chicagotribune--2020-08-03--Book publisher who served 30 years for murder is trying to prove the innocence of convicted killer M

Book publisher who served 30 years for murder is trying to prove the innocence of convicted killer Marni Yang

“ One thing you learn in prison is to do something with nothing , ” she said .
“ And @ @ @ @ @ at it , you can do a big something out of nothing .
I can @ @ @ @ @ a clothes dryer .
I can cut my hair with fingernail clippers .
We learn @ @ @ @ @ materials we have to do whatever we need to do .
”

Marni Yang stands in the library at Logan Correctional Center, Feb. 25, 2020 in Lincoln. Prosecutors said she committed the crime out of jealousy and admitted her involvement. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
Criminal defense attorney Jed Stone was on his fifth subpoena request of the morning when his command of the massive Marni Yang case file faltered.
He wanted the judge to order a debt collection agency to release its notes on a phone conversation one of its employees supposedly had with Yang the morning Rhoni Reuter and her unborn child were murdered — a conversation that, if proven, could provide Yang a crucial alibi.
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Tammy Koelling meets with defense attorney Jed Stone as they prepare for an appeal for Marni Yang on Feb. 5, 2020, in Waukegan. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
But when had the call arrived? Stone wasn’t sure. So he turned to a woman in black seated behind him — a woman who might know the case better than anyone.
“Shortly after 9 a.m.?” Stone guessed.
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“Mm-hmm,” she replied with a confident nod. The exact time, as she knew perfectly well, was 9:13 a.m.
Rhoni Reuter was the pregnant girlfriend of former Chicago Bear Shaun Gayle. She was found dead with multiple gun wounds Oct. 4, 2007, in her Deerfield home. (Family photo)
That small moment in a Lake County courtroom earlier this year illuminated the influence that Tammy Koelling, a petite, tastefully dressed, carefully spoken book publisher from the southern Illinois town of Salem, has over Yang’s exoneration effort.
Yang was given a life sentence in 2011 for the murder of Reuter, her rival for the affections of ex-Chicago Bear Shaun Gayle. Last year, she filed court papers asserting her innocence, and is seeking a new trial or an outright reversal of her conviction.
Koelling is deeply involved in the case. She has read the 30,000-page file several times and committed hundreds of data points to memory. She has organized news conferences and Facebook livestreams to further Yang’s defense. She has paid experts from her own pocket to poke holes in the prosecution’s case.
It’s nearly a full-time job, and she’s doing it for free. To understand why, you have to know about Koelling’s past.
In 1987, Koelling, then a 23-year-old mother of two who worked in an insurance office, was convicted with five co-defendants of the murder of a small-time drug dealer outside Salem. Prosecutors described her as the mastermind, saying she wanted to silence a man she thought was about to snitch on her own marijuana-selling enterprise.
“The evidence in this case illustrates that (Koelling) is coldblooded and ruthless,” Marion County State’s Attorney Robert Matoush told the judge at sentencing. “I submit to your honor that you should not let her appearance fool you. There is evil in her.”
Tammy Koelling meets with defense attorney Jed Stone on Feb. 5, 2020, in Waukegan. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
Koelling, who says she feels responsible for the murder though she denies taking an active role, spent the next three decades in prison. There, she overcame what she describes as violence and despair to become a jailhouse lawyer who used her paralegal training to help fellow inmates appeal their cases.
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That’s how she met Yang. After several conversations, Koelling said she grew convinced that Yang had been wrongfully convicted, and pledged that once released from prison, she would try to help her new acquaintance prove her innocence.
It promises to be an uphill, possibly quixotic effort. Lake County prosecutors have dismissed Yang’s legal arguments, saying there is no doubt she is the killer. Recently, they turned a critical eye on Koelling, alleging in court filings that she has business ties with Yang and her family that render their credibility suspect.
Koelling denies having any deals with the family outside of publishing a book by Yang’s three children that has netted them only a few hundred dollars. She said her company has signed a contract with a film producer, whom she would not name, to assist with a documentary about the case, but the family is not involved.
Speaking in a suburban hotel during one of her trips north to work on the case, a prison-trained emotional support dog named Sir Victor at her feet, Koelling said she is just trying to do the right thing. Since starting work on Yang’s case, she has expanded her focus to other inmates who say they’re innocent, aiming to track down exculpatory evidence through ingenuity and persistence.
“One thing you learn in prison is to do something with nothing,” she said. “And if you get really good at it, you can do a big something out of nothing. I can cook an entire meal in a clothes dryer. I can cut my hair with fingernail clippers. We learn to use the very limited materials we have to do whatever we need to do.”
Discord, drugs and murder
Tammy Koelling was born into chaos. Before she was 3, according to a court filing, her mother abandoned her and her four siblings in a deer shack near their hometown of Metropolis, Illinois. The children were rescued — Koelling doesn’t remember the circumstances — and sent to live in different homes.
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Koelling was taken in by a couple in Salem, a town of 7,000 people 65 miles due east of St. Louis. She said she didn’t learn she had been adopted until she was 12, and was badly thrown by the revelation.
“It changed things for me,” she said. “It changed my perspective. It would have been better had I grown up thinking they were my real mom and dad.”
Her seemingly normal small-town life — school, friends, church youth group — grew stormier as she moved through her teens, she said. She got pregnant her senior year of high school and married the father, then divorced him after her daughter was born and married another man who had grown up in her neighborhood.
That marriage produced another daughter, born at only 29 weeks with severe health problems. Koelling said the infant required constant monitoring, and despite taking “handfuls” of caffeinated diet pills to stay awake, she lived in terror she would sleep through the alarm signaling that her daughter needed immediate care.
Her husband worked nights, so she was on her own for most of the time. When she confided her fears to him, she said, he offered a solution.
“He showed me how to do these little lines,” she said. “It was a month later before I figured out it was cocaine. I thought he had opened up the capsules of those pills, like it was another way to use these pills to stay awake. That’s how naive I was.”
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Her husband had been dealing marijuana to cover their medical bills, she said. She insisted she had nothing to do with the business but was pulled into it when a young man named Red Alderson showed up at her door, pleading for help.
In Koelling’s version, Alderson, 22, had been dealing for her husband but ran afoul of competitors. As she was trying to negotiate a truce, she said, she mistakenly delivered Alderson to the men who wanted him dead. In a wooded clearing known as The Bottoms, one of the men, a paroled rapist named Gary Daubman, shot Alderson three times in the back of the head.
“I will never, ever forget that,” Koelling said, her voice trembling. “I will never be able to. I tried to help him and I ended up with his demise on my hands.”
Police, prosecutors and some of Koelling’s co-defendants offered a different story. In their telling, Koelling was a full participant in the family drug business and the architect of the murder. Daubman said in a statement to police that she suspected Alderson might be an informant.
“Tammy said she wanted me to waste a guy, to kill a guy, because this guy was messed up with the cops and she didn’t want this guy to bring up her name,” he said.
Alderson’s body was discovered three days after his murder by teens riding three-wheelers through The Bottoms. It had been severely burned but was still identifiable.
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Daubman was arrested in a rape case two days later and volunteered a confession about Alderson’s murder during a lie-detector test, authorities said. Koelling, her husband and four other alleged conspirators were quickly rounded up.
Koelling said prosecutors offered to downgrade her charges if she gave false testimony against the others (Matoush, now retired, said that is untrue). She refused, she said, and after an unusual proceeding in which the judge relied mostly on the transcript from the trial of one of her co-defendants, she was convicted of murder.
Her attorney asked the judge for mercy.
“Her medical problems are such — her size, her frailty — prison is going to be a rough life for her in Dwight,” he said. “A lengthy prison sentence. … I don’t know if she can live through it. Might as well be tantamount to the death sentence.”
The judge, while accepting Koelling’s remorse, said her role in the murder had been “coldblooded and ruthless,” and gave her an extended sentence of 60 years in prison. Under the rules in place at the time, she would serve half.
Jailhouse lawyer
Koelling describes prison as hellish. An attack by another inmate left her face scarred, she said, and the misery of incarceration compelled her to attempt suicide three times.
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But after one of those attempts, she said, her father visited and urged her to think about how she could overcome “the biggest mistake in (her) life.” The path Koelling chose was education, and she took prison classes in everything from theology to dog training.
“You do anything to stay busy,” she said. “If you’re going to survive prison, you leave the housing unit very early in the morning and don’t come back until 9 p.m. when you’ve done all your prison jobs. Fall into your bunk and fall asleep.”
She became a certified paralegal, she said, which allowed her to work in the prison law library, helping other inmates with their cases. One day, as Koelling neared the end of her sentence, Marni Yang introduced herself.
In a letter sent from the Logan Correctional Center, Yang said it was not an instant connection: Koelling had grown jaded after years of sorting through false and hopeless claims, and assumed Yang’s fell into that category too.
“However, once she began to piece together some of the details that I shared with her, she came to firmly believe in my innocence,” Yang wrote. “Up to that point, I never felt like anyone actually listened to what I was telling them, or really cared about what I was saying.”
Yang’s story, which she has since repeated in court filings, was that she made a phony confession to take police pressure off her teenage son. She also said a 9 mm pistol she owned — the same type of weapon used in the killing — had been stolen before the crime.
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Lake County prosecutors scoff at Yang’s version, saying in a court motion that she could have gotten another gun after the alleged theft, and that details in her supposedly made-up admission match what a friend had earlier relayed to police.
But Koelling said Yang’s story rang true. She made an offhand promise that she would help, she said, and stuck to it when she was finally paroled in 2016.
“There was something about this case that resonated with me,” she said. “I started searching for it online and seeing what happened. I was just like, ‘This makes no sense at all. Why would people believe this?’”
‘The other side'
Koelling moved back in with her elderly mother in Salem and, having self-published two books while incarcerated, started a small press called Words Matter Publishing. A month later, she contacted Yang’s father, Larry Merar, to pitch the idea of a book that would “tell the other side of the story.”
As part of that, she conferred with Yang’s lawyer and hired private investigator Perry Myers to look into what she considered to be discrepancies, such as a mysterious set of keys captured in a crime scene photograph. They turned out to belong someone from the coroner’s office, she said, a sign of what she called sloppy evidence processing.
Myers said Koelling eventually became the “coordinator” of Yang’s defense, hiring experts to look for weaknesses in the evidence and even helping to interview possible witnesses.
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“Tammy has lived and breathed the case,” Myers said. “She has the luxury to read through most of the file from the original trial and look at that. She really has a good knowledge of the case, much better probably than any of us.”
Stone said while he makes the final decisions on legal strategy, Koelling has been “a great and valued assistant,” and that her criminal background gives her a unique lens through which to view the evidence.
“She’s very good at what she does,” he said in an interview earlier this year. “While I’m sure that some less thoughtful individual may make an attack on her to gain an advantage in litigation, the truth is she’s an outstanding member of this team and greatly respected.”
Credibility questions
The “attack” Stone anticipated finally came in late June. Lake County prosecutors filed court motions revealing Koelling’s history and raising questions about her credibility and motivation for being involved in Yang’s case.
“(It) appears that Words Matter Publishing has provided financial compensation or other inducements to the defendant or her children for multiple book deals and media contracts,” reads one document. “The People contend that the financial inducements to those witnesses by Words Matter Publishing would relate to the bias, interest and motive of those witnesses.”
The prosecutors asked for a subpoena that would force Koelling to turn over any paperwork she has detailing business ties with the family, along with investigative material they suspect her of holding. They also sought permission to bring up Koelling’s criminal record if she testifies in the case.
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Merar said other than a book Yang’s children wrote, for which they received minimal compensation, the family has no deals with Koelling.
“I know every cost and benefit involved,” he said. “There’s nothing there.”
Koelling said she believes the motions are payback for her denunciations of Lake County authorities, aired via a series of Facebook Live videos. She noted that three days after she posted a video titled “Continual Corruption in Lake County Illinois,” prosecutors filed their motions.
“It was retaliation,” she said. “It was clearly retaliation.”
State’s Attorney Mike Nerheim responded: ”We remain focused on this case itself and (are) not concerned with the personal opinions of Ms. Koelling.”
The matter is due to come before a Lake County judge in September.
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Meanwhile, Koelling has organized the investigators who have worked on Yang’s defense into a team that, for a fee, will examine other supposed injustices. One case they’ve accepted is that of Diana Thames, convicted on circumstantial evidence in 2008 for the murder of her friend and business partner in Palatine.
Thames, serving a 35-year sentence at Logan, has argued in appellate court that someone else is the killer. She did not respond to a letter from the Tribune seeking comment.
Koelling, who has faced social media scorn from some people who have learned about her past, said her transformation into a crusader for those she believes were wrongfully convicted is about seeking justice, as much for the victims as the incarcerated.
It is not, she said, an attempt at redemption.
“There is no way to clean up a murder that I was involved in and found guilty of,” she said. “You can’t clean that up. There’s nothing that makes that type of mistake go away.”
jkeilman@chicagotribune.com
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Twitter @JohnKeilman


chicagotribune--2020-08-03--Column: Let’s give credit where credit is due for the feds’ major gang bust in Chicago. But it’s not

Column: Let’s give credit where credit is due for the feds’ major gang bust in Chicago. But it’s not due to Trump.

We don ’ t often hear much from the feds in Chicago .
They don ’ t hold regular news @ @ @ @ @ of what they are up to .
They are so hush-hush that we forget they @ @ @ @ @ side by side with police to weed out criminals and make our city safe .

Federal law enforcement officials last week took down a drug and illegal firearms operation run by a Chicago street gang whose history dates back more than a half century. That’s a big deal to those of us who are tired of the violence in our city.
But let’s be clear. Donald Trump had nothing to do with it.
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As soon as the announcement was made that the feds had arrested the alleged leader of the Black Disciples, Trump supporters were quick to portray the bust as a huge win for the president.
In recent weeks, Trump has sent federal officers to several cities run by Democrats as part of his “law and order” political platform. The move is largely considered a campaign ploy, but Mayor Lori Lightfoot agreed to allow the agents in as long as they don’t try to forcibly patrol the streets like they did for weeks in Portland, Oregon.
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The gang crackdown in Chicago resulted from a multiyear sting operation led by federal authorities already here. They were not part of Trump’s Operation Legend, which reportedly planned to dispatch 150 additional federal agents to Chicago.
Contrary to what his supporters seem to think, Trump isn’t a miracle worker. Nor are the feds he sent here. It takes years of planning and investigative work by the feds, state and local law enforcement officials to pull off a bust like this.
Trump could be out of office before we know whether his federal agent surge had an effect.
We don’t often hear much from the feds in Chicago. They don’t hold regular news conferences to keep us apprised of what they are up to. They are so hush-hush that we forget they are here, sometimes working side by side with police to weed out criminals and make our city safe.
When police Superintendent David Brown recently said street corner open-air drug markets were the pipeline to shootings and murders in Chicago, we knew he was telling the truth. But without a comprehensive plan of attack, police alone seem helpless to crack down on the operations and shut them down permanently.
It’s reassuring to see the collaboration between police and federal agents, with their vast resources and expertise, making headway.
We can breathe a sigh of relief that the reputed leader of the Black Disciples is back behind bars. Darnell McMiller, known as “Murder” on the streets of Englewood, had only been out of prison just over a year for a drug conspiracy conviction.
This time, he’s charged with conspiring to distribute fentanyl-laced heroin. He was among 23 people arrested, along with other alleged high-ranking Black Disciples responsible for supplying the street gang with drugs to sell.
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Officials seized 24 firearms, 13 kilograms of cocaine, a kilogram of heroin, 1,350 grams of heroin laced with fentanyl and 378 grams of crack cocaine, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago. They also seized $52,595 in illicit cash.
It doesn’t take a crime expert to know that’s only a tiny fraction of the drugs that flow through our city and doesn’t even touch the surface of the number of illegal weapons that are circulating on our streets.
The feds can’t stop there.
Locking McMiller up won’t stop the carnage any more than it did when they put Larry Hoover, the co-founder of the Gangster Disciples, in federal prison 25 years ago.
McMiller, 34, and his crew might be responsible for much of the bloodshed that has occurred on the South Side, but there are many layers of overseers running the pipeline that brings drugs into our city.
Someone other than McMiller and the Black Disciples are making lots of money off Chicago’s violence. None of us will be safe until law enforcement finds the true ringleaders and locks them up as well.
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U.S. Attorney John Lausch, head of the Northern District of Illinois, thinks the extra manpower from Washington could help. He says this is exactly the kind of investigative work agents from Trump’s Operation Legend will do in Chicago.
If that’s true, maybe we should be more open minded. But we can’t let our guard down. We don’t know what Trump has up his sleeve.
Trump has always hated Chicago’s role as a sanctuary city. We must make sure that he won’t attempt to use the visiting agents to help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents round up people living here without legal permission.
When it comes to violence, Chicagoans are desperate. That’s the only reason we’re willing to take the risk of trusting Trump.
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The Black Disciples have been running guns and drugs in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs for decades. Police believe turf battles with the Gangster Disciples have led to several brutal killings, as well as taken the lives of innocent children caught in the crossfire.
It’s going to take a lot more work to get McMiller the kind of sentence that got Hoover off the streets for good. Hoover was indicted on drug conspiracy charges in 1995, after a five-year undercover federal investigation. He was convicted and sentenced to six life sentences. He also was convicted of murder in state court.
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In the three months before the presidential election, we’ll see what Trump can do for Chicago. After that, he either won’t be around or he will no longer have an interest in promoting “law and order.”
If Lausch is confident that the additional federal agents can help get the ball rolling on new investigations or speed up those already underway, then everyone benefits.
But we can’t let our guard down. And we certainly can’t allow Trump and his supporters to take the credit for someone else’s hard work.
dglanton@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @dahleeng


chicagotribune--2020-08-03--Suburbs didn’t want to be linked with Chicago over coronavirus restrictions. Now many areas are show

Suburbs didn’t want to be linked with Chicago over coronavirus restrictions. Now many areas are showing positivity rates higher than the city.

To mitigate the spread , county officials are ramping up contact tracing .
Lake County had about 70 tracers contacting @ @ @ @ @ , or trying to reach people on social media , with a federal grant to @ @ @ @ @ the coming months .
So far they ’ ve been able to reach about 75 @ @ @ @ @ positive in the past month .
They then tried to reach people who were in @ @ @ @ @ positive and urge them to quarantine .

Some suburban and rural leaders got their wish when their counties were separated from Chicago’s for purposes of monitoring the coronavirus. But now officials warn that many collar counties are seeing higher rates of positive tests than the city, which could prompt tighter restrictions.
In a region where nursing homes once accounted for the majority of cases, health officials say now large gatherings of young people without proper precautions are sparking outbreaks. Positivity rates have been rising in the counties surrounding Chicago, prompting Gov. J.B. Pritzker to ask local officials to start tightening the leash on COVID-19 restrictions.
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The latest warnings show an evolution in the spread of the pandemic, which has been a factor in the deaths of more than 7,500 people in the state.
When Illinois was divided into only four regions, the Northeast Region included Cook, Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Grundy, Will and Kankakee counties, all under the governor’s stay-at-home order. That grouping prompted some backlash from officials who noted that the number of cases was much lower in the suburbs.
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Officials from DuPage County called for freedom from those restrictions, saying they shouldn’t be lumped together with the high caseload in Chicago. Sheriffs from Kane and Kendall counties declared that they wouldn’t enforce the governor’s orders.
[ Second stimulus check updates: Congress to resume talks on COVID-19 relief package ]
Now, the state is divided into 11 regions, and the counties that previously made up the Northeast Region are spread out among six new regions. DuPage and Kane counties, for example, make up one region. Future restrictions depend on the extent of the virus in each area. But after falling this summer, the rate of people testing positive for the virus has been increasing across the suburbs in recent days.
While Chicago had a positivity rate of 4.5% as of July 25, Lake County’s rate stood at 5%, suburban Cook and McHenry each were at 5.4%, DuPage 4%, Kane 5.8%, Will 5.9% and Kendall ― the highest in the area ― was at 6.8%.
If a region has three consecutive days with a positivity rate at 8% or higher, or has other triggering measures, the state may crack down with more restrictions on gatherings and businesses.
One reason for the rise in cases, officials said, has been the outbreak of the disease among young people. In one case, the virus was detected at a sports camp at Lake Zurich High School, where at least 36 students tested positive for the virus following the Fourth of July weekend. But since then, following further contact with those infected, the outbreak has more than doubled to 73 cases as of Thursday.
Similarly, a prom gathering in Indiana of about 250 students from Will County’s Lincoln Way East High School, many who were without masks or were not social distancing, has prompted concern among health officials. The number of cases in the Frankfort area, where the school is located, rose by 28 in the past eight days through Thursday, to 264.
In both cases, county health officials are trying to track down all the people who had close contact with those who test positive, to warn them to quarantine for 14 days. The incidents emphasize the need to wear masks, stay at least 6 feet from other people, limit crowds to 50 people and wash hands, Lake County Department of Health epidemiologist Dr. Sana Ahmed said.
“Taking the appropriate precautions, we can reduce the spread of this virus,” she said. “We’re in this together.”
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[ Have questions about Chicago Public Schools’ fall plan? Here’s what you need to know, as CPS gives parents a week to opt out of in-person classes. ]
To mitigate the spread, county officials are ramping up contact tracing. Lake County had about 70 tracers contacting people by phone or text, or trying to reach people on social media, with a federal grant to hire some 120 people over the coming months. So far they’ve been able to reach about 75% of those who tested positive in the past month. They then tried to reach people who were in contact with those who tested positive and urge them to quarantine.
The problem of rising rates runs statewide. On Friday, the Illinois Department of Public Health placed 11 counties at a warning level for the virus: Cass, Gallatin, Jackson, Jo Daviess, Johnson, Perry, Randolph, Saline, Sangamon, St. Clair and White. A county enters a warning level after an increase in two or more risk indicators.
Pritzker had previously warned of rising cases in the Metro East area near St. Louis. Officials blamed large social gatherings, often with people not wearing masks, including on a party bus and at a winery, at restaurants and churches, sports tournaments, as well as travel out of state.
If masking and social distancing aren’t enough, state officials warned, local officials may need to impose tighter restrictions, such as further limiting capacity at places people gather such as bars, restaurants and gyms.
While Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has issued quarantine orders for people traveling from states with high incidences of the coronavirus, some suburban officials so far have urged similar measures, but made them voluntary.
DuPage County Health Department Executive Director Karen Ayala recently warned that the number of daily cases there nearly doubled in the four weeks leading up to mid-July. Much of that increase was attributable to those in the age group 10 to 29, which grew to 43% of all cases by July 19.
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“We are all COVID-fatigued, I get it,” she said. “However, COVID is not fatigued with us, and still is spreading in our communities."
One bright spot has been the reduction in cases at nursing homes. Long-term care facilities still account for more than 4,000 deaths involving COVID-19, more than half the state total, but many facilities have stopped or reversed the outbreak.
Symphony of Joliet, for instance, which had 130 cases and 25 deaths, last week reported no new cases in the past 90 days. More than 1,200 patients were reported to have recovered across the Symphony Care Network of 29 homes.
A drastic shortage of testing initially allowed residents and workers who were infected to spread the disease unknowingly. But Dr. Alexander Stemer, who co-chairs Symphony of Joliet’s COVID task force, attributed the improvement to comprehensive testing.


chicagotribune--2020-08-03--Nearly 60 different types of fish found in Chicago waterways, study shows. 30 years ago, there were

Nearly 60 different types of fish found in Chicago waterways, study shows. 30 years ago, there were fewer than 10.

Most other cities that rely on chlorine strip out the chemical before pumping treated sewage into rivers and lakes .
@ @ @ @ @ for years its waterways were exempt from the toughest provisions of the Clean Water Act @ @ @ @ @ that made it a national goal for all water bodies to be safe enough for @ @ @ @

Louie Franchi catches a bluegill at a boat launch in the North Branch of the Chicago River near Foster Avenue on July 31, 2020, in Chicago. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
Amazing what can happen when a city stops dumping massive amounts of bleach into its waterways.
Nearly 60 different types of fish are swimming in the Chicago and Calumet rivers these days, up from fewer than 10 during the early 1980s, according to a new study of sampling conducted by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District.
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Common carp are still the species found most frequently by district biologists during their annual monitoring of the rivers and connected channels. Last year they pulled a nearly 40-pound carp swollen with eggs out of the Little Calumet River.
But since 2001, biologists also have found 19 other species in the waterways for the first time, only one of which wasn’t native to the area, the study found.
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Among those netted were bluegill, catfish, largemouth bass and yellow perch — species less tolerant to pollution than carp that European immigrants deliberately introduced across the nation during the 19th century.
More robust and diverse populations of fish — scientists call them assemblages — are examples of how a long fight to clean up the rivers is paying off after decades when regional leaders turned them into industrialized sewage canals.
Jesus Garcia, 9, sits with his brother, Hector, 8, as they fish with their father, Jesus Garcia, at a boat launch in the North Branch of the Chicago River near Foster Avenue on July 31, 2020. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
“Actions we’re taking are working,” said Austin Happel, a research biologist at the Shedd Aquarium and chief author of the new study. “We’re already seeing that if you can increase fish diversity, you’re also able to increase how people use waterways.”
The most dramatic improvements in fish populations occurred after 1984, when the district that collects waste from Chicago and the Cook County suburbs stopped releasing sewage treated with germ-killing chlorine into local waterways.
Chlorine also is highly toxic to fish.
Most other cities that rely on chlorine strip out the chemical before pumping treated sewage into rivers and lakes. Chicago skipped that step because for years its waterways were exempt from the toughest provisions of the Clean Water Act, a 1972 federal law that made it a national goal for all water bodies to be safe enough for fishing and swimming.
Two years before Congress overrode President Richard Nixon’s veto of the law, people snickered when Mayor Richard J. Daley said he wanted the Chicago River safe enough for office workers to fish for their lunch. “They can eat fish and have a bottle of beer,” the mayor told a congressional committee.
Few thought that would ever happen. Chicago had reversed its flow during the beginning of the last century and blasted through the subcontinental divide separating the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds, literally walling off the city’s waste from its source of drinking water while linking two of the continent’s major shipping routes.
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“The only time the river has a healthy color is on St. Patrick’s Day, when the Democrats dye it green with food coloring,” the sportswriter Rick Telender wrote in 1977.
A group of friends fish at a boat launch in the North Branch of the Chicago River near Foster Avenue on July 31, 2020. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
Daley and his allies secured billions of dollars set aside by Congress to clean up rivers and lakes. Much of the local share was earmarked for the Deep Tunnel, a $3 billion system of giant tunnels and reservoirs intended to prevent flooding and keep pollution out of waterways and Lake Michigan.
By the mid-1980s, the tunnels had helped reduce oxygen-depleting pollution in the waterways, and the district installed stations on the Cal-Sag Channel to aerate its once-sluggish current, making it more hospitable to fish and other aquatic life.
“Improvements definitely were more dramatic in those earlier years after the tunnels came on line and they stopped chlorinating,” said Dustin Gallagher, a district biologist who co-wrote the new study with the Shedd’s Happel. “Over the years we are seeing more bluegill and more largemouth bass and steadily larger game fish — all good signs.”
Providing suitable places for fish to reproduce and thrive remains a problem in stretches of local waterways that were dredged and lined with thick sheet metal a century ago, Gallagher noted. One potential solution came from biologists from the Shedd and activists who built floating, plant-filled structures in a lightly trafficked channel along Goose Island.
Other significant challenges remain. The Chicago Tribune has reported that billions of gallons of bacteria-laden sewage and runoff still routinely pour into local waterways during and after storms. District leaders have acknowledged that sewage dumping likely will continue across most of Cook County even after the last reservoir connected to Deep Tunnel is completed in 2029.
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Chronic sewage dumping, referred to as “sewer overflows” by government officials, threatens the health of the river. Past studies have shown how sewage and other forms of pollution can suffocate fish by quickly reducing oxygen levels in water.
Ongoing abuse of local waterways also is a major reason why the amount of disease-causing bacteria in the water remains staggeringly high, even after the district began sanitizing sewage again.
Monthly testing reveals routine violations of water quality standards in stretches of the waterway that federal and state officials have declared should be clean enough to prevent kayakers, rowing teams and boaters from suffering diarrhea and other gastric ailments.
Along the Riverwalk at Wells Street, fecal coliform levels this year spiked as high as 51,000 colony-forming units per 100 milliliters of water — 255 times higher than the state standard of 200 CFUs. Bacteria levels at Wells have averaged 500 CFUs so far this year, district records show.
George Rodriguez, left, and Louie Franchi fish at a boat launch in the North Branch of the Chicago River on July 31, 2020. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
Just because the water might cause people gastrointestinal distress doesn’t make it harmful to fish.
Most of the fish in the Chicago River and its connected channels are safe to eat, though the state advises people to limit consumption of certain species to avoid highly toxic chemicals known as PCBs, another legacy from a century of industrial pollution.
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Changing views about local waterways are perhaps best summarized by “The Jetty,” a section of the Riverwalk just west of Wells.
It features concrete and metal piers surrounded on two sides by floating gardens. You can walk to the water’s edge and cast a line in the shadow of Loop skyscrapers — four decades after the first Mayor Daley mused about it.


chicagotribune--2020-08-03--Tropical Storm Isaias projected to regain hurricane strength, take aim Carolinas

“ On the forecast track , the center of Isaias will pass well east of the Georgia coast through this @ @ @ @ @ .
“ The center of Isaias will then approach the coast of northeastern South Carolina @ @ @ @ @ the hurricane warning area later today .
The center will then move inland over eastern @ @ @ @ @ along the coast of the mid-Atlantic states on Tuesday and into the northeastern United States @ @ @ @ @

Tropical Storm Isaias maintained 70 mph winds overnight as it moved along the Florida coast early Monday, and the storm may become a hurricane again by the time it impacts the Carolinas, the National Hurricane Center said.
In the 5 a.m. advisory, the NHC said Isaias was located about 115 miles east-southeast of Jacksonville and about 280 miles south-southwest of Myrtle Beach, S.C. The storm’s maximum sustained winds are still at 70 mph as it moves north at 9 mph along Florida’s coast.
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A tropical storm warning has been discontinued south of the Volusia-Flagler county line, but now the NHC has issued a hurricane warning from South Santee River, South Carolina to Surf City, North Carolina while a tropical storm warning remains in effect from Flagler County north of the South Santee River and then from Surf City up to Watch Hill, Rhode Island.
Tropical Storm Isaias cone of uncertainty as of 5 a.m. Monday, August 3, 2020. (National Hurricane Center)
“On the forecast track, the center of Isaias will pass well east of the Georgia coast through this morning,” forecasters said. “The center of Isaias will then approach the coast of northeastern South Carolina and southern North Carolina within the hurricane warning area later today. The center will then move inland over eastern North Carolina tonight and move along the coast of the mid-Atlantic states on Tuesday and into the northeastern United States by Tuesday night.”
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The NHC said Isaias is expected to become a Category 1 hurricane with 75 mph sustained winds later today before making landfall.
Isaias’ tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 125 miles from its center, primarily to the east of the storm.
“Just a big old blob of breeze and rain,” FOX 35 meteorologist Jayme King said earlier Sunday. “The dry air kind of spelling the demise of this late last night and keeping the intensity in check.”
Florida Power & Light, which serves Florida’s coastal counties, reported it restored more than 25,000 customers’ power as of 5 a.m. Monday with around 1,300 still without service.
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Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 69 A truck drives through rising water in Baltimore's Fells Point neighborhood as Tropical Storm Isaias continues to pelt the region on Aug. 4. (Jerry Jackson)
The storm dumped rain, knocked out power and snapped trees as it lashed the Bahamas on Saturday, growing to as much as 85 mph sustained winds with stronger gusts, but lost steam dropping to tropical storm strength of 70 mph by 5 p.m. It reduced even more by 5 a.m. Sunday as it made its way toward South Florida.
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Isaias has already been destructive in the Caribbean: On Thursday, before it became a hurricane, it uprooted trees, destroyed crops and homes and caused widespread flooding and small landslides in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. One man died in the Dominican Republic. In Puerto Rico, the National Guard rescued at least 35 people from floodwaters that swept away one woman, whose body was recovered Saturday.
The NHC was also tracking a tropical wave in the Atlantic a few hundred miles east of the Leeward Islands. Forecasters give that storm a 40% chance of forming into a tropical depression or storm in the next two days, with better odds of 60% over the next five days.
The 2020 hurricane season already has seen seven tropical storms: Arthur, Bertha, Cristobal, Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gonzalo, plus Hurricane Hanna, which hit Texas last weekend, and now Isaias. The next named storms would be Josephine, Kyle, Laura, Marco, Nana, Omar, Paulette, Rene, Sally, Teddy, Vicky and Wilfred.
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Orlando Sentinel staff reporters Joe Mario Pedersen, Paola Pérez and Matthew J. Palm and The Associated Press contributed to this story.


chicagotribune--2020-08-03--Young activist dies after shooting in West Rogers Park

Reed left to use the bathroom at halftime .
When he returned , an officer asked for his ID , @ @ @ @ @ .
Reed walked away , but another school resource officer was called in to arrested @ @ @ @ @ Reed was detained in a cell for six hours .

Jasmine Bradley, left, comforts her brother, Jermaine Pleasant, during a gathering outside Mather High School in Chicago, Aug. 4, 2020, to remember their brother, slain teen activist Caleb Reed. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)
Caleb Reed had been outspoken on racial justice issues, his family says, but this summer the 17-year-old became a leader in his community as he called for the removal of Chicago police officers from public schools.
“To actually see him speaking out so millions could see him ... it meant a lot to us,” said Reed’s older sister Jasmine Bradley. “It really did mean a lot to us.”
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Last Friday afternoon, Reed was found on a sidewalk in the 1900 block of West Granville Avenue in West Rogers Park with a gunshot wound to the head, police said. He was taken to Amita Health St. Francis Hospital Evanston, where he died Sunday morning.
Caleb Reed's brother Jermaine Pleasant, left, and his girlfriend, Alexis Johnson, watch balloons drift away above Cicero Avenue in Chicago on Aug. 3, 2020, after a vigil for the slain teen activist. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)
Police have released few details of the shooting and have reported no arrests. Reed would have been a senior this year at Mather High School.
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He was killed on the last day of the most violent month in Chicago in 28 years. At least 107 people were killed in July, more than double the same month last year, according to data kept by the Tribune. That’s the most homicides the city has seen in a single month since September 1992, when 109 were recorded.
#CalebReed was a 17y/o Freedom Fighter who wanted #CopsOutCPS. The movement just lost him to #GunViolence this morning. This tragedy is traumatizing & heartbreaking. We can honor him by continuing the call to end GV & get students resources for healing. RIP#PoliceFreeSchools pic.twitter.com/aG3aqN5xo8 — GoodKidsMadCity (@GKMC18) August 3, 2020
Reed was a leader with Voices of Youth in Chicago Education, a coalition of community organizations advocating for racial justice in the education system. Members saw Reed as a young activist full of potential, always pushing himself and others to work harder.
“He was a powerful young man,” said Derion Smith, a leader with VOYCE and Communities United. “No matter what was going on, Caleb made sure we all focused on one thing, and that was us getting the resources and the rights that we need.
“He was planning to do a lot,” Smith added. “He wanted change in his community.”
To Meyiya Coleman, Reed was like a little brother. She watched him grow during his time in the organization and proudly stood beside him as he spoke at his first news conference early this summer.
Mourners gather on West Superior Street in Chicago on Aug. 3, 2020, to memorialize slain teen activist Caleb Reed. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)
Reed wanted the money spent on school policing to be diverted to mental health and other services for students.
“He was solely focused on getting the help that Black and brown people needed,” Coleman said. “Whether it was to talk to a counselor or a peace program. … He was just so focused on that, letting people know that Black and brown young people are important and they matter.”
Caleb lived and was shot in our ward this weekend. He was a light in our community that was extinguished too soon. We need to address the root causes of #GunViolence so that we stop losing our people. I ask that people help continue the work he was doing and pray for the family. https://t.co/fjVaahB84K — @ward40 (@40thforward) August 3, 2020
On June 9, he spoke with VOYCE members at a news conference supporting a proposed ordinance that would have terminated the $33 million contract between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Police Department and removed school resource officers from schools.
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Reed said having a police presence in schools labeled students as potentially dangerous criminals. He shared his experience of being arrested for not having an ID at a school basketball game.
Reed said he left to use the bathroom at halftime. When he returned, an officer asked for his ID, which he did not have. Reed said he walked away, but another school resource officer was called in and arrested him. He was detained in a cell for six hours.
“While I was sitting in that cell I felt angry and confused, but I remained calm because I knew the situation could have escalated real quick,” Reed said. “The situation was wrong because I did nothing wrong. I would have wanted the officer to ask me to leave, but that didn’t happen that day.”
Devastating. Keeping Caleb's family and @VOYCEProject @GKMC18 youth in our hearts right now. This madness won't stop with more enforcement. Chicago must end its violent relationship with our children, and provide empathy, healing and means to manage the onslaught of trauma. #RIP https://t.co/3rGsI2dqHC — ChicagoTeachersUnion (@CTULocal1) August 3, 2020
“He wanted to change how young Black men were seen and how they were being treated,” VOYCE said in a statement. “His work included changing the narrative of how we love and support young people of color.”
As word of Reed’s death spread, fellow activists as well as elected officials took to social media to pay tribute to him.
The nonviolence group GoodKids MadCity wrote in a tweet that Reed was a “freedom fighter,” adding “this tragedy is traumatizing & heartbreaking. We can honor him by continuing the call to end (gun violence) & get students resources for healing.”
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Ald. Andre Vasquez, 40th, who has supported the removal of officers from schools, called Reed “a light in our community that was extinguished too soon. We need to address the root causes of #GunViolence so that we stop losing our people.”
The Chicago Teachers Union began a protest Monday by honoring Reed. “Let his passion ignite something in you and continue to fight for the freedom of future generations,” CTU member Norma Noriega told the crowd, gathered to demonstrate against CPS plans for the fall.
Mourners gather on West Superior Street in Chicago on Aug. 3, 2020, to memorialize slain teen activist Caleb Reed. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)
Reed was the second youngest of eight siblings, born and raised on the West Side of Chicago. Both Reed’s parents are hearing impaired, and according to VOYCE members, he was learning American Sign Language to better communicate with them.
In his free time, his sister said he loved to play sports: football, basketball and boxing. “He was very active, he was tall, a friendly giant,” Bradley said.
As a junior in high school, Reed was looking forward to applying to colleges soon, hoping to attend somewhere out of state.
“He wanted to go elsewhere just so he could experience something new, rather than staying in the city of Chicago.” Bradley said. “He spent all of his years here, he never really got a chance to go (to) different places.”
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Monday evening, Reed’s family gathered outside their home on the West Side and released balloons in his memory.
On the side of their building, Bradley taped pictures of her younger brother and a white poster board for friends to leave behind messages.
Bradley and her mother stood in front of the pictures of Reed, holding each other in a tight embrace.
“He was supposed to be here right now,” Bradley said with her forehead leaning against the wall.
About 6:35 a.m. Sunday, Bradley said, doctors called her and told her that Caleb’s “heart had stopped beating.”
In his honor, at 6:35 p.m. Monday, Bradley and her parents released silver balloons, spelling out C-A-L-E-B,, into the air.
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As they flew away, Bradley called out, “Take care of him.”
pfry@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @paigexfry
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Twitter @SophiePSherry


chicagotribune--2020-08-02--Coronavirus in Illinois updates: 1,467 new known COVID-19 cases and 14 additional deaths reported

The state ’ s largest school system has been seeking feedback on its preliminary framework for fall , which combines @ @ @ @ @ in-person classes with three days of remote learning .
Officials have stressed that parents can @ @ @ @ @ for any reason , though the Chicago Teachers Union continues to push back against any @ @ @ @ @ without what its members believe are adequate protections against the spread of COVID-19 .

We have lifted the paywall on this story. To support essential reporting, please consider becoming a subscriber .
Paca Kujtim of Arlington Heights self-administers a COVID-19 test in his car at the Arlington International Racecourse on March 31, 2021 in Arlington Heights. Kujtim was getting testing as a precaution for upcoming travel. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
Illinois announced 1,467 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Sunday. The state also reported 14 additional deaths. Illinois now has 181,943 total known infections and 7,517 fatalities.
The new figures come two days after Illinois officials said 11 counties have been put on a state “warning level” based on key metrics for measuring the resurgence of COVID-19. The state classifies a county as reaching a “warning level” when it sees an increase in at least two risk indicators under the state’s coronavirus resurgence mitigation plan.
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[ COVID-19 cases in Illinois by ZIP code: Search for your neighborhood ]
[ Illinois’ new COVID-19 plan: How the state will manage any outbreaks in 3 charts ]
[ Illinois coronavirus graphs: Here's the latest data on deaths, confirmed cases, tests and more ]
Here’s what’s happening this weekend with COVID-19 in the Chicago area and Illinois:
Sunday
US small business bailout money flowed to Chinese-owned companies, analysis shows
President Donald Trump has blamed China for the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis, but as the White House looks to stabilize small businesses in the United States, the rescue effort has had an unintended beneficiary: Chinese companies.
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Millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money have flowed to China from the $660 billion Paycheck Protection Program that was created in March to be a lifeline for struggling small businesses in the United States. But because the economic relief legislation allowed U.S. subsidiaries of foreign firms to receive the loans, a substantial chunk of the money went to America’s biggest economic rival, a new analysis shows. Read more here. — The New York Times
Dr. Deborah Birx says US in a ‘new phase’ of COVID-19 pandemic
White House coronavirus task force leader Dr. Deborah Birx says widespread coronavirus infections in urban and rural America mark a “new phase” for the pandemic as she doubled down on calls to wear face masks and observe social distancing measures.
Birx, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday morning, said “What we are seeing today is different from March and April. It is extraordinarily widespread.”
The United States has the world’s biggest number of cases at 4.6 million, or one-quarter of the total, and 154,361 deaths. Birx said mitigation efforts across the west and the south are beginning to work but warned that people need to take the virus seriously and employ significant safety precautions when cases first begin to tick up. Read more here. — Associated Press
Noah’s Ark Waterpark in Wisconsin closed after 2 employees test positive for COVID-19
A popular Wisconsin Dells attraction has closed until further notice after two employees tested positive for the coronavirus.
Noah’s Ark Waterpark announced the closing Saturday on its website. In a statement, Noah’s Ark says it has implemented extensive safety protocols since opening this summer. Read more here. —Associated Press
Have questions about Chicago Public Schools’ fall plan? Here’s what you need to know, as CPS gives parents a week to opt out of in-person classes.
If all goes according to the current proposal, most Chicago Public Schools students will return to classrooms for in-person learning two days a week in September.
But even before CPS makes a final decision about whether to reopen schools, parents have learned that they must indicate by Aug. 7 whether their children will participate in the proposed hybrid approach or stick with all remote learning. Read more here. — Claire Hao
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Saturday
Moms and daughters growing closer during coronavirus pandemic, survey finds
Many parents have felt the stress of balancing being a parent, a de facto teacher and a child’s sole entertainer during months stuck at home amid the coronavirus pandemic.
But there also are silver linings.
Some moms say the quarantine has helped them grow closer to their daughters. Recent research from anthropologist Grant McCracken indicates that moms are fostering closer bonds; he said among the more than 500 moms in the United States that he surveyed, 59% said they felt the relationship between mother and daughter was becoming more connected.
“That was striking,” he said. Out of all possible relationships in the home, “This was the one that was really flourishing.”
That’s the case for Lindsay Kosciuk, a Bartlett, Ill., mom who said she and her 9-year-old daughter have been able to spend more time together, without the usual packed schedule — swim lessons, play dates, camps.
“Without so many distractions, our bond is even stronger than it was before,” she said. “I have to be her mom, teacher and best friend to really fill the void that COVID has left.”
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Read more here. —Alison Bowen
After plummeting, COVID-19 is again picking up dangerous speed in much of the Midwest
First, the Pacific Northwest and the Northeast were hit hardest as the coronavirus tore through the nation. Then it surged across the South. Now the virus is again picking up dangerous speed in much of the Midwest — and in cities from Mississippi to Florida to California that thought they had already seen the worst of it.
As the United States rides what amounts to a second wave of cases, with daily new infections leveling off at an alarming higher mark, there is a deepening national sense that the progress made in fighting the pandemic is coming undone and that no patch of America is safe.
In Missouri, Wisconsin and Illinois, distressed government officials are retightening restrictions on residents and businesses, and sounding warnings about a surge in coronavirus-related hospitalizations.
Read more here. —The New York Times
1,639 new known COVID-19 cases and 8 more fatalities reported
Illinois health officials on Saturday announced 1,639 new known cases of COVID-19 and 8 additional fatalities, bringing the total number of known cases to 180,476 and the statewide death toll to 7,503 since the start of the pandemic. Officials also reported 39,809 new tests in the last 24 hours. The seven-day statewide positivity rate is 3.9%.
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See more coronavirus data here. —Chicago Tribune staff
Negotiators report progress as Trump, GOP soften on opposition to $600 unemployment bump
Lawmakers participating in rare weekend talks on a huge coronavirus relief measure reported progress on Saturday, as political pressure mounts to restore a newly expired $600-per-week supplemental unemployment benefit and send funding to help schools reopen.
“This was the longest meeting we had and it was more productive than the other meetings,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “We’re not close yet, but it was a productive discussion — now each side knows where they’re at.”
Schumer spoke alongside House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., after meeting for three hours with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
The Democratic duo is eager for an expansive agreement, as are President Donald Trump and top Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. But perhaps one half of Senate Republicans, mostly conservatives and those not facing difficult races this fall, are likely to oppose any deal.
Prior talks yielded little progress. The administration is willing to extend the $600 jobless benefit, at least in the short term, but is balking at other Democratic demands like aid for state and local governments, food stamp increases, and assistance to renters and homeowners.
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Read more here. —The Associated Press
CPS families given until Aug. 7 to opt out of in-person classes
Although no final decision has been made on what instruction will look like in Chicago Public Schools this fall, parents learned Friday that they have a week to decide whether they will opt their children out of the proposed hybrid approach for fall.
The state’s largest school system has been seeking feedback on its preliminary framework for fall, which combines two days a week of in-person classes with three days of remote learning. Officials have stressed that parents can opt out of in-person instruction for any reason, though the Chicago Teachers Union continues to push back against any reopening of schools this fall without what its members believe are adequate protections against the spread of COVID-19.
Many parents have indicated they share those concerns, but others have said that remote learning is a poor substitute for classroom instruction and that they trust school officials to mitigate the risks of coronavirus transmission.
Parents received word Friday that they will be required to indicate by Aug. 7, through a registration form to be sent to families soon, whether their children will opt-out of the hybrid plan.
Read more here. —Claire Hao


chicagotribune--2020-08-04--Family remembers young activist slain in West Rogers Park. ‘To see him speaking out so millions coul

Family remembers young activist slain in West Rogers Park. ‘To see him speaking out so millions could see him ... it meant a lot to us.’

He was killed on the last day of the most violent month in Chicago in 28 years .
At least @ @ @ @ @ July , more than double the same month last year , according to data kept @ @ @ @ @ ’ s the most homicides the city has seen in a single month since September @ @ @ @ @ recorded .


chicagotribune--2020-08-04--Search for teen in Lake Michigan near Diversey Harbor is suspended. ‘He went under and wasn’t seen a

Search for teen in Lake Michigan near Diversey Harbor is suspended. ‘He went under and wasn’t seen again.’

The teen , believed to be between 14 and 16 years old , was reported in the water shortly before @ @ @ @ @ Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford .
The boy was believed to have gone swimming @ @ @ @ @ the harbor .

The Chicago police marine unit again was searching Tuesday for the body of a teenage boy who was believed to have been pulled under by strong Lake Michigan currents Monday afternoon near Diversey Harbor, officials said.
The teen, believed to be between 14 and 16 years old, was reported in the water just before 4 p.m., according to Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford. The boy was thought to have gone swimming with a few friends near the harbor.
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“The lake is very high speed right now,” Langford said Monday. “And he went under and wasn’t seen again.”
Just before 6 p.m., the search was suspended, fire officials said, and the Chicago police marine unit was taking the lead looking for the boy’s body. Tuesday morning, a fire spokesman said the agency had no plans to resume searching, saying, “It’s a recovery mission now.”
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A police spokeswoman, Sally Bown, said the marine unit was back on the lake about 8:40 a.m. after weighing whether conditions would allow for a safe search. She did not know how many officers were on the lake or whether there were divers going in the water.
On Monday, Fire Department divers searched in the water near 2600 North Cannon Drive. Divers couldn’t swim north because of the thrust of the lake, Langford said, and had to use ropes to keep from being pulled south.
A lakefront flood advisory and a small craft advisory are in effect until 4 a.m. Wednesday along Lake Michigan from southern Wisconsin over to the Michigan shoreline, according to forecasters, with waves up to 10 feet and winds up to 25 knots possible. A special marine warning expired earlier Monday.
“No one should be swimming,” the department said in a tweet.
More divers going in checking new spot to search for teen who went under. Lake is very choppy with high winds. No one should be swimming. Very dangerous conditions pic.twitter.com/cCWPUtkK1p — Chicago Fire Media (@CFDMedia) August 3, 2020
Check back for updates.


chicagotribune--2020-08-03--Coronavirus in Illinois updates: 1,298 new known COVID-19 cases as Chicago looks again at cracking d

Coronavirus in Illinois updates: 1,298 new known COVID-19 cases as Chicago looks again at cracking down on parties and Pritzker opens door to fines over mask rules

Both of Aurora ’ s school districts announced Friday that they are looking to reverse course from their original hybrid @ @ @ @ @ earlier because of the current rate of COVID-19 cases in the area .
East Aurora @ @ @ @ @ going to all-remote learning this fall , while in West Aurora the superintendent will recommend @ @ @ @ @ night that the district also go to all remote learning for the first quarter of @ @ @ @ @

We have lifted the paywall on this story. To support essential reporting, please consider becoming a subscriber .
Paca Kujtim of Arlington Heights self-administers a COVID-19 test in his car at the Arlington International Racecourse on March 31, 2021 in Arlington Heights. Kujtim was getting testing as a precaution for upcoming travel. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Monday announced the launch of a $5 million multimedia campaign to push the use of face masks to slow the spread of COVID-19, and said it was “worthy of considering a fine” for those who flout mask regulations. The ad campaign will carry the tagline “it only works if you wear it” and will focus on cities and counties in the state that “have the most work to do,” Pritzker said.
Chicago is also cracking down on large parties after the city shut down a trap music warehouse event in the West Humboldt Park neighborhood over the weekend, officials said. The city shut down a party on Friday night that was scheduled to go until 4 a.m. the next morning. City officials took issue with the party because it was violating anti-coronavirus social distancing rules.
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Meanwhile, parents and teachers in Chicago and across the country are calling for schools to open safely or not at all. In Logan Square Monday morning, a group gathered to share their concerns about CPS’s tentative fall plan — a combination of in-person class and remote learning. The Chicago Teachers Union, which also hosted a protest and caravan to City Hall Monday, has strongly advocated for a remote-only start to the school year, as several other suburban and big-city districts have decided to do.
Earlier on Monday, Illinois announced 1,298 new confirmed cases of COVID-19. The state also reported 10 additional deaths. Illinois now has 183,241 total known infections and 7,526 fatalities.
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[ COVID-19 cases in Illinois by ZIP code: Search for your neighborhood ]
[ Illinois’ new COVID-19 plan: How the state will manage any outbreaks in 3 charts ]
[ Illinois coronavirus graphs: Here's the latest data on deaths, confirmed cases, tests and more ]
Here’s what’s happening Monday with COVID-19 in the Chicago area and Illinois:
6:58 p.m.: CPS has not decided to move to all-remote fall, contrary to NBC Nightly News report
The NBC Nightly News incorrectly reported Monday evening that Chicago Public Schools will revert to all remote classes this fall.
On the contrary, CPS has not decided to cancel in-person classes and as of Monday evening is still planning on a hybrid of in-person and remote learning when school starts alter Labor Day.
The TV reporter erroneously stated that, following a report of a coronavirus case in a reopened school in Indiana, “Chicago Public Schools, the third largest in the nation, announced they’re moving away from their planned hybrid system to all-remote learning.”
CPS spokesperson told the Tribune that’s not true, and the district is still planning on releasing a final fall plan later this week.
—Hannah Leone
6:30 p.m.: At least 18 Illinois football players tested positive for COVID-19 since returning to campus in June
At least 18 Illinois football players tested positive for COVID-19 since returning for workouts in June, the school announced Monday.
Twenty-three athletes in all and two staff members tested positive, according to a university news release that said the 100-plus football players on campus “accounted for greater than 75% of the positive tests.”
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Illinois said it has tested 164 athletes weekly since they returned in stages for voluntary workouts this summer, with more than 1,200 tests administered. The school said the overall positive test rate was less than 1.9%.
Four athletes experienced symptoms but none required hospitalization, according to the university.
Three cases remain active, and those players as well as teammates they’ve come in contact with remain in quarantine. Illinois will not release the number of quarantined players, an athletic department spokesman said.
Illinois did not suspend workouts at any time.
Read more here. —Shannon Ryan
5:07 p.m.: Cook County recommends further COVID-19 restrictions for suburban bars, other businesses to voluntarily follow
Cook County officials issued health guidance Monday that recommends but does not require that restaurants and other businesses in the suburbs further restrict in-person services to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
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The Cook County Department of Public Health is asking suburban bars, fitness clubs, personal care businesses and others to follow these guidelines as COVID-19 rates for people in their 20s have soared to be about 2 1/2 times higher than they were at the end of March. That age group now has the highest rates of COVID-19, according to CCDPH.
“We get it. It’s summer. Young people are tired of the restrictions,” Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle wrote in a statement. “But the virus is still with us. We need to get the word out and encourage young people to be patient. Physical distancing and wearing a mask is the minimum we need people to do.”
Under the guidelines, establishments that serve alcohol without a food license are asked to limit consumption to outdoor service only. The maximum party size for restaurants and bars should be curtailed to six people, whether indoors or outdoors.
Indoor fitness classes should be reduced to 10 people maximum, while any personal care businesses should discontinue services that require removing a face mask, such as facials or shaves, according to the CCDPH guidelines.
Similar to restrictions already enacted in Chicago, the recommendations also call for residential property managers to limit guests to six people per unit.
Read more here. —Alice Yin
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4:48 p.m. (update): University of Illinois will require two COVID-19 tests weekly for students and faculty with in-person classes at Urbana-Champaign campus
Students and faculty participating in face-to-face classes at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign this fall must be tested for COVID-19 twice a week, the university announced Monday.
The mandatory saliva-based testing, developed by UIUC researchers, will begin for students on Aug. 16, a week before classes are set to start. About one-third of the classes at that campus will be fully in-person or include in-person components while the rest, including large lecture courses, will be offered remotely, according to spokeswoman Robin Kaler.
“If everyone does their part to maximize the safety of our entire community, we have the ability to provide modified in-person delivery of our missions,” Chancellor Robert Jones said in a news release.
The new details help outline UIUC’s strategy for restarting some educational activities on campus while also adapting to the coronavirus pandemic.
As part of the new rules, students or faculty planning to visit campus for any reason this fall — such as grabbing supplies from a building — must first get tested and receive their results no more than four days prior to arriving. Those who test positive for COVID-19 must quarantine for 14 days — either in campus dorms that have been set aside for this use or in an off-campus residence.
Read more here. —Elyssa Cherney
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3:28 p.m.: Northwestern pauses football workouts after a player tests positive for COVID-19
Northwestern football has paused workouts after a player tested positive for COVID-19, the Tribune has learned.
An NU spokesperson confirmed Monday that the program would not resume workouts until Wednesday at the earliest. Friday is the allowable start date for contact practices, per NCAA rules.
As a result of the positive test and contact tracing initiatives, some NU football players have been placed in quarantine. Those who have come within six feet of the player for a specified period of time will need to test negative before being cleared to leave their residence or return to workouts.
The Wildcats’ last workout was Friday.
Read more here. —Teddy Greenstein
2:05 p.m.: In a sweeping lawsuit, 42 Chicago businesses seek insurance coverage for COVID-related business losses
In a sweeping lawsuit, prominent Chicago restaurant groups including Lettuce Entertain You and Gibsons are fighting their insurance carriers over denial of coverage for lost income related to COVID-19.
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The suit, filed Thursday in Cook County Circuit Court, is one of hundreds businesses have filed against insurers over the last several months as the health crisis, and shutdowns mandated by the government, slashed revenues. It is notable for its breadth: there are 42 plaintiffs, mostly Chicago restaurants, and 18 insurers listed as defendants.
The suit alleges shutdown orders caused hundreds of millions of dollars in losses that should be covered by the policyholders’ business interruption insurance. Normally such policies cover income losses when property is damaged from a fire or other physical events.
The plaintiffs, represented by Jenner and Block, include a diverse roster of restaurants, from the chain Roti Mediterranean Grill to neighborhood businesses such as Wicker Park’s Bangers and Lace and the South Loop mainstay Manny’s Deli. The DuSable Museum of African American History and the Peggy Notebart Museum are also listed as plaintiffs in the suit.
Read more here. —Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz
1:58 p.m.: Lightfoot’s administration shuts down weekend warehouse event as city looks again at cracking down on large parties
Mayor Lori Lightfoot is again cracking down on large parties after the city shut down a trap music warehouse event in the West Humboldt Park neighborhood over the weekend, officials said.
The city shut down a party at 4106 W. Chicago on Friday night that was scheduled to go until 4 a.m. the next morning, Business Affairs and Consumer Protection commissioner Rosa Escareno told reporters.
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”We want all party planners or party-goers to be warned — large events and gatherings that violate the health order put our entire community at risk and will not be tolerated,” Escareno said.
Escareno’s department will team with the building, fire and police departments to step up enforcement actions against large parties.
City officials took issue with the trap warehouse party, which was promoted via Event Brite, because it was violating anti-coronavirus social distancing rules.
Read more here. —Gregory Pratt
1:28 p.m.: Lord & Taylor, Men’s Wearhouse and Jos. A. Bank seek to close 10 Chicago-area stores as list of chains in bankruptcy continues to grow
Lord & Taylor and the owner of Men’s Wearhouse and Jos. A. Bank became the latest retailers to seek bankruptcy protection and announce plans to close stores, including 10 in the Chicago area.
Retailers already were struggling to keep up with changes in consumers’ shopping habits. Then came the coronavirus pandemic, which hit bricks-and-mortar chains hard, especially in areas where stay-at-home orders forced stores to close and kept shoppers home.
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Lord & Taylor’s bankruptcy comes less than a year after clothing-rental startup Le Tote bought it from Hudson’s Bay Co., which also owns Saks Fifth Avenue. Le Tote, which filed for Chapter 11 protection Sunday in the Eastern District of Virginia, said it is closing 19 of Lord & Taylor’s 38 stores, including one in Northbrook.
Read more here. —Lauren Zumbach
(Updated 1:20 p.m.) 11:36 a.m.: Illinois launches $5 million mask awareness campaign, Pritzker opens door to fines for those who disregard rules
Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Monday announced the launch of a $5 million multimedia campaign to push the use of face masks to slow the spread of COVID-19, and said it was “worthy of considering a fine” for those who flout mask regulations.
The ad campaign will carry the tagline “it only works if you wear it” and will focus on cities and counties in the state that “have the most work to do,” Pritzker said. The governor launched the effort in Springfield, days after Sangamon County was one of 11 counties in the state flagged by the Illinois Department of Public Health as at a “warning level” based on COVID-19 metrics.
The campaign will “respond to the latest trends in cases and mobility at the county level,” concentrating the spending on areas of the state where COVID-19 metrics indicate a potential resurgence.
Read more here. —Jamie Munks
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12:57 p.m.: Second stimulus check updates: Coronavirus relief bill remains up in air as negotiations are slow, grinding
Slow, grinding negotiations on a huge COVID-19 relief bill are set to resume Monday afternoon, but the path forward promises to be challenging and time is already growing short. Republicans are griping that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won't drop her expansive wish list even as concerns are mounting that the White House needs to be more sure-footed in the negotiations.
Both the Trump administration negotiating team and top Capitol Hill Democrats remain far apart, and talks since Saturday — when the combatants announced modest progress — have yet to lend momentum. Both sides used television appearances over the weekend to showcase their differences.
Ahead of Monday’s talks, all sides predict a long slog ahead despite the lapse of a $600-per-week supplemental COVID-19 jobless benefit, the beginning of school season and the call of lawmakers’ cherished August recess. Several more days of talks are expected, if not more.
Read more here. —Associated Press
12:34 p.m.: 1,298 new known COVID-19 cases, 10 additional deaths
Illinois announced 1,298 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Monday. The state also reported 10 additional deaths. Illinois now has 183,241 total known infections and 7,526 fatalities.
—Chicago Tribune staff
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12:33 p.m.: A Chicago farmers market kicks out a vendor alleging COVID-19 safety violations
A longtime Chicago farmers market vendor is alleging that it was targeted unfairly after it was recently removed from the Wicker Park Farmers Market.
Nichols Farm & Orchard, based outside Marengo, was absent from Sunday’s Wicker Park Farmers Market after the local Chamber of Commerce removed the vendor, citing instances of “noncompliance with some of the COVID-19 health regulations for our market” on multiple occasions, according a statement from the Wicker Park Bucktown Chamber of Commerce.
A July 28 post on Nichols’ Facebook page claimed that the manager of the farmers market was “trying to kick us out of the market mid season without just cause. She has had a personal problem with our farm and staff for several seasons and feels this is just cause to disinvite us from the market. This is harassment.”
The farm has sold at multiple markets in the Chicago area for years and also supplies several area restaurants with produce.
Read more here. —Adam Lukach
12:25 p.m.: CTU president says Mayor Lori Lightfoot ‘doesn’t have the guts to close the schools’
The Chicago Teachers Union president, who led teachers in an 11-day strike last fall, said Monday that city and school officials are “putting it on us to close the schools” because the mayor “doesn’t have the guts” to do it herself.
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Jesse Sharkey spoke at a rally to protest the CPS proposal for fall to combine in-person and remote learning. The union is strongly pushing for an all-remote start to school. CTU leaders have stopped short of saying they would stage another strike if schools reopen, though it’s statewide affiliate, the Illinois Federation of Teachers, has said that option is on the table, along with potential remedies in court.
”The mayor does not have the guts to close the schools,” Sharkey said outside CTU headquarters Monday. “They’re putting it on us to close the schools. That’s what we feel like is happening.”
Andrea Parker, a teacher at Fulton Elementary, said during the union rally that having a plan for “if” something happens at a school is not enough.
”It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when, and I do not want to be the when. I do not want my students to be the when,” Parker said. “I do not want to be the sacrificial lamb because you’re forcing us to go into an environment that is dangerous.”
Read more here. —Hannah Leone
12:02 p.m.: Chicago Public Schools parent: ‘My kids are not an experiment’
Parents and teachers are taking to the streets in Chicago and elsewhere Monday to protests plans for reopening schools this fall.
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In Logan Square, a group that included parents, children and other community members gathered to say they still have concerns about the plan Chicago Public Schools has proposed for fall that includes a hybrid of in-school and remote instruction.
One parent on hand, Sandy Viveros, 28, She said she is disappointed in the plans CPS has provided and doesn’t yet feel comfortable want to send her children, aged 5 and 10, to school.
”They’re not really giving us enough information about what their safety (plan) is going to be. And also, I’m here because my kids are not an experiment, that’s basically what they’re trying to do,” Viveros said.
Another speaker said she has seven children and the past two months “have been very difficult for me and my family,” she said, adding she’s asking CPS for a realistic plan for school in the fall.
”This virus is not a game,” she said.
Read more here. —Christen Johnson
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11:58 a.m.: Michigan lawmaker tests positive for coronavirus, prompts cancellation of the legislative session
The Michigan Legislature on Monday canceled this week's session and hearings after a Lansing-area state senator tested positive for the coronavirus through screening required by his service in the Michigan Army National Guard.
Republican Sen. Tom Barrett, of Charlotte, said he was told the results Sunday afternoon after being tested Friday. The 39-year-old said he was tested because the guard implemented a COVID-19 screening policy for all soldiers one week before they are to depart for training events.
He said he tested positive despite having taken “reasonable precautions.” Videos show him wearing a mask during several committee meetings last week and the week before.
Read more here. —Associated Press
8:53 a.m.: Federal PPP money is gone. COVID-19 still threatens America’s restaurants. Now what?
The check has been cashed, the money spent, and beleaguered restaurant owners across America are looking down at empty wallets.
Government coronavirus loans in the spring helped eating establishments rehire laid-off employees and ride out the pandemic's initial surge and wave of shutdown orders.
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But that Paycheck Protection Program money has now been spent at many restaurants, leaving them in the same precarious position they were in during outbreak’s early days: Thousands of restaurants are being forced to close down again on mandates from state and local officials combating the virus’s resurgence, particularly in the South and West.
Read more here. —Associated Press
7:25 a.m. State to launch new public awareness campaign to work against COVID-19 spread
Gov. J.B. Pritzker was scheduled Monday to launch a “new public awareness campaign aimed at reducing the spread of COVID-19,″ according to his press office.
Pritzker was scheduled to hold a news conference late Monday morning at the Springfield headquarters of the state’s emergency management agency to announce the campaign. The announcement comes as the state has seen a resurgence of coronavirus cases and questions about whether some regions designated for COVID-19 response might have to pull back in their opening up.
—Chicago Tribune staff
7:10 a.m.: Chicago Teachers Union, parents, students to rally for all-remote start to school year
Chicago Teachers Union members, parents and Chicago Public Schools students planned to hold rallies Monday to press the Board of Education to move to an all-remote start of the school year, capped with a noon rally at City Hall.
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After neighborhood rallies Monday morning, including at the teachers’ union West Side headquarters, CTU members and others were scheduled to caravan to City Hall for a rally.
The events are part of a national “day of action” sponsored by a coalition of teachers unions and activist groups, including the Democratic Socialists of America, whose aim is to “advance a racial justice agenda in public education, in particular by organizing for police-free schools,” according to the group.
—Chicago Tribune staff
7 a.m.: East Aurora schools will now start with remote learning this fall, and West Aurora schools could follow suit
East Aurora School District 131 and West Aurora School District 129 are looking to begin the school year with all-remote learning due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Both of Aurora’s school districts announced Friday that they are looking to reverse course from their original hybrid learning plans released a week earlier because of the current rate of COVID-19 cases in the area. East Aurora officials said the district is going to all-remote learning this fall, while in West Aurora the superintendent will recommend to the School Board Monday night that the district also go to all remote learning for the first quarter of the new school year.
Read more here. —Linda Girardi
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6:45 a.m.: Naperville-area school districts reverse course, will have students do remote learning through October
Indian Prairie School District 204 and Naperville School District 203 students will do e-learning from home through October, reversing earlier plans to resume in-person classes on a staggered basis in September, the districts announced Friday.
D204 Superintendent Adrian Talley said in a note to parents that the change was made after a review of the latest guidelines released by the Illinois Department of Public Health, Illinois State Board of Education and local health departments. More than 100 administrators and teachers were involved in creating the Return to School Plan, he said.
D204′s revised plan will be discussed at Monday night’s school board meeting.
Read more here. —Naperville Sun staff
6 a.m.: Suburbs didn’t want to be linked with Chicago over coronavirus restrictions. Now many areas are showing positivity rates higher than the city.
Some suburban and rural leaders got their wish when their counties were separated from Chicago’s for purposes of monitoring the coronavirus. But now officials warn that many collar counties are seeing higher rates of positive tests than the city, which could prompt tighter restrictions.
In a region where nursing homes once accounted for the majority of cases, health officials say now large gatherings of young people without proper precautions are sparking outbreaks. Positivity rates have been rising in the counties surrounding Chicago, prompting Gov. J.B. Pritzker to ask local officials to start tightening the leash on COVID-19 restrictions.
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The latest warnings show an evolution in the spread of the pandemic, which has been a factor in the deaths of more than 7,500 people in the state.
Read more here. —Robert McCoppin
Breaking coronavirus news Stay up to date with the latest information on coronavirus with our breaking news alerts.
Here are three stories from this weekend about COVID-19.


chicagotribune--2020-08-03--Nearly 40 people shot in Chicago over the weekend as July goes down as most violent month in 28 year

Nearly 40 people shot in Chicago over the weekend as July goes down as most violent month in 28 years

At least 107 people were killed in July , more than double the same month last year , according to @ @ @ @ @ .
That ’ s the most homicides the city has seen since in a single @ @ @ @ @ , when 109 were recorded .

Jalisa Ford sits on the ground on Aug. 1, 2020, while rubbing the walkway where her 9-year-old son, Janari Andre Ricks, was fatally shot while playing with friends at the Cabrini Green rowhouses the previous evening. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)
Nearly 40 people were shot in Chicago over the weekend as the most violent month in 28 years came to a close.
At least 107 people were killed in July, more than double the same month last year, according to data kept by the Tribune. That’s the most homicides the city has seen since in a single month since September of 1992, when 109 were recorded.
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Most of the people died from gunshot wounds, but at least six people died from stabbings, three from strangulation, two from child abuse and two from assault, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
At least 570 people were shot during the month, about 250 more than July of last year, according to the Tribune’s data.
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The youngest gun violence victims were 7-year-old Natalia Wallace, who was shot as her family celebrated the Fourth of July in the South Austin neighborhood, and 9-year-old Janari Andre Ricks, who was shot while playing with friends behind the Cabrini Green townhomes on Friday.
[ Devastating toll of Chicago’s violence: Number of shooting victims younger than 10 years old three times higher than last year ]
Others included 17-year-old activist Caleb Reed, who died Sunday, two days after he was shot in the West Rogers Park neighborhood. Less than two months ago, he publicly spoke out about removing officers from Chicago public schools and spending the money on mental health and other services for students.
After Reed was shot, nine others were killed over the weekend from 3 p.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Monday. At least 30 other people were wounded across the city.
This past weekend also saw continued protests over the death of George Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer placed a knee on his neck.
On Saturday night, demonstrators marched around the Loop, ending at the intersection of State Street and Jackson Boulevard. They set up a small stage, medical tent and a table with paint as rain began falling. They huddled with each other under umbrellas or overhangs as speakers addressed the crowd and a rapper broke out into song.
The protesters wrote slogans on posters. A few people took to spraying storefronts, which organizers discouraged and a police sergeant announced was a crime.
No violence broke out and everyone started to disperse just before midnight.
pfry@chicagotribune.com
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Twitter @paigexfry


chicagotribune--2020-08-03--Cook County recommends further COVID-19 restrictions for suburban bars, other businesses to voluntar

Cook County recommends further COVID-19 restrictions for suburban bars, other businesses to voluntarily follow

The recommendations came as suburban Cook County ’ s rolling seven-day positivity rate for COVID-19 rose from 5.2 % on @ @ @ @ @ on July 31 , according to the department .
Hospital capacity in suburban Cook County @ @ @ @ @ the point of threatening surge capacities , although there have been two consecutive days of @ @ @ @ @ one-third of ICU and surge beds are open in the suburbs .

Cook County officials issued health guidance Monday that recommends but does not require that restaurants and other businesses in the suburbs further restrict in-person services to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
The Cook County Department of Public Health is asking suburban bars, fitness clubs, personal care businesses and others to follow these guidelines as COVID-19 rates for people in their 20s have soared to be about 2½ times higher than they were at the end of March. That age group now has the highest rates of COVID-19, according to the department.
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“We get it. It’s summer. Young people are tired of the restrictions,” Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle wrote in a statement. “But the virus is still with us. We need to get the word out and encourage young people to be patient. Physical distancing and wearing a mask is the minimum we need people to do.”
Under the guidelines, establishments that serve alcohol without a food license are asked to limit consumption to outdoor service only. The maximum party size for restaurants and bars should be curtailed to six people, whether indoors or outdoors.
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Indoor fitness classes should be reduced to 10 people maximum, while any personal care businesses should discontinue services that require removing a face mask, such as facials or shaves, according to the department’s guidelines.
Similar to restrictions already enacted in Chicago, the recommendations also call for residential property managers to limit guests to six people per unit.
The recommendations came as suburban Cook County’s rolling seven-day positivity rate for COVID-19 rose from 5.2% on July 22 to 5.8% on July 31, according to the department. Hospital capacity in suburban Cook County has not been overburdened to the point of threatening surge capacities, although there have been two consecutive days of more hospital admissions. About one-third of ICU and surge beds are open in the suburbs.
Although the recommendations are only advisory, Dr. Rachel Rubin , department co-lead, said businesses must follow through or they may become mandatory.
“If we don’t remain vigilant, we will face far more restrictive mitigation efforts and we will see more disease and more death,” Rubin wrote in a statement.
ayin@chicagotribune.com