A press victory—maybe. A federal judge overnight at least temporarily blocked President Trump’s White House ban on three news outlets …
■ … but then the Secret Service kept out reporters from all three …
■ … prompting them to request an emergency hearing today.
■ Y’know how Trump’s team has pointed to those outlets’ reporting as a threat to national security? Turns out the source of some of that reporting was … Vice President Vance.
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich on Team Trump’s struggles to cope with the press pool boycott: “They still hadn’t worked out this whole ‘how do microphones?’ thing”?
■ Wonkette founding editor Ana Marie Cox offers two ideas for stopping Trump from abusing CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
‘The bribery angle … is huge.’ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “The relationship between the MAGA Republican agenda and the misuse of tax dollars is becoming more and more obvious.”
■ The American Prospect: Trump’s director of national intelligence “appears to be withholding an explosive court opinion that could give lawmakers all the more reason to meaningfully reform surveillance law.”
■ Salty Politics columnist Julie Roginsky on the administration’s invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the G20 summit at Trump’s golf club: “It is entirely something else to force European leaders, whom Putin is menacing every day … to greet him as one of their own, simply because the United States, which is governed by a Putin lackey, is hosting.”
Citizen bloodied. Evanston police are investigating the case of a man left beaten on the street after immigration enforcement agents mistook him for a fugitive.
■ Evanston Mayor and Democratic congressional candidate Daniel Biss: “End the funding of these brutal invasions into our cities.”
■ Block Club: Chicago’s curfew laws are being enforced mainly in Black and Latino communities.
Ready to vote? In-person early balloting begins today in Illinois counties outside Cook …
■ … although columnist Eric Zorn says that’s “too damn early.”
■ While dismissing Chicago mayoral candidate Bill Quinlan’s lawsuit against candidates running for two offices at once as “silly,” Zorn also says it spotlights “the need to change the timing of Chicago’s municipal elections.”
■ County election officials in Texas have their hands full unscrambling a massive backlog of voter registration applications created by a state-level goof.
More Divvy. Chicago’s extended its deal with the Lyft-owned bike- and scooter-rental company …
■ … adding thousands of vehicles—and discounts for rides that begin or end on the South or West Sides.
‘Real devastation here.’ Cook County leaders warn that, in just 100 days, new Medicaid requirements could cost hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans their medical coverage.
■ The Onion: “USDA Replaces Food Stamps With One Giant Rutabaga.”
DoorDash backlash. Popular Information says the company admits it “screwed up” and so will pay more than $100 million to New York City workers it concedes were underpaid.
■ Fun fact: DoorDash spent more than $1 million to oppose Zohran Mamdani’s New York mayoral campaign.
■ Columnist and former Illinois U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger—once upon a time a Republican, remember—says “Mamdani is the future of the Democratic Party. But not for the reason you think.”
■ McDonald’s has committed billions to improve its restaurants, retrain workers and revise its menu.
Other than that, Mr. Trump, how was the plan? Trump rejects as “a ridiculous lie” an MS NOW report that an administration push to rename even more government sites in his honor includes Ford’s Theatre …
‘The nation’s for-profit metro newspapers are going out of business in slow motion.’ ProPublica co-founder Dick Tofel says you need look no further than the hedge-fund-controlled McClatchy, which is cutting newsrooms right and left …
■ … including most of the reporters at its one Illinois paper (Sept. 11 link).
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■ J. Michael Williams made this edition better.