What’s New

Eric Williams, the owner of the Silver Room in Hyde Park, made the announcement Monday.

One of the main events on summer’s social calendar for many Black Chicagoans — particularly South Siders — is gone for 2021.

The Silver Room Block Club Party, which normally takes place in July, is canceled for consecutive summers amid COVID-19 and business concerns.

Eric Williams, the owner of the Silver Room in Hyde Park, made the announcement Monday on the podcast “Randomly Selected.”

He attributes the 2021 cancelation to rising COVID-19 cases and the lack of business due to the pandemic, which slowed the preparation for the Block Party down to a halt.

On Sunday, state health officials announced 2,942 new and probable COVID-19 cases, bringing statewide pandemic totals to 1,279,772 cases.

“These events take about a year to plan,” said Williams, adding he didn’t want to rush an event so many Chicagoans look forward to. “Usually, I’ll start thinking about the Block Party in September; it’s always the third Saturday in July. Come September, you’re thinking about the following year. You have to think about who’s performing, start trying to secure equipment and all the logistics — it’s too much to do in two months.

“And because we were closed — the retail store — for almost three months, my focus was getting my store back open, and getting that business going. So many retail stores have closed especially the ones that are in the Black community.”

Later in the podcast, host Mario Smith asked Williams if the popular event intends to stay in Hyde Park after the previous iteration was hosted in Wicker Park.

Williams’ reply: “I don’t know.”

And what can longtime fans of the annual Block Party do to possibly ensure an event for 2022?

Williams encourages them to schedule their COVID-19 vaccine appointments.

“I think we have to get through this pandemic first and foremost,” said Williams. “For those who want to get vaccinated, go ahead and do that. For those who don’t, let’s make sure that we would be safe. I think we’ll be in a lot better place next year. We’re still in a place where some people don’t feel comfortable going out. And, also, there’s no way you can have social distancing at the Block Party — it’s just impossible. Because of the increased crowd size the last several years, there’s going to be even more people coming, so let me take the year off and really think about how this can look the next year.”

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The Chicago Blackhawks were a busy franchise over the last week. They made two trades with the Florida Panthers in the days leading up to the NHL Trade Deadline and did very well in both. Then the actual trade deadline came and went. They were one of the most active teams on that day as […]

Chicago Blackhawks: The two trades that were never made – Da Windy City – Da Windy City – A Chicago Sports Site – Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, Fighting Illini & More

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No one else was killed or wounded at Austin-East Magnet High School in Knoxville, a city about 180 miles east of Nashville, police said. A male has been detained.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Police faced gunfire as they responded to reports of a possible gunman at a Tennessee high school Monday, leaving one person dead and an officer wounded, authorities said.

No one else was killed or wounded at Austin-East Magnet High School in Knoxville, a city about 180 miles east of Nashville, police said. A male has been detained. Police said they responded to the school around 3:15 p.m. and when they encountered a male with a gun, shots were fired.

“Upon approach of the subject, shots were fired,” Knoxville Police Department posted on Facebook. “A Knoxville Police officer was struck at least one time and transported to the hospital with injuries that are not expected to be life-threatening.”

Speaking from outside a hospital, Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon told WATE-TV that she spoke with the wounded officer and that he was conscious and in good spirits.

The police post said a male died at the school, which is not far from the city’s zoo and Interstate 40. A map of the neighborhood shows the school is in a residential area near some churches.

Three students from Austin-East Magnet High School have been shot to death away from the campus less than three weeks apart this year, police said. Administrators have said students felt the arts magnet school was a safe space, according to a story in the Knoxville News Sentinel.

State Rep. Sam McKenzie, who represents the district and went to the school, said in a statement, “I am at a loss to describe my sadness as yet another horrific act of gun violence has happened in my community,” urging the community to “reclaim the sanctity of our beloved neighborhood.”

“This is the fourth unnecessary shooting involving the Austin East community this year and we must make sure we take every step and make every effort to prevent these tragedies from continuing to occur,” McKenzie aid.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said it was sending agents to the school.

Gov. Bill Lee mentioned the shooting at a news conference but said he had little information.

“I just wanted to make reference to that and ask, for those who are watching, online or otherwise, to pray for that situation and for the families and the victims that might be affected by that in our state,” he said.

Last week, the Republican governor signed legislation that will make Tennessee the latest state to allow most adults 21 and older to carry handguns — openly or concealed — without first clearing a background check and training. Lee backed the legislation over objections from law enforcement groups, who argued that the state’s existing permit system provided an important safeguard for knowing who should or shouldn’t be carrying a gun.

The law, which does not apply to long guns, will take effect July 1. The new measure also increases certain penalties. For example, theft of a firearm — now a misdemeanor that carries a 30-day sentence — will become a felony with a mandatory six month incarceration. It also makes exceptions for people with certain mental illnesses and criminal convictions.

When asked earlier this year whether recent mass shootings in Georgia, Colorado and others gave him any concern about timing, Lee has previously said the increased penalties mean that “we in fact will be strengthening laws that would help prevent gun crimes in the future.”

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That’s the case nationally even as more men are dying of the disease.

Mary Ann Steiner drove 2½ hours from her home in the St. Louis suburb of University City to the tiny Ozark town of Centerville, Missouri, to get vaccinated against COVID-19. After pulling into the drive-thru line in a church parking lot, she noticed something.

“Everyone in the very short line was a woman,” said Steiner, 70.

Nationally, more women than men are getting coronavirus shots even as more men are dying of the disease.

KHN examined vaccination dashboards for all 50 states and Washington, D.C., in early April and found that each of the 38 that listed gender breakdowns showed more women had gotten shots than men.

Public health experts cite many reasons for the difference, including that women make up three-quarters of the workforce in health care and education, which were prioritized for initial vaccines.

Women’s longer life spans also mean that older people in the first rounds of vaccine eligibility were more likely to be female. But, as eligibility expands to all adults, the gap has continued. Experts point to women’s roles as caregivers and their greater likelihood to seek preventive health care in general as factors.

In Steiner’s case, her daughter spent hours on the phone and computer, scoping out and setting up vaccine appointments for five relatives.

“In my family, the women are about a million times more proactive” about getting a COVID shot, Steiner said. “The females in families are often the ones who are more proactive about the health of the family.”

As of early April, the vaccine breakdown between women and men generally was close to 60% and 40%. States don’t measure vaccinations by gender uniformly, though. Some break down the statistics by total vaccine doses, for example, and others report people who have gotten at least one dose. Some states also have a separate category for nonbinary people or those whose gender is unknown.

A handful of states report gender vaccination statistics over time. That data show the gap has narrowed but hasn’t disappeared as vaccine eligibility has expanded beyond people in long-term care and health care workers.

In Kentucky, for instance, 64% of those who had received at least one dose of vaccine by early February were women and 36% were men. As of early April, the figures had shifted to 57% women and 43% men.

In Rhode Island — one of the states furthest along in rolling out the vaccines, with nearly a quarter of the population fully vaccinated — the gap has narrowed from 30 percentage points (65% women and 35% men) the week of Dec. 13 to 18 points (59% women and 41% men) the week of March 21.

A few states break the numbers down by age as well as gender, revealing that the male-female difference persists across age groups. In South Carolina, for example, the gender breakdown of vaccine recipients as of April 4 was slightly wider for younger people: 61% of vaccinated people ages 25-34 were women compared with 57% female for age 65 and older.

Dr. Elvin Geng, a professor at the medical school at Washington University in St. Louis, said women of all age groups, races and ethnicities generally use health services more than men — one reason they live longer.

Arrianna Planey, an assistant professor who specializes in medical geography at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, said it’s often women who manage medical appointments for their households so they may be more familiar with navigating health systems.

Decades of research have documented how and why men are less likely to seek care. A 2019 study in the American Journal of Men’s Health examined health care use in religious heterosexual men and concluded that masculine norms — such as a perception that they are supposed to be tough — were the main reason many men avoided seeking care.

Attitudes about the pandemic and the vaccines also affect who gets vaccinated.

Dr. Rebecca Wurtz, director of public health administration and policy at the University of Minnesota, said women have been more likely to lose jobs during the pandemic, and in many cases bear the brunt of teaching and caring for children at home.

“Women are ready for this to be done even more than men are,” Wurtz said.

Political attitudes also play a part in people’s views on coping with the pandemic, experts say. A Gallup Poll last year found that, among Democrats and Republicans alike, women were more likely to say they took precautions to avoid COVID, such as always practicing physical distancing and wearing masks indoors when they couldn’t stay six feet from others.

In a recent national poll by KFF, 29% of Republicans and 5% of Democrats said they definitely wouldn’t get the shot.

Paul Niehaus IV of St. Louis, who described himself as an independent libertarian with conservative leanings, said he won’t get a coronavirus shot. He said the federal government, along with Big Tech and Big Pharma, are pushing an experimental medicine not fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and he doesn’t trust those institutions.

“This is a civil liberties issue,” said Niehaus, 34, a self-employed musician. “My motto is: ‘Let people choose.’ ”

Steiner, who plans to retire at the end of the month from editing a magazine for the Catholic Health Association, said she was eager to be vaccinated. She has an immune disorder that puts her at high risk from COVID and hasn’t seen some of her grandchildren in a year and a half.

But she said some of the men in her life were willing to wait longer for the shots, and a few nephews haven’t wanted them. She said her brother, who’s 65, got the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine in early April after her daughter arranged it for him.

Steiner, who has received both doses of the Moderna vaccine, said she doesn’t regret taking the more difficult step of traveling five hours round trip to get her first shot in February. She found a closer location for her second dose.

“It’s for my safety, for my kids’ safety, for my neighbors’ safety, for the people who go to my church’s safety,” she said. “I really don’t understand the resistance.”

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues.

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Seth Stoughton, a professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law, judged Chauvin’s actions against what a reasonable officer in the same situation would have done, and repeatedly found that Chauvin did not meet the test.

MINNEAPOLIS — Prosecutors’ case against former Officer Derek Chauvin drew toward a close Monday with tender memories from George Floyd’s younger brother and damaging testimony from a police use-of-force expert who said no “reasonable” officer would have done what Chauvin did.

Seth Stoughton, a professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law, judged Chauvin’s actions against what a reasonable officer in the same situation would have done, and repeatedly found that Chauvin did not meet the test.

“No reasonable officer would have believed that that was an appropriate, acceptable or reasonable use of force,” Stoughton said of the way Floyd was held facedown with a knee across his neck for up to 9 minutes, 29 seconds.

He said, too, that the failure to roll Floyd over and render aid “as his increasing medical distress became obvious” was unreasonable.

He said it was unreasonable as well to think that Floyd might harm officers or escape after he had been handcuffed to the ground. And in yet another blow to Chauvin’s defense, Stoughton said a reasonable officer would not have viewed the yelling bystanders as a threat.

The matter of what is reasonable carries great weight: Police officers are allowed certain latitude to use deadly force when someone puts the officer or other people in danger. But legal experts say a key question for the jury will be whether Chauvin’s actions were reasonable in those specific circumstances.

On cross-examination, Chauvin attorney Eric Nelson questioned Stoughton’s opinion that putting Floyd on his stomach was itself unreasonable and excessive.

“Reasonable minds can disagree, agreed?” Nelson asked.

“On this particular point, no,” the witness said.

Prosecutors are expected to rest their case on Tuesday, after which the defense will begin presenting its side. During 11 days of testimony, prosecution experts, including the Minneapolis police chief and medical professionals, said that the now-fired white officer violated his training and used excessive force and that Floyd died from a lack of oxygen because of the way his breathing was constricted.

Earlier in the day Monday, Philonise Floyd, 39, took the witness stand and lovingly recalled how his older brother used to make the best banana mayonnaise sandwiches, how George drilled him in catching a football, and the way George used to mark his height on the wall as a boy because he wanted to grow taller.

He shed tears as he was shown a picture of his late mother and a young George, saying, “I miss both of them.”

His testimony at Chauvin’s murder trial was part of an effort by prosecutors to humanize George Floyd in front of the jury and make the 46-year-old Black man more than a crime statistic. Minnesota is a rarity in allowing “spark of life” testimony during the trial stage.

Philonise Floyd described growing up in a poor area of Houston with George and their other siblings.

He said Floyd played football and deliberately threw the ball at different angles so Philonise would have to practice diving for it. “I always thought my brother couldn’t throw. But he never intended to throw the ball to me,” he said, smiling.

Earlier Monday, Judge Peter Cahill rejected a defense request to immediately sequester the jury, the morning after the killing of a Black man during a traffic stop triggered unrest in a suburb just outside Minneapolis.

Chauvin’s attorney had argued that the jurors could be influenced by the prospect of what might happen as a result of their verdict.

But the judge said he will not sequester the jury until next Monday, when he expects closing arguments to begin. He also denied a defense request to question jurors about what they might have seen about Sunday’s police shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center.

In the wake of the shooting, hundreds of protesters broke into about 20 businesses, jumped on police cars and hurled rocks and other objects at officers in Brooklyn Center, about 10 miles from the heavily fortified Minneapolis courthouse.

The Brooklyn Center police chief later called the shooting accidental, saying the officer who fired apparently meant to draw a Taser, not a handgun.

Prosecutor Steve Schleicher argued against sequestering the Chauvin jury and also apposed questioning the jurors, saying: “We can’t have every single world event that might affect somebody’s attitude or emotional state or anything be the grounds to come back and re-voir dire all the jurors.”

The judge previously told the jury to avoid news during the trial.

Stoughton, the use-of-force expert, said the officers who subdued Floyd should have known he was not trying to attack them when he struggled and frantically said he was claustrophobic as they tried to put him in a squad car.

“I don’t see him presenting a threat of anything,” Stoughton said, adding that no reasonable officer would conclude otherwise.

Stoughton also pointed to instances when Chauvin should have been aware of Floyd’s growing distress: After one officer suggested rolling Floyd onto his side, Chauvin said no. The 19-year police veteran ignored bystanders who were shouting that Floyd was not responsive. And when another officer said Floyd didn’t have a pulse, Stoughton said, Chauvin’s response was “Huh.”

Stoughton’s testimony is similar to that offered by previous witnesses but it is framed from the perspective of what a reasonable officer should have done.

Mike Brandt, a local defense attorney closely watching the case, said Philonise Floyd’s testimony was irrelevant to whether Chauvin caused Floyd’s death, “but it certainly plays on the sympathy of the jury.” He said Stoughton’s testimony gave prosecutors an opportunity to leave the jury “with one more image of the video” of Floyd pleading for his life.

“It was the parting shot by the state,” Brandt said.

Earlier Monday, Dr. Jonathan Rich, a cardiology expert from Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, echoed previous witnesses in saying Floyd died of low oxygen levels from the way he was held down by police.

He rejected defense theories that Floyd died of a drug overdose or a heart condition. Floyd had fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system, high blood pressure and narrowing of the heart arteries, according to previous testimony.

“It was the truly the prone restraint and positional restraints that led to his asphyxiation,” Rich said.

In fact, the expert said, “Every indicator is that Mr. Floyd had actually an exceptionally strong heart.”

On cross-examination, Nelson tried to shift blame onto Floyd, asking if Floyd would have survived had he “simply gotten in the back seat of the squad car.”

But Rich rejected that line of argument: “Had he not been restrained in the way in which he was, I think he would have survived that day. I think he would have gone home, or wherever he was going to go.”

Chauvin’s attorney is expected to call his own medical experts to make the case that it was not the officer’s knee that killed Floyd. The defense has not said whether Chauvin will testify.

___

Webber reported from Fenton, Michigan.

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The Hawks traded Mattias Janmark for second- and third-round picks, Carl Soderberg for a prospect, Madison Bowey for a pick upgrade and Matthew Highmore for Adam Gaudette.

The Blackhawks were the NHL’s busiest team on deadline day.

General manager Stan Bowman swung four trades Monday to accompany his two trades over the past few weeks, all designed to accumulate as prospects and draft picks as possible.

“We did what we set out to do,” he said. “It’s really consistent with what we’ve been trying to do going back to the offseason: we’re trying to rebuild our asset pool.”

Bowman successfully dealt both of his notable pending unrestricted free agents Monday, trading Mattias Janmark to the Golden Knights and Carl Soderberg to the Avalanche.

The Hawks received two high draft picks — a 2021 second-rounder and 2022 third-rounder — in exchange for Janmark and a 2022 fifth-rounder. The Soderberg trade netted prospect forward Ryder Rolston and minor-leaguer Josh Dickinson.

Bowman also traded twice with the Canucks, swapping bottom-six forwards Matthew Highmore and Adam Gaudette and using defenseman Madison Bowey to upgrade a 2021 fifth-round pick to the fourth round.

Adding in the two earlier trades with the Panthers — which used some depth players and cap space to acquire an intriguing prospect in Henrik Borgstrom as well as three possibly useful NHL guys — Bowman adeptly if quietly improved the Hawks’ future without giving up anything of long-term significance.

“We’re trying to build our team back up,” he said. “We’re taking steps this year by giving young players larger opportunities, and many have really run with it… [And] we’ve brought in some other young players that are not in the league, who are still in juniors or in Europe, but will be trending into the league pretty soon. We want to see how that sorts itself out.”

Breaking down trades

The Janmark trade was Bowman’s biggest and best move Monday.

Janmark had been a decent producer for the Hawks this year, scoring 19 points in 41 games, but his on-ice shot-attempt ratio was the worst on the team. He was never expected to be more than a brief visitor to Chicago.

His value seemed roughly equivalent to a third-round pick entering the day, so to receive a third-round pick and have it be not even the highest selection involved was impressive.

“Mattias has had a very good year for us, so there were a number of teams that were calling on him,” Bowman said. “Ultimately, we found the best deal with Vegas.”

Gaudette is the one asset the Hawks added Monday who fans will see this season. The Hawks view him as the superior player in the like-for-like exchange. He’s one year younger, has played 47 more NHL games and has much more offensive upside than Highmore.

The 24-year-old tallied a sizable 33 points for the Canucks last season, and his struggles this season made him an appealing buy-low candidate. The Hawks also like that he’s a right-handed center — all of their other centers besides Kirby Dach are left-handed.

“We certainly see the potential in what he brings to the table,” Bowman said. “He had a really good year last year. We’re trying to recapture some of that.”

A serious COVID-19 case disrupted his season, but he’s now healthy and should be “all systems go” upon arrival, Bowman said. He will be a restricted free agent this summer but the Hawks will likely re-sign him.

Rolston, meanwhile, is a project prospect. Drafted in the fifth round by the Avs last year, he just finished his freshman year at Notre Dame, where the Hawks saw him often while scouting existing prospect Landon Slaggert.

The son of longtime NHL forward Brian Ralston, he scored only six points in 28 games this season but has raw attributes, especially speed, that fit the NHL prototype.

“When you go to watch Notre Dame play, you’ll notice him,” Bowman said. “He’s a pretty good-sized kid who really can skate. As far as putting the whole game together…there’s more there.”

‘Strange’ NHL market

The Hawks were part of four of the mere 17 trades — the fewest since 2013 — processed around the NHL on Monday. This year’s flat salary cap and relative lack of playoff “bubble” teams reduced the urgency and activity.

Most interestingly, returns didn’t seem to match up from one trade to the next.

The Sabres moved this year’s biggest fish, Taylor Hall, to the Bruins on Sunday for the underwhelming duo of a second-round pick and Anders Bjork. Yet the Red Wings made a late splash Monday by dealing Anthony Mantha to the Capitals for a huge package that included Jakub Vrana, Richard Panik and first- and second-round picks.

“It was a little strange in the sense that some deals didn’t match others,” Bowman said. “And that’s because the teams in [contending] situations were really focused on one or two players.”

Bowman didn’t take on another team’s bad contract (beyond Connolly) for a sweetener, although that could still happen this summer. He also didn’t trade defenseman Nikita Zadorov, whose reported availability created some buzz.

In keeping Zadorov and trading away Bowey — signed in January largely for expansion draft insurance — Bowman signaled the Hawks will almost certainly leave Calvin de Haan exposed to the Seattle Kraken this summer.

And looking ahead to the summer, Bowman foresees more of this maneuvering for the future — but is pleased by the progress made over the past year.

“We have more NHL players today than we did eight months ago,” he said. “Some players that are here now might not be here as we move forward, if we can turn them into something even better or turn them into something we don’t have enough of. This process is ongoing. We’re not moving onto a different stage of our team [evolution]. But I like the direction we’re headed.”

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A group of unmarried women decide to encloister together on an idyllic estate inherited by their ringleader, Lady Happy. No men are allowed on the premises at any time. The women’s chambers are lush and seasonally thematic. There are fresh flowers everywhere and the wine never stops flowing. Only the choicest cuts of meat are served. Every room has the perfect selfie mirror. And again–no men allowed.

What sounds like an amalgamation of a modern-day women’s communal utopia, the campiest and most luxurious you can imagine, was actually the brainchild of Margaret Cavendish, a 17th-century author and philosopher. Which means that for more than three centuries, women have been in pursuit of pleasure unadulterated by men, however “modern” that idea might seem now.

On April 4, Ghostlight Ensemble broadcast The Convent of Pleasure, written by Cavendish and published in 1668, as the first in their new reading series, For Your (Re)Consideration, which explores the works of historically overlooked female playwrights.

Cavendish’s play is the first of what will be weekly Sunday readings broadcast through May 2, and all performances will be available for streaming on-demand through May 9. In addition to being an overlooked, female-written script, The Convent of Pleasure, as Ghostlight emphasizes, is a queer, nonbinary narrative, too; Lady Happy falls in love with a woman, a princess who arrives at the convent and who inexplicably becomes a prince at the end of the play.

“We’re gathering together as a community to tell some really important and impactful stories and celebrate the narratives of the unheard and overlooked throughout history,” says Andrew Coopman, a Seattle-based storytelling interdisciplinary artist, who directed The Convent of Pleasure for Ghostlight. “The sharing of this piece wasn’t about the performance, it was about the sharing and celebration of this narrative that had been overlooked.”

The Convent of Pleasure was never performed during Cavendish’s lifetime (she died in 1673), meaning that–even for the play’s author–the play wasn’t exactly about performance, so much as it was about the opportunity to gather together and discuss the various sexy and heady themes Cavendish explores: marriage, sexuality, power, performance, and more. It was originally written by Cavendish as a closet drama, the formatting of which translated perfectly to the Zoom platform.

“Translating Convent of Pleasure to online performance was really centered in this idea of: how do we make it campy and fun?” Coopman says. “As a closet drama, it was about a group of Margaret Cavendish’s closest friends gathering in the parlor, probably with some sherry, and reading this play together, and having a good time doing it. And so for us it was like, ‘Well, let’s just gather online and get campy and get creative and tell this story.'”

Coopman says the campy approach they took to the script allowed for more heartfelt conversations around the play’s subject matter amongst the cast. Cavendish published this play under her own name–a rarity for the time–but as much as it’s groundbreaking for both its authorship and subject matter, it is not without its problematic aspects, Coopman said.

“This beautiful romance comedy about two women falling in love is suddenly overtaken by Margaret’s husband in the fourth act for no explicit reason,” Coopman explains. Two sections of the play are denoted as “Written by My Lord Duke.”

“Maybe he was embarrassed by this love story that his wife wrote, who knows?” Coopman says. “Maybe Margaret was experiencing real questions about her gender identity. I think that’s where the idea of queer identity not being a revolutionary idea of the 1980s and the rise of the AIDS epidemic comes in. Queer humans have been here throughout history. We’ve always been here, we’ve always been queer, and it’s time for our stories to get told.”

“I’m immensely collaborative in my work,” Coopman says. “I consider myself a very collaborative director that welcomes the creativity of all the artists to the table, and [what resulted] was the manifestation of creativity and conversation about this play from 1668, centered in the goal of having fun.”

Ghostlight Ensemble member Holly Robison curated the (Re)Consideration series after initially having the idea a few years ago, which is when she first came across The Enchantment by Victoria Benedictsson, who was said to be an inspiration for the much-lauded Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, as well as August Strindberg’s Miss Julie. As a performer and burgeoning director, Robison said she was inspired to seek out more female playwrights and scripts by women that would inevitably include varied and dynamic female roles, rather than just one great female character of a man’s creation.

“In my research, I came across this description of Victoria Benedictsson as a contemporary of Ibsen and Strindberg, and [Ibsen and Strindberg] are produced consistently and constantly and over and over again,” Robison says. “I thought, ‘Why have I heard of so many productions of these plays, but I’ve never heard of this woman?'”

Robison is directing Clare Bayley’s adaptation of The Enchantment for Ghostlight on May 2.

As a whole, the (Re)Consideration series is about challenging the idea that anything outside the heteronormative, white male creative realm is in any way “revolutionary” or a product of recent culture.

“It’s not that they weren’t there, but they were either marginalized or they weren’t cultivated the way the mainstream gatekeepers cultivated [male playwrights],” Robison says. “It’s not just, ‘Well those are clearly masterpieces,’ I’m not going to argue that [male-produced] works aren’t masterpieces, but also who [else] didn’t get the cultivation? When you’re a playwright, you’re writing a play that you’re handing off to an ecosystem to create and develop, and if that doesn’t happen, your skill and your talent will not get cultivated.”

Women, people of color, and queer humans have been writing and creating since the dawn of time. And their work has always been revolutionary in its own way, even if the celebration of such is some 300 years delayed. v

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Kristin Novotny once led an active life, with regular CrossFit workouts, football in the front yard with her children and a job managing the kitchen at a middle school.

Now, the 33-year-old mother of two from De Pere, Wisconsin, has to rest after the simplest activities, even showering. Just having a conversation leaves her short of breath.

Novotny has been contending with these symptoms of a malady known as long COVID — including fatigue, shortness of breath, gastrointestinal problems, muscle and joint pain and neurological issues — despite having tested negative seven months ago for COVID-19.

Experts don’t know what causes long COVID or why some people have persistent symptoms while others recover in weeks or even days. They also don’t know just how long the condition — referred to formally by scientists as post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection, or PASC — lasts.

But people like Novotny who never tested positive for coronavirus — whether due to a lack of access to testing or a false-negative result — face difficulty getting treatment and disability benefits. Their cases aren’t always included in studies of long COVID despite their lingering symptoms. And, sometimes just as aggravating, many find that family, friends and even doctors have doubts they ever had COVID at all.

Novotny first became ill in August. She returned to work at the beginning of the school year, but her symptoms worsened. Months later, she couldn’t catch her breath at work. She went home and hasn’t been well enough to return.

“It is sad and frustrating being unable to work or play with my kids,” Novotny said. “My 9-year-old is afraid that, if I’m left alone, I will have a medical emergency, and no one will be here to help.”

Data about the frequency of false-negative COVID tests is limited. A study done at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health, which focused on the time between exposure and testing, found a median false-negative rate of 20% three days after symptoms start. A small study in China, conducted early in the pandemic, found a high rate of negative tests even among people sick enough to be hospitalized. Given the dearth of long-hauler research, people dealing with lingering COVID symptoms have organized to study themselves.

Haphazard protocols for testing people in the United States, the delays and difficulties accessing tests and the poor quality of many of the tests left many people without proof they were infected with the virus that causes COVID-19.

“It’s great if someone can get a positive test, but many people who have COVID simply will never have one for a variety of different reasons,” said Natalie Lambert, an associate research professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine who is the director of research for the online COVID support group Survivor Corps.

Using computational analytics, Lambert has found that long-haulers face such a wide variety of symptoms that no single symptom is a good screening tool for whether they have COVID.

“If PCR tests are not always accurate or available at the right time, and it’s not always easy to diagnose based on someone’s initial symptoms, we really need to have a more flexible, expansive way of diagnosing for COVID based on clinical presentations,” Lambert said.

Dr. Bobbi Pritt, chair of the division of clinical microbiology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said four factors affect the accuracy of a diagnostic test:

• When a person’s sample is collected.
• Which part of the body it comes from.
• The technique of the person collecting the sample.
• Aand the test type.

“But if one of those four things isn’t correct,” Pritt said, “you could still have a false-negative result.”

Timing is one of the most nebulous elements in accurately detecting SARS-CoV-2. The body doesn’t become symptomatic immediately after exposure. It takes time for the virus to multiply. This incubation period tends to last four or five days before symptoms start for most people.

“But we’ve known that it can be as many as 14 days,” Pritt said.

Testing during that incubation period means there might not be enough detectable virus yet.

“Early on after infection, you may not see it because the person doesn’t have enough virus around for you to find,” said Dr. Yuka Manabe, an infectious disease expert who is a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Novotny woke up with symptoms on Aug. 14 and got a COVID test that day. Three days later — the same day her test result came back negative — she went to the hospital because of severe shortness of breath and chest pressure.

“The hospital chose not to test me due to test shortages and told me to presume positive,” Novotny said, adding that hospital staffers told her she likely tested too early and had a false negative.

As the virus leaves the body, it becomes undetectable. But patients might still have symptoms because their immune responses kicked in.

At that point, “You’re seeing more of an inflammatory phase of illness,” Manabe said.

An autoimmune response — in which the body’s defense system attacks its own healthy tissue — might be what’s behind persistent COVID symptoms, though small amounts of virus hiding in organs is another possible explanation.

Andrea Ceresa is nearing a year of long COVID and has gastrointestinal and neurological issues. When the 47-year-old from Branchburg, New Jersey, got sick last April, she had trouble getting a COVID test. Once she did, her result was negative.

Ceresa has seen so many doctors since then that she can’t keep them straight. She feels lucky to finally have found “fantastic” doctors, but she’s also seen some who didn’t believe her. One said it was all in her head. And after she waited two months to see a neurologist, she said he didn’t order any tests and told her to take vitamin B, leaving her “crying and devastated.”

“I think the negative test absolutely did that,” Ceresa said.

Among a growing number of doctors specifically treating patients with long COVID, positive test results aren’t vital. In the patient-led research, symptoms patients reported weren’t significantly different between those who tested positive and those who had negative tests.

Dr. Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, a rehabilitation and physical medicine doctor who leads UT Health San Antonio’s Post-COVID Recovery program in San Antonio, said about 12% of the patients she’s seen never had a positive COVID test.

“The initial test, to me, is not as important as the symptoms,” Gutierrez said.

She tells people “what’s done is done,” and, regardless of test status, “Now, we need to treat the outcome.”

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues.

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LOS ANGELES — Kanye West agrees with Kim Kardashian West that they should have joint custody of their four children and neither of them need spousal support, according to new divorce documents.

West’s attorneys filed his response Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court to Kardashian West’s divorce filing seven weeks earlier, which began the process of ending their 6 1/2-year marriage.

West’s filing was virtually identical to Kardashian West’s original petition, agreeing that the marriage should end over irreconcilable differences, and that the two should share custody of their children: North, age 7, Saint, age 5, Chicago, age 3, and Psalm, who turns 2 next month.

And like Kardashian West’s filing, West’s asks that the court’s right to award spousal support to either person be terminated.

According to Kardashian West’s Feb. 19 petition, the two have a pre-nuptial agreement, and under it they kept their property separate throughout their marriage.

The divorce filings bring an impending end to one of the most followed celebrity unions in recent decades, between the 40-year-old reality TV superstar Kardashian West, and the 43-year-old rap and fashion mogul West.

It was the first marriage for West and the third for Kardashian West, who has not asked the court to change her name back to just Kardashian, though she may still do so during the divorce process.

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BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. — The police officer who fatally shot a Black man during a traffic stop in a Minneapolis suburb apparently intended to fire a Taser, not a handgun, as the man struggled with police, the city’s police chief said Monday.

Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon described the shooting death Sunday of 20-year-old Daunte Wright as “an accidental discharge.” It happened as police were trying to arrest Wright on an outstanding warrant. The shooting sparked violent protests in a metropolitan area already on edge because of the trial of the first of four police officers charged in George Floyd’s death.

“I’ll Tase you! I’ll Tase you! Taser! Taser! Taser!” the officer is heard shouting on her body cam footage released at a news conference. She draws her weapon after the man breaks free from police outside his car and gets back behind the wheel.

After firing a single shot from her handgun, the car speeds away, and the officer is heard saying, “Holy (expletive)! I shot him.”

President Joe Biden urged calm on Monday, following a night where officers in riot gear clashed with demonstrators. The president said he watched the body camera footage.

“We do know that the anger, pain and trauma amidst the Black community is real,” Biden said from the Oval Office. But, he added, that “does not justify violence and looting.”

Gannon said at a news conference that the officer made a mistake, and he released the body camera footage less than 24 hours after the shooting.

The footage showed three officers around a stopped car, which authorities said was pulled over because it had expired registration tags. When another officer attempts to handcuff Wright, a second officer tells Wright he’s being arrested on a warrant. That’s when the struggle begins, followed by the shooting. Then the car travels several blocks before striking another vehicle.

“As I watch the video and listen to the officer’s command, it is my belief that the officer had the intention to deploy their Taser but instead shot Mr. Wright with a single bullet,” Gannon said. “This appears to me from what I viewed and the officer’s reaction in distress immediately after that this was an accidental discharge that resulted in the tragic death of Mr. Wright.”

A female passenger sustained non-life-threatening injuries during the crash, authorities said. Katie Wright said that passenger was her son’s girlfriend.

The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension was investigating.

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said any decision on charges against the officer will be made by the Washington County attorney under an agreement adopted last year by several county prosecutors aimed at avoiding conflicts of interest. Freeman has been frequently criticized by activists in Minneapolis over his charging decisions involving deadly use of force by police.

Gannon would not name the officer or provide any other details about her, including her race, other than describing her as “very senior.” He would not say whether she would be fired following the investigation.

“I think we can watch the video and ascertain whether she will be returning,” the chief said.

Court records show Wright was being sought after failing to appear in court on charges that he fled from officers and possessed a gun without a permit during an encounter with Minneapolis police in June. In that case, a statement of probable cause said police got a call about a man waving a gun who was later identified as Wright.”

Wright’s mother, Katie Wright, said her son called her as he was getting pulled over.

“All he did was have air fresheners in the car, and they told him to get out of the car,” Wright said. During the call, she said she heard scuffling and then someone saying “Daunte, don’t run” before the call ended. When she called back, her son’s girlfriend answered and said he had been shot.

AP

Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott called the shooting “deeply tragic.”

“We’re going to do everything we can to ensure that justice is done and our communities are made whole,” he said.

Wright’s family hired civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represented the Floyd family in its $27 million settlement with the city of Minneapolis.

“This level of lethal force was entirely preventable and inhumane,” Crump said in a statement. “What will it take for law enforcement to stop killing people of color?”

Speaking before the unrest Sunday night, Wright’s mother urged protesters in Brooklyn Center, a city of about 30,000 people on the northwest border of Minneapolis, to stay peaceful and focused on the loss of her son.

Biden referred to her comments on Monday, saying “we should listen to Daunte’s mom calling for peace and calm.” The president said he had not yet called the family but that his prayers were with them.

Shortly after the shooting, demonstrators began to gather, with some jumping atop police cars. Marchers also descended on the Brooklyn Center Police Department, where rocks and other objects were thrown at officers. About 20 businesses were broken into at the city’s Shingle Creek shopping center, authorities said.

To guard against more unrest, authorities accelerated security measures planned for when the Floyd case goes to the jury. The number of National Guard troops in the Minneapolis area was expected to double to more than 1,000 by Monday night.

Gov. Tim Walz announced a curfew from 7 p.m. Monday until 6 a.m. Tuesday for three counties that include Brooklyn Center, Minneapolis and the capital of St. Paul. The governor warned anyone who chooses to “exploit these tragedies” with violence “can rest assured that the largest police presence in Minnesota history” will be prepared to arrest law breakers.

At least a half-dozen businesses began boarding up their windows along Minneapolis’ Lake Street, the scene of some of the most intense violence after Floyd’s death. National Guard vehicles were deployed to a few major intersections, and a handful of soldiers in camouflage, some carrying assault-style weapons, could also be seen. Several professional sports teams in Minneapolis called off games because of safety concerns.

The trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis officer charged in Floyd’s death, continued Monday. Floyd, a Black man, died May 25 after Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck. Prosecutors say Floyd was pinned for 9 minutes, 29 seconds. The judge in that case refused Monday to sequester the jury after a defense attorney argued that the panel could be influenced by the prospect of what might happen as a result of their verdict.

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Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, Tim Sullivan in Minneapolis and Jonathan Lemire in Washington contributed to this report.

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Mohamed Ibrahim is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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