Daywatch: Lightfoot proposes $500 monthly cash assistance plan | How one stolen gun led to 27 shootings | Where to get mooncakes in Chicago

Chicago Tribune staff, Chicago Tribune
·3 min read
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Good morning, Chicago.

Yesterday, Pfizer and BioNTech said that their COVID-19 vaccine was safe, well-tolerated and produced a strong immune response in children aged 5 to 11, bringing hope to many parents. So what now? Here’s what we know.

Meanwhile, as talks around booster shots for vaccines continue, Cook County officials are begging people who have not yet received their first inoculations to go get the shot. One health official noted that 1 in 3 suburban Cook County residents are still not vaccinated.

— Nicole Stock, audience editor

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Mayor Lori Lightfoot proposes $500 monthly cash assistance for 5,000 Chicago households hard hit by pandemic

Mayor Lori Lightfoot is proposing a $31.5 million monthly payment plan aimed at helping low-income residents that she said will be the “biggest” in the country.

The plan will include $500-per-month payments for 5,000 households for 12 months, according to the city’s Budget Department, and will “be focused on very low-income residents who have been economically hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

CPS is reporting 481 COVID-19 cases and more than 9,600 potential exposures for the first three weeks of school

Chicago Public Schools is reporting 481 COVID-19 cases for the first three weeks of school, with more than 9,600 people identified as close contacts of an infected person.

CPS has once again changed the type of COVID-19 case information it reports on its website and the frequency of updates. A spokesperson said the district will update its COVID-19 online tracker on a daily basis “in response to feedback.” A daily case breakdown is now provided.

A gun was stolen from a small shop in Wisconsin. Officials have linked it to 27 different shootings in Chicago.

On New Year’s morning 2016 in northern Wisconsin, a 9 mm handgun was stolen from a gun shop. In little over a month, it was on the streets of Chicago, where it would be fired over and over, linked to some 27 shootings — leaving dozens injured and two dead — before it was taken off the streets.

Marijuana license winners in Illinois now compete in ‘Shark Tank’-like scramble to get startup cash

In the recent competition for cannabis business licenses in Illinois, Ambrose Jackson’s team struck gold. They won rights to both grow and sell their own cannabis. Jackson is quitting his health care management job to commit full time to becoming a legal marijuana business owner.

But he’s anxious about it, because now the hard part starts for license holders — hustling for funding. Like contestants on the TV show “Shark Tank,” they must sell themselves and their plans to get the millions of dollars they need to get started.

How mooncakes, the ultimate fall pastry, helped one writer celebrate her Chinese heritage — and where to find them in Chicago

Often equated with Western Thanksgiving, the Mid-Autumn Festival is the time of year when family members reunite from around the world to celebrate the full moon, give thanks and enjoy each other’s company. It’s primarily celebrated by people of Chinese and Vietnamese heritage and falls on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese lunar calendar.

There’s no food more ubiquitous to the Mid-Autumn Festival than the mooncake, an ultrarich pastry traditionally filled with a dense lotus seed paste and a salted egg yolk at its center. Here’s where to find them in Chicago.