Chicago restaurants have been doing an unbelievable job of creating original meals for takeout and delivery during their required closing due to COVID-19.
In addition to delicious food and spirits, many are also offering special prices and discounts.
Cafe Spiaggia
Delivery:Cafe Spiaggia menus are available for delivery on Tock and DoorDash.
Special deal: For every $100 e-gift card purchase, receive a $25 bonus card.
Menus:
Through April 12th, order the Puglian Menu Preview featuring Orecchiette with anchovy, rapini, chili, garlic, and olive oil.
Starting April 11th, order the Bucatini Home Meal Kit with Bucatini pasta, guanciale, Calabrian chili, onion, butter, pomodoro, Pecorino Romano, and parsley.
Also starting the 11th, order Family Spaghetti + Meatballs! The best crowd pleaser there ever was.
Special deal: For every $100 e-gift card purchase, receive a $25 bonus card.
Menus
Have a Pizza + Beer date night, courtesy of Jake’s! Order your favorite Detroit-Style Pan Pizza with a brew of choice and settle in for a movie on the couch.
For barbecue fans, Pick one, pick two, or pick three of Jake’s house-smoked BBQ platters for delivery or curbside pickup. Anyone who picks three gets a free gift bag.
Choose from a 1/2 slab of Baby Back Ribs, 12-hour Smoked Beef Brisket, Pulled Pork Shoulder, and Local Makowski Hot links plus a side.
AND stock the fridge with your favorite beers from Jake’s, also available for curbside pickup and delivery.
River Roast
Although it’s not quite the same as sitting on River Roast’s great patio overlooking the Chicago river and the Riverwalk, it’s the next best thing.
Delivery: River Roast dellivery is available on Tock and DoorDash.
Special deal: For every $100 e-gift card purchase, receive a $25 bonus card.
Menus
Order a River Roast Supper Package for 2-4 people to enjoy in the company of your own home. Choose between a Whole Roast Chicken or St. Louis-style Ribs for the main course accompanied by salad or roasted veg, a side, and Chef’s choice dessert.
Tired of the same old bottle of bottle of red? Try one of River Roast’s Cocktail Kits also available for delivery or curbside pick-up. Kits are $40 each. Choices include Bloody Mary and Bailey’s + Cream. That’s the way to kick off the weekend quarantine-style.
The only time Senator Kamala Harris made any headway as a presidential candidate was back in June. In a debate. When she told Vice President Joe Biden that even though she really didn’t believe he was a racist, he was a racist. Because he worked with racists in Congress in the past and that he’d been against busing back in the day.
She was all rehearsed and polished when she broke in during the debate to say that. She’d practiced the attack and didn’t want it to go to waste. And she had a Tweet all ready, too. Which went out within seconds of her attack. And so did the related merch; it was all ready to roll, just as fast as her new followers could get online and buy it.
Her numbers zoomed up rapidly. But they toppled down just as fast. As she walked it all back and changed her mind a few times in every direction.
Negative information started coming out about her, too–about her prosecutorial record, and the way she zoomed up in politics in California, going from a prosecutor to district attorney and then to attorney general of California and Junior Senator of same.
Voters figured out she was nothingness personified. But more than fluff, to be sure. Because ultimately they found out she was a mean and thoughtless prosecutor who laughed and laughed, for instance, when she broached the biggest idea of her career: she was going to “spend political capital” on, of all things, jailing California parents of truants.
(Watch that performance on the video within the whole story here.)
So who was the racist then?
She also laughed and laughed on the radio last year, when she talked about smoking pot when she was younger. Hearing what she said angered her father no end; he called it pandering. Which made me wonder how much she laughed and laughed when she locked up a ton of young black men for pot violations–as a California prosecutor. Some for life.
So who was the racist then?
But Biden told Harris–virtually–at a virtual fundraiser for Harris a few days ago to retire her campaign debt that he and she were going to work together against Trump. And that he was “coming for” her.
And I don’t think he meant he was coming for Kamala the way he came for Corn Pop. Everyone’s said since Day 1 that she’d be his vice (no pun intended).
He’s coming for her, say the pundits–as early as this week–ever more loudly now, the same ones who’ve been saying it since they both announced their presidential intentions–that he’d be coming for her as his running mate. If he won and she didn’t.
Why now? If the chattering class is right, picking a running mate is tops on his list of things to do. He seems to need help, that’s for sure. He seems unable to handle a campaign on his own.
In four words, he’s no Andrew Cuomo.
Or maybe because Barack, half Kansan, half Kenyan, wants his female counterpart–half Brahmin Tamil Indian, half Jamaican slaveholder, to be president someday like him? Maybe he had a talk with Biden about that? I helped you, Joe, and you helped me; now let’s help our girl, K….
Or maybe Barack wants to help China-toady Biden shore up his campaign chest, which appears to be close to broke–especially in comparison to Trump’s. And Harris is an uber money-getter and a strong corporate democrat. The strongest. (Of course, I can’t think of any successful Democrat who isn’t a corporate democrat–except Bernie, who isn’t successful or a Democrat.)
But a Barack Obama she’s not. She has no power to electrify or to motivate. Or to think anything through. She’s undeserving to carry on the Obama legacy.
Even though there may be reasons to “reward” her. Nefarious ones, to be sure.
And she has long tentacles into the money the corporate money-givers shower on the right kind of politicians. The ones who won’t try to stop the gravy train like Bernie Sanders would. They know she won’t. And they’re right.
And oddly, even though we know she was showered with a lot of special interest money in the run-up to the primary–unlike money from the little people like Bernie was–we also know that she had to quit her campaign before the votes started being cast and counted because she had gone through a total fortune of cash, wasting everything she raised. And getting absolutely nothing for it in the polling numbers game.
Hmmmm…. Maybe The Richie Riches don’t want their money wasted and they’re behind matching up the potential Biden-Harris duo? Something like, We paid Kamala, Joe. Now you pay us back. Make her VP.
Maybe so.
Even though her campaign was ill-fated and very ill-run. One top level staffer, her state operations manager, said she never saw a campaign treat its staff so badly and she quit. And that was the end of Harris’ campaign. Until now.
But Biden’s coming for her, nonetheless! And the hot mess is all in the past.
Suddenly, surprisingly and suspiciously, Harris is out there, co-sponosring Covid-19 related bills and co-chairing Covid-19 related investigations, becoming a real johnny-on-the-spot. And in return? A little Senate recognition to keep her name alive, perhaps? Like she’s been doing for the last three years? Buffering her image so she could hop, skip and jump into the White House. Or, alternately, into Number One Observatory Circle, where the veep lives. Until Biden retires….????
But the most heartbreaking part of all this is that right after Biden (from his basement) told Bernie what a great guy he was for helping reform the democratic party into its true self and that he was going to institute Bernie’s good ideas and all would be good forever, blah blah blah…and goodbye Bernie. Nice knowing ya in the House and in the Senate and when I was Vice. Oh, and don’t forget to get the bros to vote for me on your way out, OK? OK?
Slam!
And then? Biden turned around and said he was coming for Kamala Harris. About the most different sort of politician on earth from Bernie Sanders. She can’t keep a political principle in her heart or head for any longer than Corn Pop could keep his cool. Except to live this principle: Wall Street good. And Bernie Sanders not so good.
So what’s Bernie going to do when Kamala Harris seals the deal with the just now Bernie-endorsed Biden? (I’m here to help you, Joe! I’d love to be your VP. Even though I called you a racist…Tee-Hee.)
Bernie just may, as they say, “grow a pair” like Biden–who keeps challenging anyone who challenges him on the issues to just step outside. (His security people move him along before anything serious happens.)
And Bernie just may say something like this: Go get him, bros, teach him a lesson. Do it for Corn Pop! And by the way, don’t vote….
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Bonnie McGrath is an award-winning long time Chicago journalist, columnist, blogger and lawyer who lives in the South Loop. You can contact her at [email protected]
SARS-CoV-2 is a Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome caused by a novel coronavirus, one that’s never been seen before. The illness caused by the virus is called COVID-19, a coronavirus disease that surfaced in 2019.
I’ve been critical of Donald Trump since I first saw an episode of The Apprentice back in 2004. His presidency has been an eye opener as to the fragility of American democracy and the ever present threat of authoritarianism.
When Trump referred to the novel coronavirus as the Chinese virus, Liberals, and even some Conservatives called him a racist.
While it might be true that Donald Trump is a racist (it’s true), referring to a virus by its point of origin is not only not racist, it’s a common scientific practice.
If anyone asks me, which they won’t, I like the name Wuhan virus, to give it a more precise point of origin without stigmatizing an entire nation.
Science has historically named diseases after the places where they were first discovered.
Lassa virus emerged in the town of Lassa in Nigeria in 1969. Ebola was named after the river that was thought to be the closest river to the village of Yambuku, where the virus first appeared in 1976.
As it turned out, scientists were looking at a bad map, there were at least three other rivers closer to Yambuku.
Lyme disease is named after the town of Old Lyme, Connecticut, where it first surfaced in 1975. The Zika virus first appeared in the Zika Forest of Uganda in 1947.
We have the Hong Kong and Asian flues and the most deadly influenza of all, the Spanish flu, which killed 50 million people in 1918.
Bubonic plague was the most deadly of all pandemics though, killing 75 million people in the 14th Century, when the population of Earth was only about 360 million.
Trump’s own grandfather died of the Spanish flu, although he first said that he didn’t know that people die from the flu.
Trump is right about the whole political correctness thing, though. We’ve gone way overboard with it and it’s blurring the meaning of free speech.
I remember feeling like my blood was boiling back in 1978, when Nazis wanted to march through Skokie, Illinois, then home to many Holocaust survivors and their families.
The ACLU defended the Nazis right to march, but they ultimately settled for a rally in Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago.
I still believe that Nazism is antithetical to American values and that their brand of hate speech, the same kind of hate speech that led to the murder of 6 million Jews has no place in America.
Or anywhere.
Somehow, we still have to protect the right of people who want to say things that make our blood boil.
This business of “safe spaces” in colleges, which are the last stop on the train to real life is ridiculous. There are no safe spaces in life.
Colleges cancelling speakers because this group or that group is offended goes against the very meaning of free speech. That’s a pretty damn slippery slope.
This form of Liberalism that makes it stylish to stifle free and open discussion is a greater threat to us than anything any one individual has to say.
History will not be kind to Donald Trump.
He will be remembered as a petty tyrant, a threat to our institutions and a destructive force in the history of America. His single minded, self interest will be cited as a factor in the deaths of thousands of Americans.
Let’s be responsible Liberals though, and not pummel him needlessly.
Chinese virus is completely apropos, although I’m hoping Wuhan virus is the name that sticks.
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Bob “RJ” Abrams is a political junkie, all-around malcontent and supporter of America’s warriors. After a career path that took him from merchandising at rock concerts to managing rock bands to a 27-year stint in the pits of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, he’s seen our nation from up and down.
As Regional Coordinator of the Warriors’ Watch Riders (a motorcycle support group for the military and their families) Bob plays an active role in our nation’s support of America’s warriors and their families.
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“It’s actually an old man’s rocket to tell you the truth!”
This week marks the 50th anniversary of the dramatic Apollo 13 mission to the Moon, the second launch aboard a Saturn V and the final time Jim Lovell would liftoff to space.
Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell describes what it was like launching on a Saturn V rocket. Photo Credit: Michael Galindo/Cosmic Chicago
Lovell flew to space with NASA for a total of four launches, Gemini 7 and 12, and Apollo 8 and 13. Gemini missions launched aboard the Titan II rocket, after modifications were made to the launch system to rate it for manned missions.
“The Titan booster was built for ICBMs. And so, when Gemini was on top of it, it was like you were sitting on top of the warhead of an ICBM when it takes off.”
The Saturn V rocket was specifically designed as part of the Apollo program, with thirteen rockets launching to the Moon. Astronaut Jim Lovell was one of only three astronauts to ride the Saturn V rocket twice.
In a recent video interview with Cosmic Chicago, Lovell described what it was like launching on a Saturn V rocket.
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Throughout the week we are publishing clips from our full interview with Jim Lovell. Subscribe to Cosmic Chicago to get updates delivered directly to your inbox! Add your email address in the box and click the “create subscription” button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.
I’m a tiny bit obsessed with space. I’m told it’s an acceptable obsession because I take what I learn and share it with others. If I’m not writing about space, among other things, I’m busy doing science with one of the many student orgs I volunteer with or, advocating to bring more STEM programs to underrepresented students. I miss working in a lab, so invite me out to see yours!
You hear it on the news every day; social distancing, stay home, wash your hands. It’s all good advice to get the corona virus curve to go down. It will work too if we all take that little bit of effort to maintain that social distancing and more.
But if you look around, you’ll see that some people are getting back in the outdoors. The other day I took a drive just to get out of the house. I had no contact with any people, didn’t stop at any stores, and never got out of my car till I was back in my garage at home.
One place I wanted to take a look at was Tampier Lake. It’s not far away. Surprisingly the Cook County Forest Preserve lake was open for fishing. Parking lots were open and each had a handful of cars, nicely spaced away from each other.
People were fishing. Anglers were by themselves or with one or two others. Everyone I saw had ample space between them. Social distancing was being practiced. And several of the people were wearing facemasks. This was a good thing.
A friend of mine sent me an email the other day. He got out to go fishing. His nickname is Husker. Fishing small subdivision ponds is one of his favorite pastimes. Some spots are a short walk from his home while others might be just a short drive.
Husker is an angler who frequently fishing waters like LaSalle, Heidecke and Braidwood Lakes. He’ll fish Lake Michigan and our local rivers like the Calumet, DesPlaines, Illinois, Kankakee and DuPage. Access to so many of these bodies of water is closed now but that’s not the case for many local ponds.
The email from Husker had a couple photos a crappie and bass that he caught and released from a small pond that’s near his home. What a great way to get back in the outdoors. He had the lake all to himself. Saw no one else that day. I guess it’s safe to say that Husker agrees that COVID-19 shouldn’t get you down.
Just as it’s okay to go out of the house for take-out food for dinner or visit a grocery store, it’s ok to visit a local pond or the forest preserve to do a little fishing. But don’t gather a large group to join you. Remember to keep your distance from others. Avoid contact with others. Go ahead’ give yourself a break and carefully, get back in the outdoors.
Don Dziedzina of Illinois Outdoors Inc., has been involved in the outdoors industry for over 40 years.
Don has written columns for numerous outdoor magazines and many local newspapers. For a couple years he wrote outdoor columns for the Chicago Tribune in the Sports section.
For over 20 years ago Don was the producer and host of the Illinois Outdoors TV show. It aired on Comcast, Insight, and MediaCom Cable stations having a reach of nearly 7 million viewers every week.
Don joined Jim DaRosa as a co-host of the Fishing and Outdoor Radio Show. The very popular outdoor radio show aired every week, simulcast on WCSJ AM 1550, WCSJ FM 103.1, WSPY FM 107.1, WSPY AM 1480, WSQR FM 93.5 and WSQR AM 1180.
After two years of retirement from writing, TV and Radio, Don started a new blog on ChicagoNow titled Back Into the Outdoors.
On the Illinois Outdoors TV Show, Don always says, “Great Fishing (or hunting) is not that far away.” tm That saying is still popular today.
MINNEAPOLIS — Jacqueline Cruz-Towns, the mother of Minnesota Timberwolves center Karl-Anthony Towns, died Monday due to complications from COVID-19 after more than a month of fighting the virus.
The Timberwolves made the announcement via the Towns family, which requested privacy. Karl Towns Sr., the father of the two-time All-Star player, was also hospitalized with the virus but has since recovered.
A native of the Dominican Republic, Cruz-Towns was a fixture at Timberwolves games from the start of Karl-Anthony Towns’ NBA career in 2015.
“Jackie was many things to many people — a wife, mother, daughter, grandmother, sister, aunt, and friend,” the statement from the Towns family said. “She was an incredible source of strength; a fiery, caring, and extremely loving person who touched everyone she met. Her passion was palpable, and her energy will never be replaced.”
The family expressed gratitude to the “warriors” at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in Philadelphia and JFK Medical Center in Edison, New Jersey, the hospitals where she received care.
After his parents first felt ill at their home in New Jersey, Towns and his sister urged them to seek immediate medical attention and be tested for the virus. Towns posted an emotional video on his Instagram account on March 24, revealing his mother was in a medically induced coma while imploring people to stay home to help stop the spread of the virus. The East Coast has been hit particularly hard by COVID-19, with a death toll in New York state alone that has topped 10,000.
The Timberwolves expressed their condolences for the woman they considered part of their family.
“As Karl’s number one fan, Jackie provided constant and positive energy for him and was beloved by our entire organization and staff at Target Center,” the team said.
Towns made a $100,000 donation to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for COVID-19 testing.
Mourners salute from a distance at funeral of Chicago firefighter who died of COVID-19
Chicago Fire Department personnel salute during the procession to the cemetery from firefighter Mario Araujo’s funeral at Theis-Gorski Funeral Home on the Northwest Side, Monday morning, April 13, 2020.Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times
Hundreds of Chicago Fire Department personnel and law enforcement officers stood more than 6 feet apart on North Pulaski Road and saluted Monday morning as the hearse carrying firefighter Mario Araujo traveled to a Northwest Side cemetery.
Araujo’s funeral, at Theis-Gorski Funeral Home in the Irving Park neighborhood, was attended by
only “a very limited number” of family members, according to the fire department. Hundreds of Araujo’s colleagues and supporters waited outside the funeral home and eventually joined in the procession to Montrose Cemetery, where a brief ceremony, featuring bagpipes and a 21-gun salute, took place in front of the crematorium. Araujo’s mother was presented with the Chicago flag that draped her son’s casket.
5:33 p.m. Heart woes spur partial stop of malaria drug study for virus
Scientists in Brazil have stopped part of a study of a malaria drug touted as a possible coronavirus treatment after heart rhythm problems developed in one-quarter of people given the higher of two doses being tested.
Chloroquine and a newer, similar drug called hydroxychloroquine, have been pushed by President Donald Trump after some very small, early tests suggested the drugs might curb the virus from entering cells. But the drugs have long been known to have potentially serious side effects, including altering the heartbeat in a way that could lead to sudden death.
The Brazilian study, in the Amazonian city of Manaus, had planned to enroll 440 severely ill COVID-19 patients to test two doses of chloroquine, but researchers reported results after only 81 had been treated.
One-fourth of those assigned to get 600 milligrams twice a day for 10 days developed heart rhythm problems, and trends suggested more deaths were occurring in that group, so scientists stopped that part of the study.
5:07 p.m. 74 more die in Illinois from coronavirus; Pritzker administration hopes cases are leveling
Sun-Times file
Illinois health officials on Monday said another 74 people have died from the coronavirus, bringing the state’s death toll to 794.
There are also 1,173 new confirmed cases, bringing the total of cases in the state to 22,025. There have been more than 100,000 tests administered, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health. The virus has also spread to an additional county, with 87 of 102 counties reporting cases.
Private labs do not report their results on Sundays, which has led to a lower number of confirmed cases on Mondays, according to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office.
Pritzker on Sunday said he was “cautiously optimistic” the state could be “bending the curve” to keep hospitals within their patient capacity.
4:42 p.m. Car insurance companies tout their refunds because of coronavirus, but they vary widely
Car insurance companies are touting their discounts because policyholders are driving less thanks to the coronavirus shutdown — but some discounts are better than others, consumer groups say.
State Farm, based in Bloomington, got an “A” ranking Monday by the Consumer Federation of America and Center for Economic Justice for announcing it will give refunds, on average of 25 percent coveringMarch 20 through May 31.
Allstate, based in Northbrook, got a “B” grade for offering a 15 percent refund for April and May premiums. Along with American Family, Allstate was cited for being the first to offer a refund to consumers.
4:10 p.m. Virus exposes US inequality. Will it spur lasting remedies?
WASHINGTON — The sick who still go to work because they have no paid leave.
Families who face ruin from even a temporary layoff.
Front-line workers risking infection as they drive buses, bag takeout meals and mop hospital floors.
For years, financial inequality has widened in the United States and elsewhere as wealth and income have become increasingly concentrated among the most affluent while millions struggle to get by. Now, the coronavirus outbreak has laid bear the human cost of that inequality, making it more visible and potentially worse.
Congress, the Trump administration and the Federal Reserve have mounted the largest financial intervention in history — a full-scale drive that includes mandating sick leave for some, distributing $1,200 checks to individuals, allocating rescue aid to employers and expanding unemployment benefits to try to help America survive the crisis.
Yet those measures are only temporary. And for millions of newly unemployed, they may not be enough.
3:33 p.m. WATCH: Eerie video shows nearly empty Chicago Loop from 360-degree camera
Bustling downtown streets have largely been abandoned as life in Chicago has come to a grinding halt in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak.
To capture the eerie phenomenon, videographers Rob Gigliotti, owner of RRG Photography, and Mark Segal, who owns Skypan International, used a 360-degree camera to film various landmarks in the Loop on April 2. The sunny spring day less than two weeks into Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s ongoing stay-at-home order. They cruised at about 15 miles per hour down normally bustling streets, with the camera atop a 10-foot pole.
Soundtracked by a loping guitar solo, the resulting video offers a stunning view of a city at a standstill. While some buses and trains can be seen running in the roughly 4 1/2-minute video, only a smattering of pedestrians and vehicles are seen braving the desolate cityscape.
3:05 p.m. Trump’s disdain for ‘Obamacare’ could hamper virus response
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s unrelenting opposition to “Obamacare” could become an obstacle for millions of uninsured people in the coronavirus outbreak, as well as many who are losing coverage in the economic shutdown.
Experts say the Affordable Care Act’s insurance markets provide a ready-made infrastructure for extending subsidized private coverage in every state, allowing more people access to medical treatment before they get so sick they have to go to the emergency room. In about three-fourths of the states, expanded Medicaid is also available to low-income people.
But the Trump administration has resisted reopening the ACA’s HealthCare.gov marketplace for uninsured people who missed the last sign-up period. And it doesn’t seem to be doing much to inform people who lost job-based coverage that they’re eligible for insurance now through the ACA.
State-run exchanges prominently promote the availability of coverage, but users of HealthCare.gov have to go through a series of clicks to get that information.
“There is definitely a greater prioritization of coronavirus on the state exchange websites,” said Katherine Hempstead of the nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “The state exchanges put a message about coronavirus along the top of their home page — ‘above the fold’ — while on HealthCare.gov it appears that it’s business as usual until you scroll down.”
2:37 p.m. UChicago seeking former COVID-19 patients for treatment study
If you’ve recovered from COVID-19, the University of Chicago wants to hear from you.
Researchers at University of Chicago Medicine have launched a clinical trial to study if blood plasma from people who’ve recovered from the disease brought on by the novel coronavirus can be used to help those still suffering from the virus.
“Basically, it relies on the principle of passive immunity, where you want to take plasma from a person who has recovered from the disease — [who] likely has anti-virus antibodies — and then transfuse it into a person who’s currently sick with the disease in the hopes of making them recover,” said Dr. Maria Lucia Madariaga, the study’s principal investigator. “Right now, the preliminary data coming out from China indicate that it is a safe and effective therapy.”
The treatment, known as convalescent plasma therapy, has been used for more than a century and has previously been employed in fights against measles, influenza, MERS and SARS.
Eligible persons who are interested in donating plasma can contact University of Chicago Medicine at (773) 702-5526 or [email protected].
1:59 p.m. NY death toll passes 10,000, but new hotspots slow to emerge
MADRID — New York’s coronavirus death toll topped 10,000 on Monday even as the absence of fresh hotspots in the U.S. or elsewhere in the world yielded a ray of optimism in global efforts against the disease, though a return to normal was unlikely anytime soon.
Officials around the world worried that halting the quarantine and social distancing behaviors could easily undo the hard-earned progress. Still, there were signs that countries were looking in that direction. Spain permitted some workers to return to their jobs, a hard-hit region of Italy loosened its lockdown restrictions and grim predictions of a virus that would move with equal ferocity from New York to other parts of America had not yet materialized.
New York’s state’s 671 new deaths on Sunday marked the first time in a week that the daily toll dipped below 700. Almost 2,000 people were newly hospitalized with the virus Sunday, though once discharges and deaths are accounted for, the number of people hospitalized has flattened to just under 19,000.
“This virus is very good at what it does. It is a killer,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday during a state Capitol news briefing.
11:40 a.m. Trump says he’ll decide on easing guidelines, not governors
President Donald Trump asserted Monday that he is the ultimate decision-maker for determining how and when to relax the nation’s social distancing guidelines as he grows anxious to reopen the coronavirus-stricken country as soon as possible.
Governors and local leaders, who have instituted mandatory restrictions that have the force of law, have expressed concern that Trump’s plan to restore normalcy will cost lives and extend the duration of the outbreak.
Trump has pushed to reopen the economy, which has plummeted as businesses have shuttered, leaving millions of people out of work and struggling to obtain basic commodities.
Taking to Twitter on Monday, Trump said some are “saying that it is the Governors decision to open up the states, not that of the President of the United States & the Federal Government. Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect…it is the decision of the President, and for many good reasons.”
“As the swab supply continues to decline, there is a real possibility hospitals will completely run out,” the April 11 health alert said. “At this time, providers are reminded to only test hospitalized patients in order to preserve resources that are needed to diagnose and appropriately manage patients with more severe illness.”
“That is great news on the testing front,” Pritzker said. “I’ve spoken before about a stabilizing or bending of the curve, and today is another piece of evidence that it might be happening.”
8:50 a.m. Six ways the coronavirus pandemic will hit Chicago’s economy hard
1. Spending local gets harder
Even before the crisis, times weren’t good on the local commercial street. Start with outmoded space, lack of parking and a poor mix of stores, add in digital shopping and compound that with a hard recession and you’ve got a surfeit of “for rent” signs and landlords with little incentive to maintain things. Sam Toia, CEO of the Illinois Restaurant Association, worries that 25% of his members in Chicago will never re-open. Maybe cheap rents and cash on hand will bring out successors.
2. Don’t believe the construction cranes
In the office market, job cuts mean lower demand for space. Ross Moore, economist at the real estate firm Cresa, wrote, “Accounting for new construction, the U.S. office vacancy rate could therefore easily double in the next 12 to 24 months to nearly 20%.”
3. New respect for the suburbs
Chicago has ridden a wave of urbanization led by young people drawn to other young people. The West Loop can look like a post-graduate campus town. But something about a plague makes living cheek by jowl less attractive. Then those folks go to work in techie open-plan offices that cram people together and give them a coffee lounge to keep them happy. Some may decide that living with backyards like their parents did isn’t so bad.
7:17 a.m. Longtime 911 operator expressed concerns about COVID-19 precautions at work weeks before dying of virus, daughter says
A longtime 911 operator who died of complications from the coronavirus last month had told his family he was concerned he and his co-workers had not been provided with adequate personal protective equipment, according to his daughter.
Russell Modjeski was a hard-working man dedicated to his family and his co-workers, his daughter Hannah Modjeski told the Sun-Times in a phone interview Saturday.
Modjeski died March 29 of a COVID-19 infection, with diabetes and hypertension as contributing factors,” according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
In the weeks before his death, Modjeski, 60, told relatives that hand sanitizer was being supplied at his office, but that workers were not being given masks, gloves or other protective equipment while working for the Office of Emergency Management and Communications.
The Pritzker administration sounded the alarm Sunday over attempts by President Donald Trump’s Labor Department to narrow the ability of self-employed workers to qualify for new COVID-19 jobless benefits, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
A package of unprecedented, enhanced and extended unemployment benefits in the emergency $2.2 trillion federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act — known as the CARES Act — was passed with bipartisan support and signed into law March 27.
Allowing self-employed, independent contractors and gig workers — such as Uber and Lyft drivers — the ability to collect unemployment on a temporary basis is a key new program created in the CARES Act.
Illinoisans already receiving unemployment payments should have received another $600 last week, with the federal government providing the emergency extra cash under the CARES Act.
The extra benefits are intended to quickly send money to workers who lost their jobs or were furloughed or whose income sources dried up because of the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns and the meltdown of the economy.
4:10 p.m. Racism and coronavirus double the damage inflicted upon African Americans
Today we are all sheltering in place. To defeat a lethal enemy, we sacrifice freedoms, limit contact with others, surrender financial security, and restrict ourselves from things we would like to be doing, in service of greater good of saving lives.
In past weeks, I have often heard that we are living in unprecedented times. That is likely true, but deceivingly so. This date in history remind us that staying in less-than-ideal places has more than once been a strategy for saving lives.
Fifty-seven years ago, on the spring date of Good Friday, 50 courageous individuals chose to be commanded by the government to remain in place; they did so to combat a pernicious, nation-ravaging evil that had taken countless lives and seemingly knew no borders. Led by Martin Luther King, Fred Shuttlesworth and Ralph Albernathy, these peaceful protest marchers were incarcerated by Bull Connor. They intentionally remained in jail, eschewing bond, to combat the deathly evil of racism.
From that very Birmingham Jail, Dr. King would pen his rightly famous letter, first published 57 years ago this very day. He challenged us to pay attention to what his moment made clear, bringing to the surface the problems already present.
12:33 p.m. A pandemic is no excuse for rolling back environmental protections
Special interests are setting the stage for another public health crisis once COVID-19 has passed. Let’s stop them while we can.
As the nation focuses on the coronavirus pandemic, polluters and their allies are quietly working overtime to ease the rules against fouling the environment. They want to allow cars to spew more contaminants. They want to give a new pass to factories that pollute our water and air.
Widespread and enduring health problems would be sure to follow. People would get sick and die, though nobody would call it a pandemic. It would just be a return to a day that our nation fought hard, standing up to corporate despoilers of the environment, to move beyond.
Many industries genuinely deserve help to get through the pandemic. But others have been exploiting it to take advantage of the Trump administration’s consistent willingness to weaken environmental protections. The administration itself is trying to take advantage as well.
6:01 a.m. Airlines safe, but Trump would let post office die
You can’t vote by mail if there’s no mail.
One of the many disasters that will ensue if the government actually lets the United States Postal Service go belly up, which it might do as early as September.
A disaster to democracy, small “d” — the mail knits this country together in a fundamental way, like the interstate highway system — and I suppose to large “d” Democrats, too. That’s because their frequent majority — which is supposed to be the deciding factor in elections, remember — is constantly being undercut by Republican voter suppression.
The GOP casts this anti-democratic (and yes, anti-Democratic) action as a campaign to suppress voter fraud, which is rich, like the guy breaking into your house and stealing your TV declaring it part of an anti-burglary campaign.
At least we haven’t gone back to literacy tests and poll taxes. Yet.
The USPS going bust would also be a disaster to already cratering employment. Unemployment shot up due to the COVID-19 pandemic: a record-shattering 16 million unemployment claims in three weeks. If the USPS goes, another 600,000 jobs — good jobs with benefits — go with it.
The $2 trillion bailout package approved by both houses of Congress would have been the perfect time to help out letter carriers, since the volume of mail is down some 50 percent due to COVID-19.
The package manages to rescue the airline industry; you’d think the mail would be a no-brainer. But even no-brainers are hard when you haven’t got a brain. Or, rather, when the rude ganglional clump that controls your actions only lights up when the topic is you.
So, you want the Chicago Bears to trade back and acquire more picks? We’ve got the perfect solution.
At this point, you have probably seen several 2020 mock drafts for the Chicago Bears. Most of us are hanging out at home (hopefully) and absorbing all of the NFL content we can possibly obtain, since it’s truly the only major sport with anything going on. So, what better to pass the time than draft content for the Bears?
The 2020 NFL Draft is going to happen as scheduled, thankfully. Of course, it is not going to be anywhere close to normal. The league is going to conduct the draft virtually, with 58 prospects being invited to participate from their homes. The general managers, coaches and front office personnel will be communicating via remote technology as well, as they all try to get through the COVID-19 pandemic as best they can.
It is going to be different, but that doesn’t change the fact that the show goes on. This Bears roster has a ton of talent, but also a few holes to shore up in the roster. Ryan Pace is going to have to fix those areas with limited capital in this draft, too.
Most fans know the situation — two second-round picks and not much after that. There are no picks in the first, third or fourth rounds for the Bears. So, naturally, a lot of fans would like to see Pace trade back and acquire more capital by dealing one of their second rounders.
What would an ideal trade-back scenario look like? Who could the Bears select with the extra picks? That’s what I try to tackle here, and to be perfectly honest, this might be my favorite mock draft I have completed, yet. Let’s kick it off with the Bears’ 43rd overall selection before things get fun.
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Sun-Times file
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