith.

Judy Grant, 77, who was a newcomer to Waldoboro. said some hope the building will come alive again with a new congregation: “We have to be positive — and pray.”

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PHILADELPHIA — Bill Cosby has been freed from prison after Pennsylvania’s highest court overturned his sexual assault conviction.

It is a stunning reversal of fortune for the comedian once known as “America’s Dad.”

The state Supreme court said Wednesday that the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby.

The 83-year-old Cosby served nearly three years of a three- to 10-year sentence after being found guilty of drugging and violating Temple University sports administrator Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. He was the first celebrity tried and convicted in the #MeToo era.

The former “Cosby Show” star was arrested in 2015, when a district attorney armed with newly unsealed evidence — the comic’s damaging deposition testimony in a lawsuit brought by Constand — brought charges against him days before the 12-year statute of limitations ran out.

But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said that District Attorney Kevin Steele, who made the decision to arrest Cosby, was obligated to stand by his predecessor’s promise not to charge Cosby. There was no evidence that promise was ever put in writing.

Justice David Wecht, writing for a split court, said Cosby had relied on the former district attorney’s decision not to charge him when the comedian gave his potentially incriminating testimony in the Constand’s civil case.

The court called Cosby’s arrest “an affront to fundamental fairness, particularly when it results in a criminal prosecution that was forgone for more than a decade.”

The justices said that overturning the conviction, and barring any further prosecution, “is the only remedy that comports with society’s reasonable expectations of its elected prosecutors and our criminal justice system.”

A Cosby spokesman did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Nor did a Steele representative, Constand or her lawyer.

“FINALLY!!!! A terrible wrong is being righted — a miscarriage of justice is corrected!’ the actor’s “Cosby Show” co-star Phylicia Rashad tweeted.

“I am furious to hear this news,” actor Amber Tamblyn, a founder of Time’s Up, an advocacy group for victims of sexual assault, said in a Twitter post. “I personally know women who this man drugged and raped while unconscious. Shame on the court and this decision.”

Four judges formed the majority that ruled in Cosby’s favor, while three others dissented in whole or in part.

Even though Cosby was charged only with the assault on Constand, the trial judge allowed five other accusers to testify that they, too, were similarly victimized by Cosby in the 1980s. Prosecutors called them as witnesses to establish what they said was a pattern of criminal behavior on Cosby’s part.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices voiced concern about what they saw as the judiciary’s increasing tendency to allow testimony that crosses the line into character attacks. State law allows “prior bad acts” testimony only in limited cases, including to show a crime pattern so specific it serves to identify the perpetrator.

But the court declined to say whether five other accusers should have been allowed to testify, considering it moot given the finding that Cosby should not have been prosecuted in the first place.

In New York, the judge presiding over last year’s trial of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, whose case had sparked the explosion of the #MeToo movement in 2017, let four other accusers testify. Weinstein was convicted and sentenced to 23 years in prison. He is now facing separate charges in California.

In May, Cosby was denied paroled after refusing to participate in sex offender programs behind bars. He has long said he would resist the treatment programs and refuse to acknowledge wrongdoing even if it means serving the full 10-year sentence.

Prosecutors said Cosby repeatedly used his fame and “family man” persona to manipulate young women, holding himself out as a mentor before betraying them.

Cosby, a groundbreaking Black actor who grew up in public housing in Philadelphia, made a fortune estimated at $400 million during his 50 years in the entertainment industry. His trademark clean comedy fueled popular TV shows, books and standup acts.

He fell from favor in his later years as he lectured the Black community about family values, but was attempting a comeback when he was arrested.

The AP does not typically identify sexual assault victims without their permission, which Constand has granted.

___

Follow Maryclaire Dale on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Maryclairedale

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