Assassi-nation / 13 shots / The Onion’s appeal

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Assassi-nation. A lawyer for Donald Trump straight-facedly told the Supreme Court yesterday that U.S. presidents should be able to order political rivals’ murders without fear of prosecution.
■ The AP recaps key moments from those arguments …
■ … which a political science professor says signal “a crux in history.”
■ Law prof Joyce Vance: “Clarence Thomas, whose wife was involved in Jan. 6, decided it was appropriate for him to participate in this case. … His presence … was a blot on … the rule of law” …
■ … or as Trump’s niece Mary says: “A reminder that the current Supreme Court is corrupt and illegitimate.”
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “The court’s decision will likely … delay Trump’s trial for crimes committed in his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election … until after the 2024 election.”
■ Harold Meyerson (no relation) at The American Prospect: “The Court is effectively … endeavoring to decide the upcoming presidential election in Trump’s favor.”
■ Live updates: Trump’s criminal trial continues in New York.

Ouch. Former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr, who dismissed Trump’s 2020 election victory claims, said he’ll still vote for Trump this fall …

■ Northwestern’s student newspaper has been providing live updates on the protest there.
■ The AP: “As some universities negotiate with pro-Palestinian protesters, others quickly call the police.”
■ Lyz Lenz’s Dingus of the Week: Free speech absolutists who want kids arrested …
■ … or, as Welcome to Hell World columnist Luke O’Neil puts it: “The state of Israel must be allowed to massacre as many Palestinians as they wish and any effort to forestall that from Boston to Los Angeles to Atlanta to New York City should be met with the full force of the militarized police to ‘restore the peace.’”

13 shots. An autopsy concludes that’s how many of the almost 100 bullets fired by Chicago cops actually struck Dexter Reed in a deadly shootout last month.
■ Analysis by The Trace: “Road rage shootings are on the rise across the United States as drivers increasingly turn to firearms to vent their frustrations.”
■ A 22-year-old man who helped set a CTA van on fire during the 2020 riots has been sentenced to prison.

‘Covering everyone, regardless of their immigration status, is … good for all of us.’ A new study from the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois Chicago concludes that public funding for healthcare coverage of the uninsured—including noncitizen migrants—pays for itself.
■ Gov. Pritkzer’s pushing a big boost in state funding for programs to help the homeless find homes.

The Onion’s appeal. The Pulitzer-worthy humor site has been sold, under a deal that will keep the “entire staff intact and in Chicago.”
■ The new CEO—former NBC News senior reporter Ben Collins—pledges: “We’re … going to let them do whatever they want.”
■ The new parent company takes its name from a long-running Onion gag.
■ A (sarcastic but real) pitch from the new owners: “Give Us $1 Or The Onion Disappears Forever.”
■ Peabody-nominated Last Week Tonight host John Oliver on the seemingly unending ownership shuffle over his team at HBO: “I don’t want to have anything to do with any of these corporate parents as they blow in and out of our lives.”

How to fight book bans. Literary Activism columnist Kelly Jensen offers four stratagems.
■ 404: Facebook’s bizarre AI spam has migrated to LinkedIn.

Radio exits. The emerging list of layoffs at Audacy-owned stations includes WBBM Newsradio’s Keith Johnson, a near-30-year veteran most recently heard there weekday afternoons.
■ WLS-AM host Steve Cochran admits corporate parent Cumulus sent him to a training session after he “clicked on six different phishing scams.”
■ Hey, Steve: Watch out for this scam, in which someone claiming to be with the Illinois State Police reports your identity’s been stolen.


Are you smarter than a fifth grader (who’s been reading The Conversation’s weekly “Curious Kids” feature)? Take this week’s news quiz and find out.
■ Q. 1: “If everyone on Earth got in the ocean and submerged themselves underwater at the same time, about how much would the world’s sea level rise?”
■ Score better than 5/8 on this edition and you get to brag about beating your Chicago Public Square columnist.

‘Wrong, Mr. Mayor’ / ‘Is peace the one with the tanks?’ / Radio silence

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‘Wrong, Mr. Mayor.’ Sun-Times architecture critic Lee Bey on Mayor Johnson’s tumescence for a new Bears stadium at the shore: “Chicago’s crown jewel is its lakefront. And you’re helping to tarnish it.” (Image: Bears rendering.)
■ Other top Illinois Democrats aren’t so hot …
■ … and the same from Friends of the Parks: “The powerful and wealthy are demanding that our entire city stop and fast track their plans to expand operations on the people’s lakefront.”
■ Trib sports columnist Paul Sullivan: “As Burnham said: Make no little plans when you can have a translucent roof instead.”
■ Columnist Eric Zorn: Just say no to public funding for the plan …

‘You should buy the story.’ Live updates: That’s ex-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker quoting Donald Trump in Trump’s New York criminal trial today—as Trump allegedly told Pecker to acquire and suppress a former Playboy model’s claims of an extramarital affair with Trump.
■ More live updates: The U.S. Supreme Court was hearing arguments over whether Trump’s immune from prosecution for plots to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump’s an unindicted co-conspirator. Arizona’s indicted Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani for their 2020 efforts.
■ Arizona’s House has sent the Senate a bill to repeal the state’s near-total ban on abortion.

‘The largest for-profit hospital chain is putting pregnant women at risk.’ But Popular Information says shareholders of HCA Healthcare—which claims to be one of the world’s “most ethical companies”—are fighting back.
■ Change Healthcare—parent subsidiary of UnitedHealth—admits it paid a ransom to hackers who crippled the company and its patients in February.

Spoken like a guy unfamiliar with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s Ohio. Stinging from shouts of “Mike, you suck” during a speech at New York’s Columbia University, House Speaker Mike Johnson wants the National Guard deployed on the Mideast war protest-riven campus.
■ Columbia journalism professor Margaret Sullivan: “University officials … shut down the campus radio station temporarily over the weekend, and locked out some students from a building where they were making a documentary about the protests.”
■ Northwestern University students have set up a pro-Palestine tent encampment.
■ Eric Zorn again: “Protest for peace and for the rights of the persecuted and the oppressed. … But don’t tell us that Hamas are the lovable good guys.”
■ The Intercept: The feds are investigating the University of Massachusetts Amherst for anti-Palestinian bias—including slow action against a student who yelled at protesters, “Kill all Arabs.”

‘Is peace the one with the tanks?’ Count Daily Show host Jordan Klepper among those skeptical of President Biden’s declaration that his signature on a $95 billion bill that includes military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan made yesterday “a good day for world peace.”

Flight delayed or canceled? Get cash. New federal rules require automatic compensation for inconvenienced travelers …
■ … stripping airlines of their ability to decide what constitutes a “significant” delay—instead setting a three-hour limit for domestic flights and six hours for international trips.

‘Rat hole’ relocated. Chicago’s removed and replaced the section of Roscoe Village sidewalk celebrated for its imprint of an animal …
■ … but city officials say it’ll be preserved—for at least a while.

How Google enshittified search. Tech skeptic Cory Doctorow: “Worker power has been smashed” as “competition has receded from tech bosses’ worries, thanks to lax antitrust enforcement that saw most credible competitors merged into behemoths.”
■ Law prof Joyce Vance says the Federal Trade Commission’s “sea change” decision to end the use of noncompete agreements could bring major economic benefits.
■ The Onion satirizes the public response: “Great! Now all I need is a job I can quit for a better job.”

Radio silence. Broadcasting giant Audacy’s corporate-wide layoffs include at least some digital staffers at Chicago’s all-news WBBM.
■ The abrupt shutdown of Foxtrot and Dom’s Kitchen grocery stores has triggered a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the hundreds of workers terminated “without any prior notice.”
■ The Conversation: “Large retailers don’t have smokestacks, but they generate a lot of pollution.”

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