Good afternoon! It’s Wednesday, and a heads up: “Dibs” will be removed by city workers on Friday. Here’s what else you need to know.

1. Illinois joins a growing list of states that are removing mask mandates

Gov. JB Pritzker today announced he will lift an indoor mask mandate for most public places — including bars, restaurants, grocery stores and museums — by Feb. 28 as cases and hospitalizations from COVID-19 continue to fall.

In doing so, Illinois joins other states with Democratic governors that have recently decided to ease up on pandemic restrictions.

The big exceptions in Pritzker’s plan are schools, hospitals, nursing homes and public transit. And local officials and businesses can still decide to require masks if they want to.

“Schools need a little more time,” Pritzker said, pointing out that vaccination rates are lower among school-age children and social distancing is difficult in classrooms. [Chicago Sun-Times]

So when should mask requirements be lifted at schools? Health experts told The New York Times it should happen at some point, but they disagree on when it’s safe to do so. [NYT]

The recent action by governors to lift mandates raises questions about if these decisions are based on science or politics.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said restrictions could be a thing of the past in a matter of months because the U.S. is out of the “full blown” phase of the pandemic.

He said a combination of vaccines, treatments and natural immunity from prior infections will make the virus more manageable, and moving forward, decisions on restrictions and mandates should increasingly be made on the local, not federal, level. [FT]

2. A former Chicago police officer convicted in the infamous 2007 beating of a bartender will not receive a pension

Anthony Abbate, a former police officer who attacked a bartender in 2007, cannot collect a pension, a state appeals court ruled this week.

“While Abbate was off-duty when he kicked and punched Karolina Obrycka in a drunken rage, a three-judge panel found that Abbate felt his status as a cop gave him impunity to act however he wanted and that he used his connections on the force to try to avoid arrest,” reports the Chicago Sun-Times.

Abbate was convicted of battery in 2009 and sentenced to probation for the attack, which was captured on a security video. A federal jury awarded Obrycka $850,000 from the city. [Chicago Sun-Times]

3. McConnell and other Republicans criticize the RNC for calling Jan. 6 “legitimate political discourse”

A rupture has emerged within the GOP after the Republican National Committee recently censured two House Republicans and described the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which resulted in nine deaths and more than 150 officers injured, as “legitimate political discourse.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell this week distanced himself from the RNC, saying the attack “was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next.”

The news comes as some Senate Republicans want to move past the Jan. 6 attack and former President Donald Trump’s false claims over the 2020 election.

These lawmakers instead want the party to focus on inflation and other issues they believe will help them win control of Congress in the midterm elections. [NPR]

4. Florida GOP advances “Don’t Say Gay” bill that bans discussions of LGBTQ issues in schools

Teachers in Florida classrooms will be restricted on how they discuss gender and sexuality under proposed legislation pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republican lawmakers.

The bill would allow parents to sue schools if they believe teachers violated the law.

Supporters say the legislation gives parents more power in deciding what their children are taught. But critics say it will strip protections from LGBTQ kids and have a chilling effect on educators.

“This legislation is meant to stigmatize LGBTQ people, isolate LGBTQ kids and make teachers fearful of providing a safe, inclusive classroom,” said advocacy group Equality Florida in a statement. “The existence of LGBTQ students and parents is not a taboo topic that has to be regulated by the Florida Legislature.” [NPR]

5. Highs and lows for Team USA at the Winter Olympics

In a shocking and heartbreaking development, U.S. Olympic star Mikaela Shiffrin stumbled in the women’s slalom at the Beijing Olympics, receiving a second disqualification at the Games and costing her a gold medal.

Afterwards, Shiffrin discussed how she felt. “Pretty awful, yeah. But it won’t feel awful forever. I just feel pretty low right now.” [NPR]

Meanwhile, snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis won the first gold medal for the U.S. [NPR]

U.S. snowboarding superstars Chloe Kim and Shaun White are moving on to the medal round of their halfpipe competitions. [NPR]

Here’s what else is happening

• Russia sent warships to the Black Sea as diplomatic talks ramp up in hopes of averting a Russian invasion of Ukraine. [NPR]
• Protests over pandemic restrictions disrupted a second border crossing between the U.S. and Canada. [Washington Post]
• A wild crocodile with a used motorcycle tire stuck around its neck for six years has finally been freed by an Indonesian bird catcher. [NPR]
• The Dutch want to egg Jeff Bezos’s superyacht if a historic bridge is dismantled so it can pass. [NPR]

Oh, and one more thing …

I’m laughing so hard as I write this: CBS may be bringing back Early Edition.

The TV series, which ran in the late ’90s, was set in Chicago and followed a man who gets a mysterious copy of the Chicago Sun-Times that features the news for the next day. With this information, he tries to prevent tragedies from happening.

CBS has ordered a reboot, and it will reportedly stick with an old-school, physical newspaper and follow a female journalist. It’s not clear if the magical newspaper will continue to be the Sun-Times. [Sun-Times]

Tell me something good …

NPR asked an interesting question this week: Which great books by Black authors should be brought to the screen? And I’d like to know what you think.

Sandra Marquez writes:

“I think Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler would make a GREAT Netflix series!”

And Mark Burlingame writes:

“Any of P. Djèlí Clark’s works would be great fun to see on screen! Most of his stories are set in an alternate Steam-Punk Earth. I’ve read the series that begins with A Dead Djinn in Cairo.

“Set in Cairo, Special Investigator Fatma el-Sha’arawi of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities investigates the apparent suicide of a Djinn. She is the first and nearly only female investigator in the Ministry. A nice combination of mystery, fantasy and feminism in a male dominated culture.”

What books from a Black author would you like to see turned into a movie? Feel free to email or tweet me, and your response might be shared in the newsletter this week.