Newsbreaks for Friday

Audio version is here.

Officials for the Taste of Chicago admitted today that some visitors to the festival got salmonella and had to be taken to the hospital. “I’m such an idiot,” one patient said. “I saw the sign and thought, ‘Oh, that’s just Italian for “little salmon.”’”

For those of you who’ve never been to “the Taste,” it’s a 10-day swath of blacktop offering food from local restaurants. They all set up booths, and all the booths have signs like “Try our 95-degree tunafish.”

That’s the thing about the Taste. Every year, it’s hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk. Only at the Taste, they make you eat it. And then charge you eight dollars.

Literally millions of people come through every year, mostly tourists from tiny little towns all over the Midwest. I can just imagine one of them sitting in a porta-potty, and thinking, “Now I know why them big city folks always walk so fast.”