Kayden Swann, the 21-month-old boy shot during a road-rage incident on Lake Shore Drive, remained in “very critical” condition Friday. | Legal Help Firm
After a week away from Chicago, the shooting of 21-month-old Kayden Swann has left me astounded that we all don’t have PTSD.
I returned from an out-of-town trip, and on the ride home from Midway Airport, I could feel the pulse of the city.
Cars sped past, engines roaring, as they weaved in out of lanes, oblivious to speed limits.
On the unseasonably warm night, with the passenger-side window slightly rolled down to catch some fresh air, the noise felt like an assault.
I closed my eyes and prayed: “Oh, God, please let us make it home in one piece.”
This is what it has come to.
We could blame guns for what happened to Kayden Swann, the 21-month-old boy who was tucked safely in his car seat when he was struck in the head by a bullet fired by a driver in the throes of road rage on Lake Shore Drive.
We could blame the angry adults who chose to settle a dispute over lane-merging with a gun for the ordeal the baby boy and his family are now going through. Though doctors at Lurie Children’s Hospital said Friday he was showing “some signs of improvement,” he remained in “very critical” condition.
And we could blame law enforcement for not having a squad car hiding somewhere between the testy merge and the Shedd Aquarium where the shots were fired.
But blame doesn’t stop the violence.
On Thursday, a driver shot an Oak Park police officer during a traffic stop on Harlem Avenue over the Eisenhower Expressway. Both the suspect and the police officer were seriously wounded.
And while the city was reeling from Tuesday’s shooting on Lake Shore Drive, Thursday morning somebody else shot at but didn’t hit three drivers on Lake Shore Drive near Bronzeville and on Halsted Street in University Village.
Traveling east on I-57 on my way home from the airport, I caught sight of the lighted heart on the skyline and marveled at our ability to project hope in such dire circumstances.
After all, Chicago is fighting two pandemics.
But while the pharmaceutical companies came up with a vaccine to fight the coronavirus in record-setting time, civic leaders still haven’t figured out how to eradicate the violence that is strangling the life out of our city.
I reached out to Ja’Mal Green, a community activist, former mayoral candidate and entrepreneur, to get his thoughts on: What now? Green and others in his generation have long pointed to the need for businesses to invest in communities plagued by violence.
“There is a lot of work that needs to be done,” Green said. “The problem is we have to be empowered by leadership to do that work. We can start coming together to invest in our community with the little that we have.”
Green said his nonprofit organization Majostee Allstars is transforming a former school building into an 80,000-square-foot community center to provide a safe haven for youth.
“We have been off-track and off-track for too many years,” he said. “We have to start implementing these things now. And our leaders — from the mayor to the county board president to the governor — have to make this a priority.
“There is no overnight solution. But there is a short time frame to reduce the violence.
“Just like we worked on COVID-19 every day and found the money that we needed to make things happen, we need to do the same thing for violence. Since we have invested neither time nor money, violence has just spiraled out of control.”
Green has pledged $5,000 of his own money for information leading to the prosecution of whoever’s responsible for the road-rage shooting in which Kayden Swann was shot.
It is on each of us to take our own stand.
Because on a beautiful day in Chicago a madman on idyllic Lake Shore Drive shot a baby boy in the head.
Illinois public health officials on Friday reported a second straight record-setting day for COVID-19 vaccinations — but the state also hit a worrying milestone by logging more than 4,000 new cases of the disease for the first time in 10 weeks as the latest coronavirus surge builds momentum.
With 164,462 doses administered Thursday, Illinois is vaccinating more people than ever, at an average clip of 118,336 shots per day over the last week, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.
That still hasn’t been enough to tamp down a sharp rise in infections over the past month, as most key metrics have almost doubled.
With another 4,004 residents testing positive for the virus — the most in a day since Jan. 29 — about 3,122 Illinoisans have contracted COVID-19 each day over the past week. That rate is up 91% compared to the first week of March, when the state was reporting an average of 1,663 daily cases.
5:15 p.m. After criticism of his handing of coronavirus, Indiana governor vetoes bill curtailing emergency power
INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb on Friday vetoed a bill that would have given legislators more authority to intervene during emergencies declared by the governor.
Holcomb issued the veto on the proposal that lawmakers approved over his objections, and which he and some legal experts have said they don’t believe is allowed under the state constitution.
Holcomb’s fellow Republicans pushed the bill after months of criticism from some conservatives over COVID-19 restrictions that he imposed by executive order during the statewide public health emergency over the past year.
“I firmly believe a central part of this bill is unconstitutional,” Holcomb wrote in his veto letter. “The legislation impermissibly attempts to give the General Assembly the ability to call itself into a special session, thereby usurping a power given exclusively to the governor.”
3:55 p.m. Olympic sports struggling to survive at many colleges because of coronavirus
The death of a 117-year-old program, one that captured championships and produced Olympians, ended with a gasp. And then a vote.
The fact the former did not alter the outcome of the latter offered a stark glimpse into the steadily eroding support for men’s gymnastics at the NCAA level, one that will eventually have a ripple effect up and down the food chain for a sport struggling for relevance inside the U.S. Olympic movement.
That gasp. John Roethlisberger could hear it during a University of Minnesota Board of Regents meeting last fall. At one point someone asked how much money the school’s athletic department would save by approving the proposal to cut men’s gymnastics, men’s tennis and men’s indoor track and field, a move athletic director Mark Coyle called necessary to help offset a $45 million to $65 million deficit due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The answer? $1.6 million. Or just more than 1% of the athletic department’s $123 million budget.
2:45 p.m. Biden to rush vaccine support to Michigan as governor urges limits
WASHINGTON — Washington will rush federal resources to support vaccinations, testing and therapeutics, but not vaccines, to Michigan in an effort to control the state’s worst-in-the-nation COVID-19 transmission rate, the White House said Friday.
The announcement came as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer strongly recommended, but did not order, a two-week pause on face-to-face high school instruction, indoor restaurant dining and youth sports. She cited more contagious coronavirus variants and pandemic fatigue as factors in the surge, which has led some hospitals to postpone non-emergency procedures.
Statewide hospitalizations have quadrupled in a month and are nearing peak levels from last spring and fall.
“Policy alone won’t change the tide. We need everyone to step up and to take personal responsibility,” she said Friday, while not ruling out future restrictions. Michigan’s seven-day case rate was 492 per 100,000 people, well above second-worst New Jersey, with 328 per 100,000 residents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
1:30 p.m. No region in the world spared as coronavirus cases, deaths surge
WARSAW, Poland — Hospitals in Turkey and Poland are filling up. Pakistan is restricting domestic travel. The U.S. government will send more help to the state with the country’s worst infection increase.
The worldwide surge in coronavirus cases and deaths includes even Thailand, which has weathered the pandemic far better than many nations but now struggles to contain COVID-19.
The only exceptions to the deteriorating situation are countries that have advanced vaccination programs, mostly notably Israel and Britain. The U.S., which is a vaccination leader globally, is also seeing a small uptick in new cases, and the White House announced Friday that it would send federal assistance to Michigan to control the state’s worst-in-the-nation transmission rate.
The World Health Organization said infection rates are climbing in every global region, driven by new virus variants and too many countries coming out of lockdown too soon.
12:20 p.m. Riverwalk vendors begin phased reopening Friday
Vendors on the Chicago Riverwalk began a phased-in reopening Friday that will have all vendors open by the end of May.
Island Party Hut, Beat Kitchen on the River and City Winery opened Friday. A new vendor addition this year is Pier 31, which plans to open in May.
“The Riverwalk is not only an important part of our city’s economic engine, but it also adds to the liveliness of our iconic summers,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in a news release.
“This reopening serves as yet another indicator of our city’s resilience in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we look forward to making this Chicago staple available to residents and visitors this spring and summer.”
11:05 a.m. Aldermen move to prevent parade permit infighting
With 500 permits issued every year, it’s safe to say that Chicago loves a parade.
On Thursday, the City Council’s Committee on Cultural Affairs and Special Events proved that love by providing a bit of post-pandemic protection.
At Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s behest, aldermen endorsed an ordinance that preserves permit priority for “traditional parades” scheduled at around the same time along the same route “in connection with a specific holiday or consistent theme for at least the prior five years.”
That priority status would remain even though those “traditional parades” were canceled last year because of the coronavirus — and even though none have been held so far this year, either.
Deputy Transportation Commissioner Mike Simon said the goal of the mayor’s ordinance is to prevent the temporary hiatus from opening the door to post-pandemic feuds between parade organizers vying for permits on the same day.
10:30 a.m. ‘Trauma upon trauma’: Asian Americans say mental health has suffered amid COVID-19, anti-Asian violence
The coronavirus pandemic sparked a mental health crisis. For Asians and Asian Americans also facing a rise in hate incidents across the country, it’s been “trauma upon trauma,” says Anne Saw, a Chicago psychologist.
“A lot of our communities are experiencing so many pandemic stressors that are then compounded by a lot of anti-Asian discrimination that we’re also experiencing,” says Saw, who teaches at DePaul University and directs the Chicago Asian American Psychology Lab.
“It’s tough to, like, get your head above water and get some room to breathe when every day we’re confronted with new traumas,” she says.
We talked to seven Chicagoans about how anti-Asian violence coupled with the pandemic have affected their mental health and their everyday lives. Among them was Kaylee Cong, 32, of Uptown, who manages a nail spa.
On March 20, four days after the Atlanta shootings, Cong says, her 60-year-old Vietnamese father was punched in the head as he walked alone that night near Broadway and West Ainslee Street. He turned to run, saw a white man holding a baseball bat watching him and called 911.
“We’re really scared,” says Cong, who’d been talking with her father about the Georgia shootings the day before he was attacked. “What if the person come back and do revenge? My entire life living here, it was so peaceful. There was no violence like this.”
She says her father hasn’t wanted to leave the house since that happened.
Older Asian Americans “just want to keep quiet and don’t want to make waves,” Cong says. “I have really different mentality. We deserve to, you know, feel safe. And we shouldn’t be afraid to stand up for ourselves.”
9:56 a.m. CPS high school reopening agreement remains elusive
A final high school reopening agreement remains elusive between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union just days before high school teachers are due to return to classrooms — and the union president said Thursday the next few days of negotiations will determine whether workers show up on Monday.
Though the range of issues is smaller and disagreement over those items is not as severe as the hostile K-8 negotiations in February, there are still a few unresolved concerns the union is expressing as COVID-19 infections once again rise in the city.
CPS officials have directed 5,350 high school teachers to return to buildings Monday with or without a CTU agreement, and about 26,000 students in grades 9-12 are expected back the following week.
Whether or not that timeline sticks is dependent on “how outrageous the board’s positions are as we go ahead,” CTU President Jesse Sharkey told a few hundred members at a virtual meeting Thursday that was closed to the public.
“I’ve heard people say, ‘Sharkey, I want a really definitive answer, am I going in on Monday?’” he said. “And my really definitive answer is, it depends on where we’re at.”
8:08 a.m. Spike in COVID-19 cases causes University of Chicago to announce stay-at-home period for students
University of Chicago announced a stay-at-home period for students Wednesday evening following the largest COVID-19 outbreak at the university since the start of the academic year.
After more than 50 cases of the coronavirus were detected among undergraduates in recent days, the university announced that students living on-campus must observe a week-long stay-at-home period immediately.
“We expect this number to increase,” university officials said in an email sent to members of the university community Thursday.
All undergraduate classes will be fully remote for at least a week starting Thursday and students can only leave their residence halls for food, medical appointments and short walks for exercise.
Illinois’ infection rate is still less than a third of what it was during the worst days of the pandemic last fall — but it’s doubled in the last four weeks.
ALSO: The funeral of 99-year-old Prince Philip will probably be a humdinger, although all eyes will likely be on his outspoken grandchild, Prince Harry.
The back seat.
A death seat; a child’s seat in the back of a car.
Last week, it happened again. A space designated the safest place for a child in a car seat was violated by the trajectory of another bullet.
This time it was another 1-year-old, Kayden Swann, the victim of alleged road rage involving a gun while sitting in the back seat of a car driven by his grandmother’s boyfriend on Lake Shore Drive.
Last June, it was 1-year-old Sincere Gaston, who was shot in the chest in the back car seat while riding with his 22-year-old mother, who was grazed in the head, while driving in the Englewood neighborhood.
Someone had pulled alongside his mother’s car and fired seven or eight times.
Or DaJore Wilson, 8, who was shot last Sept. 7, when a light turned green and a gun unloaded a barrage of bullets into the back of the SUV she was riding containing several family members.
In 2020, there were 47 children who were 17 years old or younger killed by gun violence in Chicago.
In 2021, we are already ahead of the grisly game at 11.
America is forced to ask itself once again — where is it safe for a child in this world of guns and the death they spawn?
By now we know there is no place safe for our children, not a school or schoolyard or street corner or birthday party or back seat of a car.
We ask and ask and ask and then tsk tsk tsk when no laws ever seem to protect our children from the violence of a bullet; projectiles of death never familiar in a sonnet.
Although Kayden is still fighting for his life at Lurie Children’s Hospital, Gaston never left St. Bernard Hospital alive.
It drew an emotional response from then Chicago Police Department Chief of Operations Fred Waller, who has since retired:
“I don’t even have the words — the tremendous emotion, the tremendous strife that they [the family] were going through,” Waller said.
“And we’ll catch them. We will no doubt catch the person who did it. We’ll catch the person who killed this kid. But that’s not gonna bring that kid back. And that’s not gonna satisfy that family. When are we going to say enough is enough?”
It all seems unimaginable.
Is it within the realm of reality that pandemic shields being used to slow the spread of the virus now might morph into bulletproof back-seat shields to protect our children?
Is the quest for a solution like a merry-go-round leading nowhere?
On page 319 of author Robert Kolker’sbrilliant book: “Hidden Valley Road,” he quotes a researcher describing a similar dilemma, but in that case he was referring to studying schizophrenia.
“It’s like riding a merry-go-round. One chooses the horse. One can make believe his horse is leading the rest. Then when that particular ride is finished, one can step off … only to observe the horse has really gone nowhere.”
God help us.
GettyPrince Philip, Duke Of Edinburgh, seen in 2017
A royal note . . .
The funeral of 99-year-old Prince Philip of England, Queen Elizabeth’s husband who dutifully always kept two paces behind his wife, will probably be a humdinger.
If not because of the pomp, it could be the circumstance.
The Brit tabloids wielded rapiers. Meghan’s pregnancy may be a reason not to attend the funeral.
History will attend to Philip’s legacy, but amazingly, the royal consort dutifully attended 300 public functions a year until his retirement five years ago; answered his own telephone in the royal residence; and mixed his own cocktails.
Sadly, Philip thought his young son, Charles — who will become the heir to the British throne — was a “bit of a wimp.”
Condolences to the queen.
Sneedlings . . .
Saturday birthdays: Shay Mitchell, 34; Mandy Moore, 37; and Steven Seagal, 69. . . . Sunday birthdays: Alessandra Ambrosio, 40; Summer Walker, 25; and Michelle Phan, 34.
A movement for pay equity and transparency for theater designers scores a victory; Black Lives Black Words kicks off a new discussion series.
Back in 2019, I interviewed Chicago set designer Arnel Sancianco for a short Reader profile. In the course of our discussion, he mentioned that, while creating a sustainable career as a designer is never easy, he felt that his peers in costume design (a profession that tends to have more women in its ranks than other design fields) had a harder road.…Read More
DMX performs during the BET Hip Hop Awards in Atlanta on Oct. 1, 2011. | AP
The Grammy-nominated performer died after suffering “catastrophic cardiac arrest,” according to the hospital in White Plains, New York, where he died.
NEW YORK — DMX, the raspy hip hop artist behind the songs “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem” and “Party Up (Up in Here)” who had one of rap’s most distinctive voices — literally and metaphorically — has died, according to a statement Friday from his family. He was 50.
The Grammy-nominated performer died after suffering “catastrophic cardiac arrest,” according to a statement from the hospital in White Plains, New York, where he died. He was rushed there from his home April 2.
His family’s statement said DMX, whose birth name was Earl Simmons, died with relatives by his side after several days on life support.
“Earl was a warrior who fought till the very end. He loved his family with all of his heart, and we cherish the times we spent with him,” the family said, adding that his music “inspired countless fans across the world, and his iconic legacy will live on forever.”
Memorial plans were not yet set.
DMX — who rapped with a trademark delivery that was often paired with growls, barks and “What!” as an ad-lib — built a multiplatinum career as one of rap’s biggest stars of the late 1990s and early 2000s, but he also struggled with drug addiction and legal problems that repeatedly put him behind bars.
“His message of triumph over struggle, his search for the light out of darkness, his pursuit of truth and grace brought us closer to our own humanity,” his record label, Def Jam Recordings, said in a statement describing him as “nothing less than a giant.”
Fellow hip hop artists remembered him likewise, with Eve praising him as “one of the most special people I have ever met” and Nas calling him “God’s poet” in an Instagram post. Chingy recalled touring with DMX and being inspired by his style and struck by how “he always showed me love.”
“He was a true legend to the hip hop community,” Chingy said in a statement.
DMX made a splash in 1998 with his first studio album, “It’s Dark and Hell is Hot,” which debuted No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. The multiplatinum-selling album was anchored by several hits including “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem,” “Get At Me Dog,” “Stop Being Greedy” and “How It’s Goin’ Down.”
DMX followed up with four straight chart-topping albums including “… And Then There Was X,” “Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood,” “The Great Depression” and “Grand Champ.” He released seven albums, earned three Grammy nominations and was named favorite rap/hip hop artist at the 2000 American Music Awards.
DMX arrived on the rap scene around the same time as Jay-Z, Ja Rule and others who dominated the charts and emerged as platinum-selling acts. They were all part of rap crews, too: DMX fronted the Ruff Ryders collective, which helped launch the careers of Grammy winners Eve and Swizz Beatz, and relaunch The Lox, formerly signed to Bad Boy Records. Ruff Ryders had success on the charts and on radio with its “Ryde or Die” compilation albums.
Along with his musical career, DMX paved his way as an actor. He starred in the 1998 film “Belly” and appeared in 2000′s “Romeo Must Die” with Jet Li and Aaliyah. DMX and Aaliyah teamed up for “Come Back in One Piece” on the film’s soundtrack.
The rapper would later open Aaliyah’s tribute music video, “Miss You,” alongside her other friends and collaborators, including Missy Elliott, Lil’ Kim and Queen Latifah, after Aaliyah’s 2001 death in a plane crash at age 22.
The rapper also starred in 2001′s “Exit Wounds” with Steven Seagal and 2003′s “Cradle 2 the Grave” with Li.
But while DMX made his mark as one of hip hop’s most recognizable names for his rap artistry and as an actor, the rapper was personally stifled by his legal battles — he was repeatedly arrested and jailed within a decade — and drug addiction. His addiction first took hold at age 14 when smoked a marijuana cigarette that was laced with cocaine.
“You can’t be a fan and not feel empathy for him in his journey,” hip hop and electronic music producer Flying Lotus said in an interview while DMX was hospitalized this week. “You think of ‘Belly’ and all the great stuff that he was part of. But he was dealt such a weird hand, I think, with the drug stuff. And I just have empathy.”
DMX pleaded guilty in 2004 after he posed as an undercover federal agent and crashed his SUV through a security gate at New York’s Kennedy Airport. He was arrested in 2008 on drug and animal cruelty charges following an overnight raid on his house in Phoenix. He tried to barricade himself in his bedroom but emerged when a SWAT team entered his home.
In 2010, he was sentenced to a year in prison for violating terms of his probation. After he was admitted to rehab numerous times over the next year, he said he had finally beat his drug addiction.
First responders helped bring DMX back to life after he was found in a hotel parking lot in New York in 2016. The rapper said he suffered from asthma.
A couple years later, DMX was sentenced to a year in prison for tax fraud. Prosecutors said he concocted a multiyear scheme to hide millions of dollars in income from the IRS and get around nearly $2 million in tax liabilities.
After his release, DMX planned a 32-date tour to mark the 20th anniversary of “It’s Dark and Hell is Hot.” But the rapper canceled a series of shows to check himself into a rehab facility in 2019. In an Instagram post, his team said he apologized for the canceled shows and thanked his fans for the continued support.
Besides his legal troubles, DMX took the initiative to help the less fortunate. He gave a group of Philadelphia men advice during a surprise appearance at a homeless support group meeting in 2017, and helped a Maine family with its back-to-school purchases a couple years later.
Last year, DMX faced off against Snoop Dogg in a Verzuz battle, which drew more than 500,000 viewers.
Survivors include his 15 children and his mother.
Landrum reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writer Ryan Pearson contributed from Los Angeles.
The autopsy of former NFL player Phillip Adams, who killed five people before taking his own life, will look for evidence of CTE. | Paul Sakuma/AP
Phillip Adams killed five people before fatally shooting himself.
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The brain of Phillip Adams — the former NFL player who killed a South Carolina physician, three family members and a repairman before fatally shooting himself — will be tested for a degenerative disease that has affected a number of pro athletes and has been shown to cause violent mood swings and other cognitive disorders, according to a news report.
York County Coroner Sabrina Gast told McClatchy Newspapers on Friday that she had gotten approval from Adams’ family for the procedure to be included as part of his autopsy, which will be performed at the Medical University of South Carolina. The hospital will be working with Boston University, whose chronic traumatic encephalopathy center conducts research on the long-term effects of repetitive brain trauma in athletes and military personnel, according to its website.
Gast did not immediately return phone calls and emails from The Associated Press or respond to a message left in person at her office.
According to police, Adams went to the home of Robert and Barbara Lesslie on Wednesday and shot and killed them, two of their grandchildren, 9-year-old Adah Lesslie and 5-year-old Noah Lesslie, and James Lewis, a 38-year-old air conditioning technician from Gaston who was doing work there. He also shot Lewis’ colleague, 38-year-old Robert Shook, of Cherryville, North Carolina, who was flown to a Charlotte hospital, where he was in critical condition “fighting hard for his life,” said a cousin, Heather Smith Thompson.
York County Sheriff Kevin Tolson said investigators hadn’t figured out why Adams carried out the attack.
Tolson said evidence left at the shooting scene led investigators to Adams as a suspect. He said they went to Adams’ parents’ home, evacuated them and then tried to persuade Adams to come out. Eventually, they found him dead of a single gunshot wound to the head in a bedroom, he said.
A person briefed on the investigation who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly said Robert Lesslie had treated Adams, who lived with his parents not far from the Lesslies’ home.
Tolson would not confirm that Adams had been the doctor’s patient.
It will be months before results are available from the tests for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, which can only be diagnosed in an autopsy. The disorder has been found in former members of the military, football players and boxers and others who have been subjected to repeated head trauma. A recent study found signs of the disease in 110 of 111 NFL players whose brains were inspected.
Several years ago, the league agreed to pay $1 billion to retired players who claimed it misled them about the dangers of playing football.
Adams, 32, played in 78 NFL games over six seasons for six teams. He joined the 49ers in 2010 as a seventh-round draft pick out of South Carolina State, and though he rarely started, he went on to play for New England, Seattle, Oakland and the New York Jets before finishing his career with the Atlanta Falcons in 2015.
As a rookie late in the 2010 season, Adams suffered a severe ankle injury, resulting in surgery that included several screws being inserted into his leg. He never played for the 49ers again, released just before the 2011 season began. Later, with the Raiders, he had two concussions over three games in 2012.
Whether he suffered long-lasting concussion-related injuries wasn’t immediately clear. Adams wouldn’t have been eligible for testing as part of a broad settlement between the league and its former players over such injuries, because he hadn’t retired by 2014.
Adams’ father told a Charlotte television station that he blamed football for problems his son had, and which might have led him to commit Wednesday’s violence.
“I can say he’s a good kid — he was a good kid, and I think the football messed him up,” Alonzo Adams told WCNC-TV. “He didn’t talk much and he didn’t bother nobody.”
Adams’ sister told USA Today that her brother’s “mental health degraded fast and terribly bad” in recent years and that the family noticed “extremely concerning” signs of mental illness, including an escalating temper and personal hygiene neglect.
Gerald Dixon, a former NFL linebacker who retired in 2001, said that, when he coached Adams in high school, the young player was a team leader, yet also mild-mannered and humble.
Dixon added that he had spoken to Adams a few months ago, and had noticed no signs of depression or other mental health issues. “Anytime I talked to him, he was always happy and just reminiscing about old things,” he said.
Dixon acknowledged that the repeated hits to the head sustained in the game could have affected Adams, as they have negatively affected many of the other NFL players Dixon has known who were later diagnosed with CTE.
“You never know what’s going on in a person’s mind after they’ve went through these concussions,” Dixon said.
Agent Scott Casterline told the AP that Adams did not participate in the physical and mental health programs that are easily accessible for ex-players.
“We encouraged him to explore all of his disability options and he wouldn’t do it,” Casterline said, noting that Adams’ career was undercut by the 2010 ankle injury. “I knew he was hurting and missing football but he wouldn’t take health tips offered to him. He said he would, but he wouldn’t.”
Illinois public health officials on Friday reported a second straight record-setting day for COVID-19 vaccinations — but the state also hit a worrying milestone by logging more than 4,000 new cases of the disease for the first time in 10 weeks as the latest coronavirus surge builds momentum.
With 164,462 doses administered Thursday, Illinois is vaccinating more people than ever, at an average clip of 118,336 shots per day over the last week, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.
That still hasn’t been enough to tamp down a sharp rise in infections over the past month, as most key metrics have almost doubled.
With another 4,004 residents testing positive for the virus — the most in a day since Jan. 29 — about 3,122 Illinoisans have contracted COVID-19 each day over the past week. That rate is up 91% compared to the first week of March, when the state was reporting an average of 1,663 daily cases.
3:55 p.m. Olympic sports struggling to survive at many colleges because of coronavirus
The death of a 117-year-old program, one that captured championships and produced Olympians, ended with a gasp. And then a vote.
The fact the former did not alter the outcome of the latter offered a stark glimpse into the steadily eroding support for men’s gymnastics at the NCAA level, one that will eventually have a ripple effect up and down the food chain for a sport struggling for relevance inside the U.S. Olympic movement.
That gasp. John Roethlisberger could hear it during a University of Minnesota Board of Regents meeting last fall. At one point someone asked how much money the school’s athletic department would save by approving the proposal to cut men’s gymnastics, men’s tennis and men’s indoor track and field, a move athletic director Mark Coyle called necessary to help offset a $45 million to $65 million deficit due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The answer? $1.6 million. Or just more than 1% of the athletic department’s $123 million budget.
2:45 p.m. Biden to rush vaccine support to Michigan as governor urges limits
WASHINGTON — Washington will rush federal resources to support vaccinations, testing and therapeutics, but not vaccines, to Michigan in an effort to control the state’s worst-in-the-nation COVID-19 transmission rate, the White House said Friday.
The announcement came as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer strongly recommended, but did not order, a two-week pause on face-to-face high school instruction, indoor restaurant dining and youth sports. She cited more contagious coronavirus variants and pandemic fatigue as factors in the surge, which has led some hospitals to postpone non-emergency procedures.
Statewide hospitalizations have quadrupled in a month and are nearing peak levels from last spring and fall.
“Policy alone won’t change the tide. We need everyone to step up and to take personal responsibility,” she said Friday, while not ruling out future restrictions. Michigan’s seven-day case rate was 492 per 100,000 people, well above second-worst New Jersey, with 328 per 100,000 residents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
1:30 p.m. No region in the world spared as coronavirus cases, deaths surge
WARSAW, Poland — Hospitals in Turkey and Poland are filling up. Pakistan is restricting domestic travel. The U.S. government will send more help to the state with the country’s worst infection increase.
The worldwide surge in coronavirus cases and deaths includes even Thailand, which has weathered the pandemic far better than many nations but now struggles to contain COVID-19.
The only exceptions to the deteriorating situation are countries that have advanced vaccination programs, mostly notably Israel and Britain. The U.S., which is a vaccination leader globally, is also seeing a small uptick in new cases, and the White House announced Friday that it would send federal assistance to Michigan to control the state’s worst-in-the-nation transmission rate.
The World Health Organization said infection rates are climbing in every global region, driven by new virus variants and too many countries coming out of lockdown too soon.
12:20 p.m. Riverwalk vendors begin phased reopening Friday
Vendors on the Chicago Riverwalk began a phased-in reopening Friday that will have all vendors open by the end of May.
Island Party Hut, Beat Kitchen on the River and City Winery opened Friday. A new vendor addition this year is Pier 31, which plans to open in May.
“The Riverwalk is not only an important part of our city’s economic engine, but it also adds to the liveliness of our iconic summers,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in a news release.
“This reopening serves as yet another indicator of our city’s resilience in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we look forward to making this Chicago staple available to residents and visitors this spring and summer.”
11:05 a.m. Aldermen move to prevent parade permit infighting
With 500 permits issued every year, it’s safe to say that Chicago loves a parade.
On Thursday, the City Council’s Committee on Cultural Affairs and Special Events proved that love by providing a bit of post-pandemic protection.
At Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s behest, aldermen endorsed an ordinance that preserves permit priority for “traditional parades” scheduled at around the same time along the same route “in connection with a specific holiday or consistent theme for at least the prior five years.”
That priority status would remain even though those “traditional parades” were canceled last year because of the coronavirus — and even though none have been held so far this year, either.
Deputy Transportation Commissioner Mike Simon said the goal of the mayor’s ordinance is to prevent the temporary hiatus from opening the door to post-pandemic feuds between parade organizers vying for permits on the same day.
10:30 a.m. ‘Trauma upon trauma’: Asian Americans say mental health has suffered amid COVID-19, anti-Asian violence
The coronavirus pandemic sparked a mental health crisis. For Asians and Asian Americans also facing a rise in hate incidents across the country, it’s been “trauma upon trauma,” says Anne Saw, a Chicago psychologist.
“A lot of our communities are experiencing so many pandemic stressors that are then compounded by a lot of anti-Asian discrimination that we’re also experiencing,” says Saw, who teaches at DePaul University and directs the Chicago Asian American Psychology Lab.
“It’s tough to, like, get your head above water and get some room to breathe when every day we’re confronted with new traumas,” she says.
We talked to seven Chicagoans about how anti-Asian violence coupled with the pandemic have affected their mental health and their everyday lives. Among them was Kaylee Cong, 32, of Uptown, who manages a nail spa.
On March 20, four days after the Atlanta shootings, Cong says, her 60-year-old Vietnamese father was punched in the head as he walked alone that night near Broadway and West Ainslee Street. He turned to run, saw a white man holding a baseball bat watching him and called 911.
“We’re really scared,” says Cong, who’d been talking with her father about the Georgia shootings the day before he was attacked. “What if the person come back and do revenge? My entire life living here, it was so peaceful. There was no violence like this.”
She says her father hasn’t wanted to leave the house since that happened.
Older Asian Americans “just want to keep quiet and don’t want to make waves,” Cong says. “I have really different mentality. We deserve to, you know, feel safe. And we shouldn’t be afraid to stand up for ourselves.”
9:56 a.m. CPS high school reopening agreement remains elusive
A final high school reopening agreement remains elusive between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union just days before high school teachers are due to return to classrooms — and the union president said Thursday the next few days of negotiations will determine whether workers show up on Monday.
Though the range of issues is smaller and disagreement over those items is not as severe as the hostile K-8 negotiations in February, there are still a few unresolved concerns the union is expressing as COVID-19 infections once again rise in the city.
CPS officials have directed 5,350 high school teachers to return to buildings Monday with or without a CTU agreement, and about 26,000 students in grades 9-12 are expected back the following week.
Whether or not that timeline sticks is dependent on “how outrageous the board’s positions are as we go ahead,” CTU President Jesse Sharkey told a few hundred members at a virtual meeting Thursday that was closed to the public.
“I’ve heard people say, ‘Sharkey, I want a really definitive answer, am I going in on Monday?’” he said. “And my really definitive answer is, it depends on where we’re at.”
8:08 a.m. Spike in COVID-19 cases causes University of Chicago to announce stay-at-home period for students
University of Chicago announced a stay-at-home period for students Wednesday evening following the largest COVID-19 outbreak at the university since the start of the academic year.
After more than 50 cases of the coronavirus were detected among undergraduates in recent days, the university announced that students living on-campus must observe a week-long stay-at-home period immediately.
“We expect this number to increase,” university officials said in an email sent to members of the university community Thursday.
All undergraduate classes will be fully remote for at least a week starting Thursday and students can only leave their residence halls for food, medical appointments and short walks for exercise.
Illinois’ infection rate is still less than a third of what it was during the worst days of the pandemic last fall — but it’s doubled in the last four weeks.
Shane Wiskus, representing the University of Minnesota, competes during the Winter Cup gymnastics event Friday, Feb. 26, 2021, in Indianapolis. The University of Minnesota and the University of Iowa will stop offering men’s gymnastics as a scholarship sport at the end of the month. Wiskus wants to be part of the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team. It’s one of the reasons he left Minnesota last fall for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. | Darron Cummings/AP
The cutback in NCAA athletic programs because of the pandemic is being felt acutely in men’s gymnastics.
The death of a 117-year-old program, one that captured championships and produced Olympians, ended with a gasp. And then a vote.
The fact the former did not alter the outcome of the latter offered a stark glimpse into the steadily eroding support for men’s gymnastics at the NCAA level, one that will eventually have a ripple effect up and down the food chain for a sport struggling for relevance inside the U.S. Olympic movement.
That gasp. John Roethlisberger could hear it during a University of Minnesota Board of Regents meeting last fall. At one point someone asked how much money the school’s athletic department would save by approving the proposal to cut men’s gymnastics, men’s tennis and men’s indoor track and field, a move athletic director Mark Coyle called necessary to help offset a $45 million to $65 million deficit due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The answer? $1.6 million. Or just more than 1% of the athletic department’s $123 million budget.
“Everyone was appalled,” said Roethlisberger, a three-time Olympian and a three-time NCAA champion for the Golden Gophers. “It didn’t make a lot of sense. … (We hoped) maybe we can reconcile and at least save our sport and they were like, ‘Nope, let’s vote.’”
And they did. Seven in favor of cutting men’s gymnastics, men’s tennis and men’s indoor track at the end of the 2020-21 academic year. Five against.
Minnesota’s decision came two months after Iowa announced it was dropping men’s gymnastics, men’s tennis and men’s and women’s swimming and diving. Again, administrators pointed to the long-term financial impact of the pandemic.
The losses will leave just five men’s gymnastics programs in the Big Ten and just 11 at the Division I level overall, not including the three service academies. And it leaves the USA Gymnastics men’s program in the precarious position of trying to reclaim a spot among the world’s elite while dealing with a diminishing talent base.
There are 11,000 boys or men enrolled in USA Gymnastics, down from over 13,000 in 2007. With only 6.3 scholarships available per school at Division I, opportunities to compete and have at least a portion of their college education paid for are becoming more and more scarce.
Unlike women’s gymnastics in the United States, where athletes typically peak in their late teens before moving on or being pushed aside by the next wave, most male gymnasts don’t hit their prime until their mid-20s, making the NCAA level the perfect feeder system.
For decades USA Gymnastics has stuffed its Olympic team with NCAA veterans. Gymnasts that competed in college or trained alongside collegians have accounted for nearly 75% (26 of 36) of the U.S. Olympic spots (alternates included) this millennium.
It will almost certainly be the case again when the 2021 team is announced this summer, a group likely led by NCAA champion and U.S. national champions Sam Mikulak and Yul Moldauer.
It’s a group Shane Wiskus plans to be a part of, one of the reasons he left Minnesota last fall for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was a move he felt necessary to give him the best chance at making it to Tokyo. It was also a matter of survival. The USOPTC will be around in a year. The Minnesota program will not, at least not at the Division I level.
“(Support at the NCAA level) is definitely dwindling and I fear that if this isn’t a wake-up call and if this doesn’t get some real change to happen within NCAA then I fear that more programs could be cut and NCAA gymnastics could go extinct,” said Wiskus, a senior who studied remotely this semester and tied for the Big Ten all-around title last week.
Wiskus is lucky in that he had options. Things are far murkier for teammate Mike Moran. A junior from Morristown, New Jersey, Moran admits there were people within his inner circle who discouraged him from competing collegiately because they viewed his chosen sport as a “dying entity.”
Which makes the pain of its end all the more acute. Moran is a longshot at best to make the 2021 Olympic team, but his passion and dedication are an important part of the recipe it takes for Olympic programs to thrive.
“Less than 1% of college athletes go to the Olympics but they get pushed by the masses,” said Brett McClure, a 2004 Olympian and former college head coach at Cal who now serves as the high-performance director for the USA Gymnastics men’s program.
And the masses are shrinking.
“USA Gymnastics looks at the NCAA like the NFL looks at college football,” Roethlisberger said. “Each team is like a mini-Olympic training center. When all that goes away, you have two coaches at USOTC that can carry 15 guys. Look at what that is going to do to your feeder pool. You’re going to see a stream of guys falling out because they have to worry about their future.”
A decision that — like the one Moran faces — could come in their early 20s. It could also come far earlier.
McClure and everyone else involved in the sport understands the metrics. Football and men’s basketball pay a massive chunk of the bills. Athletic directors are increasingly concerned about what the shifting economics mean to Olympic sports. Nearly 80% of the 558 U.S. athletes at the Rio Games in 2016 came out of an American college program.
Most of the 85 programs cut by Division I universities since the coronavirus pandemic hit last year have involved Olympic sports. Next on the horizon are proposals being debated by the NCAA and in Congress that would allow players to cut sponsorship deals and make money off their names, likeness and images (NIL). A more far-reaching bill proposes revenue sharing between the sports programs and athletes.
That likely means even more money funneled into revenue-generating sports, an idea that clashes with what the ideal of the college athletic experience is supposed to be. Or, at least what it used to be.
“College athletics as we know it for a long time is no longer going to be the way it’s been,” Minnesota coach Mike Burns said. “Downsizing and streamlining is probably the direction they’re all thinking.”
Mark Williams, the longtime Oklahoma coach who also led the 2016 U.S. Olympic team and has guided the Sooners to nine national championships, is fearful of what lies ahead if the NCAA model no longer becomes sustainable.
“Our budgets are not going to be easily replicated by the USOTC if we go away,” he said.
It’s an “if” that will become a reality at Minnesota and Iowa later this month. Ironically, the Golden Gophers will host the 2021 NCAA National Collegiate Men’s Gymnastics Championships on April 16-17.
Wiskus will be out there. Moran and the rest of his Minnesota teammates, too. At some point, Moran will look out across the arena and ponder his future, and maybe his sport.
“It’s kind of a morbid way to approach it, it’s the same for everything else in life, how do you approach life when you know there’s death at the end?” he said. “It makes the year more special, that reality is approaching. I don’t have any fear towards it. I’m 21 and I’m not sitting here afraid to die. I have that growing appreciation for whatever the moment ends up being.”
U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Illinois | Sun-Times Media
Kelly, a Democrat from Chicago’s South Side, recently introduced the Prevent Gun Trafficking Act, a law that would prohibit the straw purchase of firearms.
U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, a Democrat, must be frustrated.
On the steam of her passion for gun control, Kelly was elected in 2013 to serve Illinois’ 2nd Congressional District, which stretches from Chicago’s South Side to Kankakee.
Yet the poisonous threads of gun violence continue to be embedded in the fabric of American life.
She is “devastated, she said, about each and every family that has lost a gun violence.
“I am devastated” by “each and every family” that has lost someone to gun violence, Kelly said gamely on Thursday, speaking at a virtual meeting of the City Club of Chicago, “and I am committed to advocating for policies and legislation that will help save lives and end this terrible epidemic.”
The epidemic is raging. Chicago is reeling from two horrific incidents involving guns. On March 29, police shot Adam Toledo, 13, in Little Village. He allegedly had a gun. Then on Tuesday, 21-month-old Kayden Swann was shot in the head in an apparent road rage incident on Lake Shore Drive. He is on life support at a Chicago hospital.
Every weekend, multiple murders and dozens of shootings torment our city.
As Kelly spoke on Thursday afternoon, President Joe Biden was appearing in the White House Rose Garden to announce plans for executive actions to restrict gun access.
One executive order would modify federal rules to curb homemade “ghost guns.” A second order would limit access to tools that can modify pistols to make them more lethal. Biden also intends to undergird “red flag” laws that can block dangerous individuals from getting guns.
Kelly applauded Biden for the steps “that he can take without legislation. Since we have such a hard time in getting things passed.”
Kelly recently introduced the Prevent Gun Trafficking Act, a federal law that would prohibit the straw purchase of firearms. Such legislation might attract bipartisan support in the House, but it faces dimmer prospects in the Senate.
Meanwhile, violence is reaching into the highest levels of our democracy. On Jan. 6, Kelly was in the House gallery as legislators were voting to certify the results of the November presidential election. As a mob of insurrectionists surged into the Capitol, Kelly and her colleagues were told to put on gas masks.
“I was,” she recalled, “on my hands and knees on the floor behind the wall that protects us from falling onto the House floor.”
The Capitol Police eventually led Kelly and others out to a secure location where, Kelly said, “we waited for many hours. It was terrifying and agonizing to walk through the hallways where one insurrectionist had just been killed, where we would later learn Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick had been murdered.”
Kelly, who was recently elected the new chair of the Illinois Democratic Party, said she works hard to reach out to Republicans to build support for gun control and other legislative measures. Yet Jan. 6 epitomizes why bipartisanship is so imperiled by our toxic politics.
“I’m not going to lie,” Kelly said, speaking about her fellow Democrats. “January 6 did something to many of us.”
“We know that some of our (Republican House) colleagues were involved in that. They were giving speeches to the people that later, you know, came into the Capitol carrying the Confederate flag,” Kelly continued. “We saw who did not vote for President Biden’s, you know, election to be certified. It’s very difficult to work with people like that that. That are just being negative to be negative.”
Hear from U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly and U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Illinois, when they join Laura Washington and Chicago Sun-Times Washington Bureau Chief Lynn Sweet for a live conversation At The Virtual Table this Thursday, April 15 at 6:30 p.m.
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