Illinois

CHICAGO, Aug 31 (NNN-XINHUA) – Students of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) went back to schools yesterday, after 18 months of online studying, since the COVID-19 pandemic erupted.

CPS is preparing for hundreds of thousands of students to head back to classrooms, the first complete resumption of in-person learning, since the pandemic forced classes to go online in Mar, 2020, Chicago Tribune reported yesterday.

CHICAGO, July 20 (Reuters) - Scientists are working on a benchmark for COVID-19 vaccine efficacy that would allow drugmakers to conduct smaller, speedier human trials to get them to market and address a huge global vaccine shortage.

Researchers are trying to determine just what level of COVID-19 antibodies a vaccine must produce to provide protection against the illness. Regulators already use such benchmarks - known as correlates of protection - to evaluate flu vaccines without requiring large, lengthy clinical trials.

CHICAGO (AP) — A Florida man who breached the U.S. Senate chamber carrying a Trump campaign flag is scheduled to become the first Jan. 6 rioter sentenced for a felony, in a hearing that will help set a benchmark for punishment in similar cases.

Prosecutors want Paul Allard Hodgkins to serve 18 months behind bars, saying in a recent filing that he, “like each rioter, contributed to the collective threat to democracy” by forcing lawmakers to temporarily abandon their certification of Joe Biden’s election victory and to scramble for shelter from incoming mobs.

ROCKTON, Ill. (AP) — An explosion and massive fire at a chemical plant in northern Illinois that filled the sky with black smoke and forced the evacuation of hundreds of homes for days was started accidentally during maintenance work, a senior fire official said.

Rockton Fire Chief Kirk Wilson said in a press release Friday that the June 13 fire at the Chemtool plant near Rockton started when contractors were replacing insulation on an elevated heat transfer piping network. The system heats vessels used in the manufacture of lubricating greases.

23 June 2021; MEMO: A court in Egypt has brought a new case against outspoken Egyptian political asylee Aly Hussin Mahdy, over false news charges.

CHICAGO (AP) — Activists widely expected Joe Biden to take swift action against the death penalty as the first sitting president to oppose capital punishment, especially since an unprecedented spate of executions by his predecessor ended just days before Biden took office.

Instead, the White House has been mostly silent.

CHICAGO (AP) — Two people were killed and at least 30 others wounded in mass shootings overnight in three states, authorities said Saturday, stoking concerns that a spike in U.S. gun violence could continue into summer as coronavirus restrictions ease and more people are free to socialize.

The attacks took place late Friday or early Saturday in the Texas capital of Austin, Chicago and Savannah, Georgia.

CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced Thursday she has moved up the city’s timetable for a full reopening to match the rest of the state.

Lightfoot had planned to allow bars, restaurants, hotels and sports stadiums to open to full capacity on July 4. Now she says the city is ready to join the rest of the state in lifting all capacity restrictions on June 11. However, officials say face masks will still be required in schools, in health care settings, on public transit and in some businesses.

(Reuters) --- Scientists at Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) on Friday refuted an assertion in a major medical journal that the design of their COVID-19 vaccine, which is similar AstraZeneca’s (AZN.L), may explain why both have been linked to very rare brain blood clots in some vaccine recipients.

CHICAGO (AP) — Newly released video that shows a Chicago police officer fatally shoot a 13-year-old will be key evidence when prosecutors consider a case against the officer and are confronted with both the emotions surrounding the chilling footage and legal precedent that makes it difficult to bring charges against law enforcement.