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Afternoon Briefing

Friday, December 5, 2025

Good afternoon, Chicago.

The Chicago-based American Medical Association is blasting a federal vaccine advisory committee’s decision today to no longer recommend that all babies get the hepatitis B vaccine when they’re born.

The committee’s decision “is reckless and undermines decades of public confidence in a proven, lifesaving vaccine,” said Dr. Sandra Adamson Fryhofer, an American Medical Association trustee, in a statement Friday morning. “Today’s action is not based on scientific evidence, disregards data supporting the effectiveness of the Hepatitis B vaccine, and creates confusion for parents about how best to protect their newborns.”

Here’s what else is happening today. And remember, for the latest breaking news in Chicago, visit chicagotribune.com/latest-headlines and sign up to get our alerts on all your devices.

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news
Residents pick up their belongings following an overnight fire in the 1500 block of North Karlov Avenue in Chicago’s West Humboldt Park on Dec. 5, 2025 which sent at least 10 people to the hospital. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)

10 people reported injured in overnight fire at Humboldt Park apartment building

At least 10 people were taken to five area hospitals after a fire broke out Friday at an apartment building in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, officials reported.

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business
Liquid steel is poured into a steel making unit at Granite City Works, in Granite City, Illinois, on June 28, 2018. (Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune)

US Steel to resume steel production at southern Illinois plant shut 3 years ago

The company shut down the last blast furnace there in 2023, and it even moved to wind down its steel processing mill there in September.

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sports
Chicago Bears players stand during the national anthem before playing the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field on Jan. 5, 2025, in Green Bay, Wis. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)

5 things to watch in the Chicago Bears-Green Bay Packers game at Lambeau Field — plus our Week 14 predictions

It’s not like the semiannual grudge match between the Bears and the Green Bay Packers needed higher stakes, but the football gods bestowed them anyway.

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eat. watch. do.
Composer Matthew Aucoin and soprano Julia Bullock embrace following the world premier of Aucoin’s “Song of the Reappeared” at Symphony Center in Chicago on Dec. 4, 2025. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)

Review: A chilling CSO premiere, magnificently led

At the Chicago Symphony this week, poet Raúl Zurita’s verses become “Song of the Reappeared,” a 20-minute work for soprano and orchestra by Matt Aucoin.

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nation & world
The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices votes to recommend changes to the infant hepatitis B vaccination policy during a meeting in Atlanta on Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Gray)

US vaccine advisers say not all babies need a hepatitis B shot at birth

A loud chorus of medical and public health leaders decried the actions of the panel, whose current members were all appointed by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a leading anti-vaccine activist before this year becoming the nation’s top health official.

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