Good afternoon! It’s Monday, and my husband and I never found the egg that mysteriously vanished in our apartment. I’m guessing it got sucked into some Bermuda Triangle in our kitchen. Here’s what you need to know today.

1. Biden considers sending up to 5,000 troops to Eastern Europe to counter Russia

The Biden administration is discussing sending troops to Eastern Europe as concerns grow that Russia will invade Ukraine.

Senior Pentagon officials on Saturday laid out a number of options for President Joe Biden, including the deployment of 1,000 to 5,000 troops, according to The New York Times. But there are no plans to send troops directly to Ukraine.

Russia is estimated to have 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s border. [NPR]

As the White House weighs its next steps, the NATO military alliance today said it would bolster its “deterrence” in the Baltic Sea region, sending troops, fighter jets and warplanes to the area. [AP]

Meanwhile, officials in Ukraine have sent more security forces to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history. The area is located along the shortest path between Russia and Kyiv. [New York Times]

2. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear challenges to race-based college admission policies

The nation’s high court today agreed to take up lawsuits claiming that race-based admission programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina discriminate against Asian American applicants.

The move puts the fate of affirmative action in higher education at risk, and it comes as the Supreme Court weighs other cases tackling blockbuster issues like abortion and guns.

The court has typically upheld such programs, most recently in 2016. Back then, the court ruled 4 to 3 to uphold a similar program at the University of Texas.

But two of the justices who were a part of that majority are no longer on the bench — Justice Anthony Kennedy retired in 2018, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in 2020. [NPR]

3. With the mayoral election about a year away, Lightfoot has spent more campaign cash than she’s raised

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s two campaign funds have raised $2.67 million but spent $2.88 million in the past two and a half years, according to an analysis from the Chicago Tribune.

The newspaper reports that as a result, the mayor’s war chest has dwindled to just $1.56 million, an amount of money that will unlikely deter any potential challengers in the 2023 mayoral election.

“I’m really surprised, because I thought once the mayor got into office, her strategy was going to be to amass as much money as possible, in the tradition of Rahm and Daley, to show her prowess,” Delmarie Cobb, a veteran political strategist, told the Tribune. “What is she spending her money on? If it were me, I would be holding onto every penny to scare people off who might want to run. She’s not scaring anybody.”

Lightfoot told the Tribune that the pandemic prevented her from throwing fundraisers. [Chicago Tribune]

4. Only one in four students at Chicago’s public elementary schools is vaccinated

Officials at Chicago Public Schools say they are frustrated that vaccination rates among students have not significantly improved, reports WBEZ’s Sarah Karp.

About 23% of elementary school students in Chicago’s public schools are fully vaccinated, according to new data from the school district. When it comes to high school students, about 53% are fully vaccinated.

“It is still moving too slow,” CPS CEO Pedro Martinez recently said. “I love our student voice. I love our student activism. I wish we could convince more students to get vaccinated, especially at the student level.”

WBEZ created a searchable database where you can find vaccination rates for individual schools. The data shows that rates are significantly lower in schools with a majority of Black students compared to schools with majority Asian, white or diverse student bodies. [WBEZ]

5. Omicron offers “plausible hope” for a return to normalcy in the coming months, WHO official says

The World Health Organization’s top official in Europe today said the omicron variant opens the door to “stabilization and normalization” in the months ahead as more people get shots and others develop natural immunity through infection.

But the official, Dr. Hans Kluge, said nations should not drop their guard, and “it is almost a given that new COVID-19 variants will emerge and return.”

At the same time, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of WHO, said it’s premature to say if we are in the “endgame” of a pandemic that has lasted more than two years. [AP]

In Chicago, officials are reporting another sharp drop in the number of new cases. Hospitalizations and deaths are also declining. [COVID Dashboard]

Here’s what else is happening

• It was a hectic day on Wall Street, as the S&P 500 suffered its worst daily drop in more than a year before rebounding . [CNBC]
• The Jan. 6 committee is investigating a Trump administration plan that would have seized voting machines in battleground states. [NPR]
• The FBI raided the suburban Chicago headquarters for an embattled COVID-19 testing center. [Block Club Chicago]
• The Murphy bed could be making a comeback thanks to the pandemic. [AP]

Oh, and one more thing …

CBD, a non-psychoactive product of the cannabis plant, may block COVID-19 infections, according to researchers at UChicago Medicine.

Researchers looked at a national sample of patients taking FDA-approved CBD for treating epilepsy, and they found a “significant negative association with SARS-CoV-2 positive tests,” reports Crain’s Chicago Business.

Clinical trials should be conducted to see whether CBD can be used to prevent COVID-19 infections or be used as a treatment, the researchers say. [Crain’s]

Tell me something good …

This week is expected to be a cold one, with more snow possibly on the way. I’d like to know what tips you have for staying warm when Chicago becomes frigid.

Me? You can never go wrong with wearing two socks. And a little mulled wine doesn’t hurt.

Feel free to email me at therundown@wbez.org or tweet me at @whuntah, and your responses might be shared here this week.

Have a nice night! If you like what you just read, you can subscribe to the newsletter here and have it delivered to your inbox.