Chicago Tribune (June 29)
“As Canadian wildfire smoke blanketed Chicago on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Windy City earned the unwelcome distinction of having the ‘worst air quality of any major city in the world.’” North American wildfires are proliferating and “today consume twice as much land… than they did in the 1990s.” This is clearly “a climate issue. But if we fail to take action on forest management, the impacts of climate change—drier, hotter, longer fire seasons—will only further contribute to the flammability of our overly dense forests.”
Tags: Air quality, Canada, Chicago, Climate change, Drier, Fire seasons, Flammability, Forest management, Hotter, Impacts, Smoke, Wildfires
Chicago Tribune (January 3)
“Chicago-area hospitals are postponing many elective surgeries, as Illinois on Sunday set a record for COVID-19 hospitalizations…. Statewide, there were 6,294 COVID-19 patients in the hospital, surpassing the previous peak of 6,175 on Nov. 20, 2020.” In addition to the influx of COVID-19 patients, hospitals are struggling with “industrywide staffing shortages” worsened by staff testing positive to breakthrough infections.
Tags: Chicago, COVID-19, Elective surgeries, Hospitalizations, Hospitals, Illinois, Patients, Postponing, Record
Chicago Tribune (July 26)
“As companies across the Chicago area welcome workers back to offices, they’re often labeling them as either vaccinated or unvaccinated, with different treatment for each group.” Vaccinated workers may not be “required to wear masks or social distance” while unvaccinated workers may be “told to undergo weekly on-site COVID-19 testing, wear maks and social distance.”
Tags: Chicago, Companies, COVID-19, Masks, Offices, Social distance, Testing, Unvaccinated, Vaccinated, Workers
Crain’s Chicago Business (May 4)
CME’s last commodity trading pits “shut over a year ago because of COVID-19, and the exchange announced today that they won’t reopen.” CME “had already closed floor trading for most futures contracts in Chicago and New York in 2015 as open outcry had fallen to just 1% of total volumes. The options pits in Chicago, with history stretching back 173 years, were the exchange’s last bastion for old-school commodities floor traders.”
Tags: Chicago, CME, Commodity trading, COVID-19, Exchange, Futures, New York, Open outcry, Options pits
USA Today (April 17)
“Nearly half of US adults have gotten at least 1 vaccine dose,” but cases are on the rise with more contagious variants. Globally, the “death toll from the coronavirus topped a staggering 3 million people Saturday… more than the population of Chicago (2.7 million) and equivalent to Philadelphia and Dallas combined.”
Tags: Adults, Chicago, Contagious, Coronavirus, Death toll, Philadelphia, U.S., Vaccine, Variants
Reuters (March 15)
U.S. airlines are pointing to “concrete signs of an industry recovery as a slowing COVID-19 pandemic helps leisure bookings.” One of them, “Chicago-based United, which had been among the most pessimistic of the airlines heading into the pandemic a year ago, is the first to say it could hit the industry’s cash burn milestone” and return to the black in March.
Tags: Airlines, Bookings, Cash burn, Chicago, COVID-19, Leisure, March, Milestone, Pandemic, Pessimistic, Recovery, U.S., United
Chicago Tribune (September 13)
Chicago “like other major cities around the world, is a global city, a hub in the global economy, and that economy is on the ropes.” But “globalization is no unalloyed blessing.” Some would rather say goodbye to this “powerful economic force that richly rewards some and impoverishes others.” We can’t. “For better or worse, the global economy is the only economy we’ve got. Like the industrial economy before it, it is flawed, often cruel, but it pays the bills. If Chicago is to mend its divisions, it will have to do it with the money it reaps from its status as a global city.”
Tags: Chicago, Cruel, Economic force, Flawed, Global economy, Globalization, Impoverishes, Industrial economy, Major cities, Powerful, Rewards
Washington Post (July 7)
“As the nation faces a pandemic, financial catastrophe and massive social justice protests, it is suddenly also confronting a spike in violence in some of its major cities. Tragedies struck in urban centers thousands of miles apart, with 65 people shot over the weekend in New York and 87 in Chicago, and homicides climbing from Miami to Milwaukee.” Shootings often rise in summer, but “the recent toll has been particularly devastating.”
Tags: Chicago, Cities, Confronting, Financial catastrophe, Homicides, Miami, Milwaukee, New York, Pandemic, Protests, Shootings, Social justice, Tragedies, Violence
Chicago Tribune (June 2)
“What do you say to a city whose residents, livelihoods and sense of security have been pummeled by the coronavirus pandemic and then civil unrest and mass looting? You say that Chicago is up to the challenge and must move forward. You say: Reopen and rebuild…. This resilient city will recover again.”
Tags: Chicago, Civil unrest, Coronavirus, Livelihoods, Mass looting, Pandemic, Pummeled, Rebuild, Recover, Reopen, Residents, Resilient, Security
Chicago Tribune (May 15)
The Coronavirus presents major challenges—a “wrecked economy, less office space demand, scarce financing”—to Chicago’s megadevelopments, calling in question whether many “can continue, if they’ll be pushed into the next construction cycle, or worse, go the way of the never-built Chicago Spire and Miglin-Beitler Skyneedle.”
Tags: Challenges, Chicago, Chicago Spire, Construction cycle, Coronavirus, Demand, Economy, Financing, Megadevelopments, Miglin-Beitler Skyneedle, Office space, Wrecked