AVaughn

[Jason Willick @jawillick]

A footnote refers to "the lenient charging decision in this high-profile case."

[Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸 @jmisci]

Never forget: generations of Chicagoans were poisoned by a greedy plumbers union who lobbied the city to require lead pipes into the 1980s.

Labor leaders like Edward Brabec, Stephen Bailey, and Jim McCarthy leaders should have been put on trial for crimes against humanity.

[Michelle Kaufman @kaufsports]

⚽️ 🇦🇷 Entire Argentina team skipped the mandatory mixed zone interview area after the match, not a single player addressed the media. Here they are walking away to bus. @HeraldSports @MiamiHerald #WorldCup #Argentina

[Paul Graham @paulg]

Trial lawyers are lobbying against self-driving cars because they're too safe. They need people to be killed and injured so that they have material for lawsuits.

[Rick Pearson @rap30]

Our story: Illinois House Speaker Welch's office knew of harassment claims against disgraced state Rep. Benton years ago https://t.co/w2Gioaboma

[LenaSun @bylenasun]

BREAKING: Taylor Farms pulls all iceberg lettuce sourced in central Mexico from U.S. market in cyclosporiasis outbreak investigation. Sysco, a huge food supplier, has stopped distributing certain iceberg lettuce products from Mexico. Me + @Miriamwldvgl https://t.co/7LnhecF5cG

[Collin Corbett @CollinCorbett]

This is explosive. Speaker Welch and his office knew about Harry Benton's harassment of a young female staffer 3 years ago and did nothing. In fact, Welch still spent over $1 million to help Benton get reelected in 2024 and was prepared to do it again in 2026 until the Inspector General got involved.

Making the story even more disgusting, Welch reacted to multiple images of this staffer on Instagram with flirting emojis and pushed her to interact with him on Signal, an encrypted messaging app used to hide interactions.

Thanks to this Tribune investigation, we finally have some idea what happened. We ought to know everything. The Inspector General's report needs to be made public. The Legislative Ethics Commission could do so, which Welch or even Pritzker could help make happen. Or the Attorney General could get involved. But, so far, they've refused.

This whole thing emphasizes the need for Independent leadership in Illinois. Clearly, lawmakers and political parties cannot be relied on to police themselves, and ethics reform seems completely out of reach under one-party rule. Illinoisans deserve better. I have a plan to reform our broken system, increase transparency, and strengthen ethics in state government.

[Jason Meisner @jmetr22b]

If any of this is sounding familiar...that's because it is. Four years ago:
Madigan knew about secret payments to ousted political operative
https://t.co/nDkjSNDqm1

[Afshine Emrani MD FACC @afshineemrani]

I'm a cardiologist. Today the FDA approved something I've been waiting two decades for: the first oral PCSK9 inhibitor in history. A once-daily pill — Lipfendra (enlicitide), from Merck — that lowers LDL as powerfully as the injections we've relied on.

This is one of those days that quietly changes the trajectory of the disease that kills more people than anything else on earth. Let me tell you exactly why — and who should act on it this week.

Start with the biology, because it's elegant.
Your liver cells are covered in LDL receptors — molecular catcher's mitts that grab "bad" cholesterol out of your blood and pull it in for disposal. The more receptors you have working, the lower your LDL. But your body makes a protein called PCSK9 whose entire job is to find those receptors and drag them to the incinerator before they can be reused. PCSK9 is the saboteur.

Block PCSK9, and the receptors survive. They get recycled back to the surface. They keep clearing LDL, over and over. Cholesterol plummets.

It is one of the most powerful mechanisms we have ever discovered in cardiology. And until today, you could only access it through a needle.

That needle was a bigger problem than most people realize. The injectables — Repatha, Praluent — are phenomenal drugs. But needle aversion, injection-site reactions, pharmacy logistics, and cost meant that millions of patients who desperately needed them simply said no. I have watched patients stay at heart-attack-level cholesterol for years because they wouldn't inject. The barrier was never the science. It was human.
Now the trial data — from a program spanning over 19,000 participants — and it's genuinely impressive.
Roughly 60% LDL reduction. A placebo-adjusted 56% in the main lipids trial, 59% in patients with inherited high cholesterol. On top of statins. That matches the injectable class in a daily tablet.

But here's the detail that made me sit up as a cardiologist — the part most coverage is burying: enlicitide also significantly lowered ApoB and Lp(a).
If you follow me, you know why that matters. Lp(a) is the genetic, inherited cholesterol particle that roughly one in five people carry at dangerous levels — the one that triples heart attack risk and that diet, exercise, and even statins barely touch. We've had almost nothing oral that moves it. A daily pill that lowers LDL, ApoB, AND Lp(a) simultaneously is a genuinely meaningful expansion of what we can do.

Who should pay attention today:
Anyone above their LDL goal despite maximum statins or ezetimibe. The roughly 9.8 million high-risk Americans still not at target.

Anyone with familial hypercholesterolemia — the genetic condition that loads dangerously high LDL from birth and causes heart attacks in the 40s and 50s. These patients have avoided the injectables for years.
Statin-intolerant patients who need powerful additional lowering.

Anyone who's had a heart attack or stroke and needs to drive LDL far lower than a statin alone can manage.
The price is notable too: about $315 a month, meaningfully below the injectables — though it'll still require insurance prior authorization, and formulary placement isn't set yet, so access won't be instant.

Now the honest caveats, because I'm a physician, not a hype man:
This approval is based on LDL lowering, not yet on proven outcomes. The big cardiovascular outcomes trial — CORALreef Outcomes, over 14,500 patients — is still running. We expect the heart-attack reduction to follow the LDL drop, because the link between lower LDL and fewer events is one of the most rock-solid relationships in all of medicine. But the definitive proof isn't in yet, and I'll tell you that honestly.

And a pill isn't automatically right for everyone. Some patients love a shot they take twice a month and never think about again. This is a powerful new tool, not a mandate.

But make no mistake about the size of this.

For twenty years I've told patients that LDL is one of the most important numbers they will ever own — and that for the right person, lower is better, and lower earlier is better still. Today the tool to get there stopped requiring a needle.

The medicine to protect your heart just got radically easier to take. And easier medicine is medicine people actually use.

If you're on a statin and still not at goal — or high cholesterol runs in your family and you've been dodging the shots — this is the week to call your doctor and ask one question:

"Is the new oral PCSK9 inhibitor right for me?"
The needle was the wall. Today the wall came down.
Know your numbers. The science to change them keeps winning.

[Frank Calabrese @FrankCalabrese]

NEW: Cook County inspector general report finds Commissioner Samantha Steele offered her primary opponent a job to drop out of the race, then lied to the media and refused to cooperate with investigators. She is directed to retake ethics training.

[WestLoopTom @WestLoopTom]

The air quality is so bad in Chicago that people are stopping in Richard’s just to get some fresh air.

[Jesse Arm @Jesse_Leg]

More than 25% of United Auto Workers membership now consists of unionized graduate students.

[Ben Bradley @BenBradleyTV]

While Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson has yet to say whether he'll seek a second term.

A new poll shows only 14% of city residents want him to run again.

Other findings from the survey: https://t.co/BNXrcgthFm

[A.J. Manaseer @AJManaseer]

Interesting editorial from WSJ today praising Susana Mendoza and her recognition of how dire the financial situation is for Chicago pensions.

Here’s something I didn’t know until now: Detroit declared bankruptcy with their pensions funded between 60-80%.

What is Chicago’s funding ratio?

28.1%

[AVaughn @aaronevaughn]

Public service announcement- never go to a @pepboysauto to get tires.

[Washington Free Beacon @FreeBeacon]

Abdul El-Sayed supports a single-payer, “Medicare for All” healthcare system that would cover every American “from cradle to grave.” His wife, psychiatrist Sarah Jukaku, doesn’t accept Medicare or any other insurance. She also appears to have scrubbed a portion of the “Frequently Asked Questions” page on her website making clear that she does not accept insurance, @CAndersonMO reports.

[Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias]

It's pretty common for psychiatrists (like AES's wife here) to decline to accept Medicare because the reimbursement rates are relatively low, but remember that Medicare For All works in part by forcing providers to accept lower reimbursement rates!

https://t.co/zanFEamGr8

[Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias]

The most advanced technology in the world has progressive views and conservatives’ only takeaway from this is to get mad.

[Hen Mazzig @HenMazzig]

According to a source for the New York Post, Ro Khanna was invited to meet freed hostages and survivors of October 7th.

Khanna's team didn't even bother to respond.

His team was also offered an opportunity to meet with Druze civilians in the Golan Heights and a briefing on how aid is currently getting into Gaza. They didn't take it.

Now, if Ro Khanna genuinely believes that aid is not properly getting into Gaza, why not go to the briefing? If he thinks Israel is lying, wouldn't that be the perfect time to get proof?

But he didn't go, because those aren't his intentions. He didn't want to meet with victims of Hamas or those trying to get as much aid into Gaza as they can because they contradict his narrative.

And the narrative is all that matters.

[Dan Patrick Show @dpshow]

Dan Patrick on WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert cancelling her appearance on the show:

"If you want to be treated as a serious league, this is what happens! These are tough questions, but this is a fair outlet for you – a fair platform. I will treat you with respect."