VISUALS

People pay their respects during a funeral for Calumet City police Officer Adam Zieminski on Dec. 13, 2020, in Dyer, Indiana. Zieminski, 49, died while on duty after a medical emergency.

As Chicago officials outline plans to roll out the coronavirus vaccine, expected to receive federal approval soon, airlines say they are prepared to assist in the mass distribution effort.

Organizations including the South Suburban Public Action to Deliver Shelter, Aunt Martha’s, Sertoma Centre, the Alliance to End Homelessness and others are giving out hygiene supplies and distributing hot meals to those enduring housing instability Nov. 25, 2020.

Two girls, 8 and 5 years old, died in a house fire in northwest suburban Ingleside. The fire also injured four adults.

Amazon Fresh opened to the public Dec. 10, 2020, in Naperville, introducing checkout-free Dash Carts and voice-enabled Alexa terminals to the Chicago area in what might be just a taste of the e-commerce giant’s high-tech plans for the grocery shopping experience.

Chicago police officer Titus Moore died of COVID-19.

Timuel Black, longtime Chicago activist, historian, and professor emeritus of social sciences at the City Colleges of Chicago.

Neon Shop Fishtail, which makes custom neon signs for bars and restaurants as well as for television and movie productions in the city, has seen a 70% drop in business compared with last year, owner Thomas Brickler said.

The firm obtained a PPP loan of $23,866, but has already burned through those funds to keep two full-time employees and to pay expenses like rent and equipment for sign repairs.

“We are hanging on by the skin of our teeth,” he said.

In the wake of the pandemic, a shortage of substitute teachers across suburban Chicago has reached a crisis level at many school districts, where the roster of retired teachers and other part-time workers who are certified by the state to fill in when classroom teachers are absent has dwindled exponentially at a time of unprecedented demand for their services. Now, as the number of teachers needing to quarantine continues to spike, some districts are stepping up their substitute recruitment efforts, while others are concluding that remote learning with all its flaws is perhaps the best option, at least until early 2021.

Dan Polydoris created his workshop, which he calls Death by Toys, five years ago. Mostly, he makes action figures, but sometimes lunch boxes, and other times body bags for his action figures. It’s a magical place. Polydoris has been running his subversive toy business out of his small apartment.

With everyone hunkered down at home during the pandemic, the tradition of decorating for the holidays has taken on a new level of joy.

As Chicago area hospitals are busy with a COVID-19 surge, some emergency departments like the one at Roseland Community Hospital, continue to seen a decline in patient visits as wary Illinoisans delay care out of concerns of contracting the virus at hospitals. At the same time, there are concerns if the hospitalization rate doesn’t trend down patients will be competing for beds.

Pilsen residents face gentrification pressures that have intensified in the neighborhood in recent years. An ordinance to create a landmark district along a stretch of 18th Street and adjacent streets fell unanimously in the Zoning Committee. The proposal drew stiff resistance from working-class Latino residents worried the rules to protect historic buildings would make it expensive and difficult for them to perform repairs on their homes.

Edith Rockefeller McCormick was one of the most unconventional of Chicago’s grande dames. Her father was John D. Rockefeller, the oil baron and her husband was a son of Cyrus McCormick, inventor of the mechanical reaper that transformed farming. This made her a solid member of the industrial ruling class. Edith and her husband lived an extravagant lifestyle, which put her at odds with her father who was known for his frugality. She donated large sums of money and time to social causes. Brookfield Zoo was made possible because of her donation. Upon hearing that Cook County’s Juvenile Court, the nation’s first, didn’t have the money to pay probation officers, Rockefeller McCormick cut a check and that was that. She also provided financial support to James Joyce when he was writing “Ulysses," a novel considered a landmark of literary modernism. In the early 1900s, she traveled abroad to be treated by Carl Jung for depression and then she herself became a Jungian analyst. After returning to America, she divorced her husband, claimed she was the reincarnated wife of King Tutankhamen, and lived with a man whom she never married.

Santa Claus is still an attraction at Bass Pro Shops using a plexiglass shield to protect himself and his visitors.

An elderly couple died as a result of a house fire in the Old Irving Park neighborhood of Chicago.

Shoppers show up for Black Friday deals as traditionally crowded stores are swapped for busy curbside merchandise pickups.

Inflatable turkeys decorate the front lawns of homes on the North Side of Chicago on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 26, 2020, in Chicago.

Thanksgiving Day looked different throughout Chicago with many families in quarantine and the cancelation of festivities, including the annual parade, Nov. 26, 2020,