‘A complete meltdown’ / Nasty, brutish and short / Quizzes! / Weekend hardware tip

‘A complete meltdown with Trump leading the charge.’ Longtime Chicago journalist Jennifer Schulze: “Forget important questions like whether Iran was actually weeks away from building a nuclear weapon. … No, the biggest issue, per Trump … is whether or not the entire press corps is falling in line behind the president’s yet-unverified claims that three Iranian nuclear sites weren’t just damaged but ‘obliterated.’”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s getting slammed after a heated news conference yesterday.
Poynter’s Tom Jones: After Hegseth targeted a Fox reporter, the journalism community—including her competitors—came to her defense.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “Hegseth seemed to be performing for an audience of one.”
CNN’s Brian Stelter: “Trump has ratcheted up his rhetorical battle … by having an attorney send legal letters to CNN and The New York Times demanding retractions of accurate reports.”(Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)

‘Big, beautiful’ … but not all that healthy. Republicans’ draconian budget cuts are in trouble following a Senate parliamentarian ruling that a Medicaid provider tax overhaul doesn’t follow the rules.
The American Prospect: The declaration “kicked out a key provision that would have generated hundreds of billions of dollars in service of tax cuts for the wealthy” …
 … but Politico says Trump could still get his way by July 4.

‘This is bullshit.’ Doctor and Inside Medicine columnist Jeremy Faust “watched large portions of this week’s CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices so that you didn’t have to.”
The Prospect again: A pandemic of fear is gripping the nation’s “safety net” hospitals and their patients.

‘A meteor that hasn’t quite hit.’ The Washington Post: As the Trump administration works to claw back billions of dollars in federal funding, cities are “prepping for the worst.”
Yet, WTTW News reports: Sued by Chicago, the Trump administration’s unfrozen more than $1 million in anti-terrorism funding for the city.
Planning for its next five years, the Chicago Public Library is asking Chicagoans to take a survey.

‘Attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion are attacks on us.’ In a full-page newspaper ad today, a coalition of civil rights groups issues a call to action for working women fed up with “manufactured hysteria” fed by “extremist politicians and corporate billionaires.”
They’re aiming for 75 million signatures.

Tech fears come true. 404 Media reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is using a new mobile phone app that can identify someone based on fingerprints or face—simply by pointing a phone camera at them.
The Supreme Court today handed Trump a big win—ending district court judges’ power to issue nationwide injunctions blocking federal policies …
 … although it also leaves unclear the fate of Trump’s effort to deny citizenship to U.S.-born kids of people in the country illegally.

Nasty, brutish and short. The Illinois Answers Project and the Sun-Times report that a Chicago cop who shot and killed his partner—the first Chicago officer to be killed by “friendly fire” in almost 40 years—has acquired a long disciplinary record over a brief career.
Public policy columnist Richard Day: The CTA needs to start enforcing its own rules with “a more visible police presence.”

Haunting developments.
In the works for a vacant building at 700 W. Chicago Ave.—not far from the old Tribune Freedom Center printing facility: A Universal Studios “immersive horror experience.”
The upper stories of Chicago’s emaciated Water Tower Place are for sale.

Streets beat. Chicago’s heat dome casualties include buckling pavement, forcing the city to close streets for repair ahead of next week’s NASCAR race.
Chicago, the U.S. city with the most lead service lines, doesn’t expect to finish replacing them until 2076.
Windy City Times offers a guide to Sunday’s Chicago Pride Parade.

‘Go 9 for 9 and win a golden summer tan.’ That’s the challenge past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Fritz Holznagel lays down with his latest weekly news quiz for The Conversation.
Go at least 8 for 9 and you get to brag you beat your Chicago Public Square columnist (XX).
Got some extra quiz energy? Try City Cast’s Chicago-centric quiz, on which your columnist scored a middling 3/5.
Lyz Lenz’s Dingus of the Week: Everyone who is mad about the Democratic primary victory for New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.

Weekend hardware tip. Once upon a time, Master Lock required anyone hoping to retrieve a long-lost combination for a lock to submit a notarized request. You now can get that combo just by uploading a photo of the lock, clearly showing it unattached to anything.
Here’s the submission form.

Did that tip save you the price of a new lock? Kick a buck or two back to Chicago Public Square.

War’s fog / ‘They’re not breathing’ / Grocery goodbyes / ‘A blow to authors and artists’

 Updating coverage from the AP: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth praises the attack but offers few details.
 Pod Save America cohost Dan Pfeiffer: “Too many Dems confuse being pro-war with being strong.”

Planned Parenthood’s defeat. The Supreme Court’s ruled that states can cut off Medicaid cash for the organization—even if that money’s not being used for abortion.
 After 404 Media revealed that local police departments in Illinois and across the country were using automatic license plate reader tech from Flock to help at least one Texas cop track a woman who’d self-administered an abortion, the company’s blocking agencies across the country from searching cameras in Illinois, California and Virginia.
 Columnist and doctor James Whalen sees dark clouds in statistics suggesting female physicians are getting burned out.

‘Did you suggest telling the courts fuck you in any manner?’ That was a question from a U.S. senator yesterday to Trump federal appellate court nominee Emil Bove.
 Liz Dye at Law & Chaos: Bove’s assertion that “I am not anybody’s henchman” is “horseshit.”
 Law professor Joyce Vance counsels how to talk to your senators about Bove.

‘They’re not breathing.’ Wired’s review of hundreds of emergency calls from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers nationwide paints a picture of a system in chaos—with life-threatening incidents, delayed treatment and overcrowding.
 Dan Froomkin at Heads Up News:Revulsion and resistance to ICE’s courthouse arrests grows.”
 Trump’s “border czar” says he’s living apart from his wife “mostly because of the death threats against me.”

He’s in. Gov. Pritzker’s officially announced his candidacy for reelection …
 … declaring Illinois “at the center of … the fight to make life more affordable, the fight to protect our freedoms.”
 Columnist Eric Zorn: “An incumbent governor will have a better chance at winning the presidency than a citizen billionaire.”
 Politico’s Shia Kapos connects the dots between the 2023 election of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Zohran Mamdani’s big New York mayoral primary win over Andrew Cuomo.
 Seth Meyers last night: “Cuomo said that Mamdani … ‘touched young people.’ Cuomo’s mistake was waiting until after he was elected to touch young people.”
 Stephen Colbert: “That can’t be easy for Cuomo to admit. ’Cause touching young people? Kind of his brand.”
 Axios: New York’s Democratic establishment is in a panic.

Heat-wave biking tips. Streetsblog Chicago’s John Greenfield updates his 2018 guide to reflect the rise of electric personal mobility devices.

Grocery goodbyes. Mariano’s is closing three Chicago-area stores this summer …
 … part of parent Kroger’s broader downsizing.
 Elswhere in the retail world: Variety reports that Amazon founder “Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Forge Ahead With Venice Wedding After Activists Threaten to Block a Canal With Inflatable Crocodiles.”

‘They’re not asking us. … and it’s a complete sham.’ As Northwestern University makes budget cuts under Trump’s funding freeze, a professor complains the faculty isn’t getting consulted in what stays and what goes.
 The American Prospect: University unions around the country are pushing back.

‘First they came for Calvin & Hobbes, and we peed on them.’ Updating the rising tide of U.S. school censorship, Wonkette’s Doktor Zoom mourns Monroe County, Tennessee, schools’ banning of Bill Watterson’s beloved comics.
 Meanwhile, reactionary internet personality Stew Peters has released what columnist Gary Legum says may be “the most racist children’s book ever.”
 The Conversation: Self-censorship’s on the rise as Americans become less likely to voice opinions on political issues.

‘A blow to authors and artists.’ Popular Information assesses a federal judge’s ruling in a landmark artificial intelligence case.
 Poynter: “A lot has changed since we created AI ethics guidelines for newsrooms. Here’s what you need to know now.”
 Media business analyst Rick Edmonds: If you find no breaking news in your Sunday newspaper, well, that’s now baked into the system.

‘Quick summaries, political references, and media-savvy commentary … aimed at … readers who keep up with politics and current events.’ That, remarkably, is AI bot ChatGPT’s flattering—and may we say accurate?—assessment of Chicago Public Square.
 But, hey, older boomers: Don’t let its stereotyping get you down.
 Just for laughs, see how ChatGPT rewrote yesterday’s edition Ernest Hemingway-style.
 If you’re an actual human intelligence who values Square, you can help keep it coming by kicking in as little as $1, once.
 Mike Braden made this edition better.

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