Chicago Public Square’s taking a few days off. Back Tuesday.
■ Friday, watch for a fresh news quiz from The Conversation.
■ Throughout the weekend, catch breaking news and perspective via the Square account on Bluesky.
‘Get the fuck out.’ Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey held little back in condemning an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent’s fatal shooting of a 37-year-old mother in a residential neighborhood.
■ Pulitzer winner Gene Weingarten on the mayor’s news conference: “Watch the video … beginning to end.”
■ Poynter media writer Tom Jones: Citizen videos quickly blew a hole in Trump administration assertions that the woman was using her car as a weapon—instead showing her driving away, posing no threat.
■ Slate executive editor Susan Matthews: “The footage … is horrifying, but it tells you everything you need to know.”
■ Confronted by the video, Trump conceded to The New York Times (gift link, underwritten by Square supporters), “I think it’s horrible to watch”—but sidestepped a question about whether ICE went too far.
■ The AP identifies the victim, Renee Nicole Macklin Good, as “a 37-year-old mother of three who … appears to never have been charged with anything involving law enforcement beyond a traffic ticket.”
■ The case—which echoes shit that went down in the Chicago area—is driving fresh debate over when officers are justified in using lethal force against someone in a moving vehicle.
‘You can’t kill us all, Nazis.’ Reviewing video of Minneapolis demonstrations that broke out immediately, law professor Joyce Vance highlights one bystander’s words.
■ Updating coverage from CNN: The morning after, protesters have been out in force …
■ … in Evanston, too.
■ Jordan Zakarin at Progress Report lists ways you can help “regular people who are showing up, banding together, risking life and limb to protect one another, to stand up for complete strangers, to protest injustice … even if you’re not in Minneapolis.”
Just sayin’. David Dayen at The American Prospect: “ICE agents can be charged with murder. … The law clearly stipulates that federal agents do not have universal immunity.”
■ Illinois Rep. Robin Kelly says she’ll file articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who oversees ICE.
■ Gov. Pritzker: “Noem must go. Now.”
■ Veteran reporter Jeff Kamen: “This time it wasn’t a puppy she killed, this time the puppy was a human being and this time she may have to pay for it.”
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich notes wearily: “Another day, another state-sponsored murder.”
■ Law Dork Chris Geidner: With an opinion issued in Chicago in November, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis all but predicted that what happened in Minneapolis would happen.
■ Federal prosecutors have conceded that they have no evidence a Chicago man accused of a murder-for-hire plot against Noem henchman Greg Bovino is in a street gang.
War powers restraint? The Senate was set to vote today on a resolution to rein in the president’s ability to launch further attacks on Venezuela.
■ The Daily Show’s Ronnie Chieng on the president’s declaration that he’ll personally decide what happens with cash from oil produced there: “Say what you want about his corruption, at least Trump is hands-on with it, OK?”
■ Heads Up News columnist Dan Froomkin: In Chicago and elsewhere, Trump’s attack on Venezuela has opened a new front for the resistance: Anti-imperialism.
■ The New York Times (gift link): To bolster his push for U.S. imperialism, Trump’s proposing a huge increase in military spending.
■ American Prospect managing editor Ryan Cooper: “Trump’s Greenland threats … pose a severe danger to American national security.”
Things to do. A Chicago police watchdog organization hosts a hearing tonight at Thalia Hall to hear public accounts of how cops cooperated—or didn’t—with federal agents during its immigration crackdowns here.
■ Chicago’s discounted Theatre Week tickets are now on sale for 75 shows across the city.
City hall layoffs? Mayor Johnson says he may have to cut some Chicago city jobs later this year.
■ The CEO of the Chicago History Museum* is out after almost five years.
Pyramid scheme. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s out with new dietary guidelines stressing red meat and whole milk …
■ … a food pyramid that Slate’s Luke Winkie says actually “has some good advice … but what’s most important to remember is why Kennedy has issued these changes.”
Pittsburgh’s post-paper prospects. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s owners say they’re shutting the thing down May 3 …
■ … an announcement that follows by just days the end of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s run as a print publication.
■ NewsGuard co-CEO Steven Brill criticizes a New York Times reporter who dismisses numerical fudgery with the lame explanation, “Using a specific number may be more confusing.”
‘You do a great job of aggregating. And I for one appreciate it.’ Kind words like those from a supporter yesterday keep Square coming back.
■ You can join those ranks by chipping as little as $1, just once.
■ Mike Braden made this edition better.
* With which your Square columnist’s Rivet360 colleagues have created a podcast about a Latino history-focused exhibition sparked by student protests.
