Justin Bull: Good morning. I'm Justin Bull in for Erin Allen and this is The Rundown. 

It’s the day after the Super Bowl! That means some of you are hungover, some of you have indigestion, and some of you are gonna stream Rihanna all day. The Bears weren’t in the game yesterday, obviously. They were the worst team in the league, sorry for the reminder, but plenty of Chicagoans were out there having a good time. My colleague Michael Puente visited O’Hara’s Tavern on the Southeast side and talked with some football fans.

O'Hara's Tavern Tape: I'm rooting for my numbers... Actually, I'm rooting for the commercials... If the Bears aren't in it who cares... Out with friends, healthy enjoying life... Oh, very excited. It's the two best teams in the league... Just the whole day, the whole Sunday fun day Super Bowl. It's always a great day, no matter who's playing... I like Jalen Hurts and I want the Eagles to win... I am a Packer fan, and I'm proud of it... Mahomes, Mahomes Mahomes. He's my Mahomey... I'm rooting for the Chiefs, and I'm just here to see Rihanna for the halftime show. 

Justin Bull: Those were the voices of Patty O’Hara, Phil Macek, Gina Black, Rick Long, Debbie Galligan, Lauren Landini, Stacy Somodi and Lauren Cikulin. I went to a watch party and the talk of the room was Rihanna’s pregnancy reveal, that late penalty that cost the Eagles the game, and then a couple *specific* Rihanna dance moves that I’m sure we will see in meme form the rest of our lives. All said and done, pretty good show all around. I give the whole thing three and half stars.

Election Day in Chicago keeps creeping closer and closer, and my bet is a lot of you out there still aren’t sure who you’re going to vote for. And I get that, because there are nine candidates for mayor and they all count themselves as Democrats. So what you need to do, and I know this seems tough but I know you want to be an educated voter, go to WBEZ.org/elections, take the mayoral quiz where you answer the same questions we had all the candidates answer, compare your results - and then here’s the extra step: Go watch our “Meet the candidate” video for the folks you’re vibing with. The videos were made by my Sun-Times colleagues Brian Ernst and Ashlee Rezin, and they’re a really good way to help you figure out who your candidate is. I promise. Again all that is at WBEZ.org/elections, and then afterward you’ll be ready to vote either on February 28th or right now. Yes, each of the city’s 50 wards has its very own early voting location and those open today. You can find out where your early voting site is at chicagoelections.gov.

And sticking with the mayoral race, my colleague Dan Mihalopoulos is reporting that businessman Elzie Higginbottom gave a $50 thousand donation to Mayor Lori Lightfoot's reelection campaign just a few weeks after his company landed a lucrative contract with the Chicago Transit Authority, whose leaders are appointed by the Mayor. Mihalopoulos reports that this was possible due to loopholes in the city's ethics laws but that, quote, "a chain of events like this was supposed to have become a thing of the city’s notoriously corrupt, pay-to-play past." End quote. In a statement Friday, the Lightfoot campaign said she is quote “focused on her own campaign apparatus and has no control over any outside groups or organizations.”

Let’s move on now to a bit of state news. Two months ago, a Springfield man named Earl Moore Junior suffocated after two emergency medical service workers strapped him to a gurney face down. Those workers are now facing first degree murder charges, and Illinois State Senator Doris Turner is pushing to require body cameras for all EMS workers.

Doris Turner: If it were not for the body cameras that the police had on when they responded to the incident, we would have never known what actually happened.

Justin Bull: Turner says there were a lot of conflicting statements following Moore’s death. Her proposal would require EMS workers to wear a body camera while responding to calls and for their service vehicles to be equipped with a dashboard camera. 

In Evanston, the city council will vote this month on a measure allowing marijuana smoking lounges. My colleague Claudia Morell reports that advocates for the lounges say they could attract more dispensaries to Evanston, which would then increase cannabis tax revenue, which is the primary funding for Evanston’s first of its kind reparations fund. Opponents of the idea are framing it as a public health issue about second hand smoke. They’re concerned it would re-open the debate about smoking indoors. 

Devon Reid: I do think that’s a slippery slope fallacy. You can smoke a cigarette in open air out in the public. But you can’t do that with cannabis. 

Justin Bull: That’s City Councilor Devon Reid, who’s advocating for the proposal. The full city council will take up the matter February 27th.

And now for a few quick hits. The AP is reporting that the death toll in the tragic earthquakes in Turkey and Syria has now passed 33,000 people. The Prime Minister in Turkey said the country is investigating 131 contractors allegedly linked to the construction of buildings that failed to withstand the quake and its aftershocks.

Over the weekend U.S. fighter jets shot down three unidentified flying objects, one Friday over Alaska, one Saturday over the Yukon in Canada, and one yesterday over Lake Huron. The AP reports that the object were smaller and flying at a lower altitude than the Chinese spy balloon downed on February 4th. And officials say the objects were not consistent with China’s fleet of aerial surveillance balloons.

As for the weather, it’s another gorgeous day. Sunny and clear with a high of 48 degrees and a low of 35.

And that’s it for The Rundown. On the afternoon show today, we talk with the creators of WBEZ’s newest show: Shoes Off, a Sexy Asians Podcast. They tell us about the show, and they explain how it was originally just going to be called The Sexy Asians Podcast.

Susie An: You run into some problems when you try to google Sexy Asians, and we’re well aware of that, so we had to tweak it a little bit.

Justin Bull: You can hear that convo later today at 2pm. I’m Justin Bull. Have a wonderful day.

WBEZ transcripts are generated by an automatic speech recognition service. We do our best to edit for misspellings and typos, but mistakes do come through.