Good morning, Chicago.
President Joe Biden canceled a planned trip to Chicago this week to promote his vaccination mandate for businesses as ongoing negotiations over his legislative agenda in Washington intensify, White House officials said Tuesday.
United Airlines says more than 99% of its U.S.-based employees who did not seek a religious or medical exemption from the company’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate got the shots, while 593 who refused to comply will lose their jobs. And vaccines for younger kids took a step forward, as Pfizer submitted research to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on the effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine in children 5 to 11 years old.
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The Bears have taken a big step closer toward moving to Chicago’s northwest suburbs. Days after the conclusion of what was likely the final racing season at Arlington International Racecourse, the NFL team signed a purchase agreement for the 326-acre property.
As former President Barack Obama took the podium during his presidential center’s long-delayed groundbreaking, he looked back on his first taste of the city that would forever shape him: driving up the Chicago Skyway in a rickety car, slowing to a cruise upon entering the marvel that he considered Jackson Park.
On Tuesday afternoon, standing before four shovels and a mound of dirt in Jackson Park, Obama said the next chapter will be inspiring today’s young leaders through the future Obama Presidential Center.
“Chicago is where I found the purpose I’d been seeking.”
Cook County jurors on Tuesday saw police evidence video from the scene of one of the most gruesome killings in recent Chicago memory: The 2017 stabbing of 26-year-old Trenton Cornell in the bedroom of his boyfriend, then-Northwestern professor Wyndham Lathem, who now stands trial for his slaying.
Prosecutors have charged Lathem with first-degree murder in what they say was a vicious premeditated attack on his young lover, saying he and accomplice Andrew Warren ambushed Cornell in Lathem’s apartment and then went on the lam. Warren, prosecutors’ key witness, is expected to take the stand Wednesday, records show.
Portillo’s, preparing to go public, could grow to 600 restaurants nationwide
Portillo’s has big plans to take its Italian beef sandwiches, hot dogs and chocolate cake shakes nationwide.
The Oak Brook-based fast casual chain, which announced plans to go public earlier this summer, said it believes it could eventually grow from 67 restaurants to more than 600 over the next 25 years, and is “well-positioned for global growth in the future,” according to documents filed Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grants have been dubbed “genius grants.” They consist of $625,000 to do with whatever the awardees want.
There are a few of this year’s crowd that have, or more accurately had, academic ties to Chicago before moving on. One that Chicago can claim is Jacqueline Stewart, whom the MacArthur folks describe as a “film scholar and curator ensuring that the contributions of overlooked Black filmmakers and communities of spectators have a place in the public imagination.”
