Shi… / Buckets ready? / Taste this, Chicago

Shi… The Illinois Public Health Department’s reporting an above-average caseload of cyclosporiasis—an intestinal illness linked to “explosive diarrhea.”

■ The state’s official guidance: Avoid “food or water that may have been contaminated with feces”—and scrub that produce.

Will he / Won’t he? Even though scandal-scarred Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner has yet to resign from the race, the party’s already fighting over how to replace him.

■ Fresh revelation from The Washington Post: Platner’s ex-girlfriend says he removed condoms without consent during sex.

■ Handbasket reporter Marisa Kabas: “We didn’t need a rape accusation to know Graham Platner was unfit.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)

■ Men Yell at Me proprietor Lyz Lenz saw it coming: “You don’t accidentally get a Nazi tattoo; you don’t accidentally threaten your girlfriends or accidentally sext other women when you are married.”

■ The Atlantic’s Jonathan Chait (gift link): “Democrats Got Drunk on the Beer Test.”

■ Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein’s not retreating from his defense of Platner’s campaign: “Giving people a chance means that sometimes they won’t live up to it. No one should apologize for that.”

Hypocrisy in Texas. ProPublica and The Texas Tribune report that the state’s attorney general, Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton, who vowed to crack down on “illegal voting,” may have … um … voted illegally.

■ The Senate’s two top Republicans claim to have spoken separately yesterday with Sen. Mitch McConnell, whose aliveness has been widely questioned.

■ Gary Legum at Wonkette: “There was a time when a normal politician would have at least released a proof-of-life photo by now.”

■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “Republicans are going full Weekend at Mitch’s.”

Buckets ready? With more rain in the forecast tomorrow and Friday, the southern part of the Chicago area in particular is at risk of flooding as the Deep Tunnel network approaches overflow.

■ A pilot project is adding flood capacity on Chicago’s West Side.

Update your scorecards. Add cardiologist and Hines VA Hospital whistleblower Dr. Lisa Nee to the roster of Chicago’s mayoral candidates.

■ The Tribune editorial board’s queasy about Police Supt. Larry Snelling’s decision to resign with two weeks’ notice in the middle of summer—but recommends holding off on a permanent replacement: “A search now is highly unlikely to produce the best possible applicants given the fact that Chicago will elect a new mayor in less than a year.”

■ One of Mayor Johnson’s most persistent City Council critics, Marty Quinn, says he won’t run for re-election.

What’s in the report? Now that Illinois State Rep. Harry Benton has quit in the face of rumored sexual harassment charges, count Gov. Pritzker among those calling for release of the ethics report that led to his resignation.

■ Benton still holds a $72,000-a-year job as a suburban highway commissioner.

■ The Illinoize: Democratic State Rep. Carol Ammons of Urbana and her husband, the Champaign County clerk, have been federally indicted—accused of using state grants to secure kickbacks and using campaign funds for personal use.

‘ICE is now investigating U.S. citizens who speak out against them.’ Columnist Heather Delaney Reese on a wave of intimidation against citizens who’ve been critical of the agency: “Authoritarian movements … begin by making examples of a few people and waiting to see whether fear spreads faster than outrage.”

■ The Bulwark: “ICE is shooting people again.”

■ The criminal justice and voting rights newsletter Bolts: Illinois is among the states that now let people file civil lawsuits against federal agents who violate their constitutional rights.

■ Sharing an immigration case on the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket,” Law Dork Chris Geidner sees “yet another example of … cruelty the Trump administration is putting people through in service of its anti-immigrant extremism.”

‘As proof of concept, it’s a rousing success.’ Public Notice reviews D.C.’s Great American State Fair: “Trump was able to snatch congressionally allocated funds, commingle them with cash from corporations seeking favor from his administration, enrich his buddies, and throw himself two spectacular birthday parties.”

■ The Onion: “Report: Trump Made $1.4 Billion As President Off Selling Tupperware To Friends.”

‘Our major news outlets apparently aren’t up to the job.’ Press Watch columnist Dan Froomkin says that, rather than debunk Donald Trump’s “Big Lie … that Democrats are godless communists who want to destroy the country,” mainstream news orgs “have responded largely with mild stenography—effectively amplifying his lies.”

■ Ex-New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan calls on the Times to fix its milquetoast Trump headlines: “Less polite deference; more plainspoken directness.”

■ Poynter’s Tom Jones: Stepping up its fight against the Federal Communications Commission, ABC reminds the commission it already ruled that The View is a news show.

■ Media Institute senior fellow Stuart Brotman: “The country’s experience of watching the same thing at the same time has fragmented into something else that’s still being named.”

Chicago.com rising. Sun-Times and WBEZ owner Chicago Public Media is reviving a long-coveted but long-dormant web address …

■ … which now looks like this …

■ … but which the Internet Archive recalls looked like this in 1998.

Taste this, Chicago. Taste of Chicago is back, baby …

■ … and with it, some of the city’s most noteworthy outdoor concerts.

■ At Chicago Public Square’s 10 a.m. email deadline, a new batch of tickets to the Obama Presidential Center was set for release on the web.

‘The work you do every day, distilling so much into something so readable and so badly needed, is a treasure beyond measure. Sprinkled with your wit, bad news actually becomes palatable.’ Those kind words yesterday accompanied a generous round of support that keeps Square free for all.

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‘Hanging by a thread’ / ‘Overturn this’ / Not deep enough?

‘Hanging by a thread.’ After Politico’s revelation that Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner allegedly raped a woman, it says his campaign’s future is looking grim.

■ Platner’s endorsements are dropping like flies.

■ Of Platner’s assertion that he’s “taking the time to reflect,” NOTUS says, “Generally, that kind of reflection ends with dropping out.”

■ Columnist and former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich—a self-described “enthusiastic proponent of young progressives who are now taking on establishment Democrats”—says “Platner must exit, now.”

■ Former AP D.C. bureau chief Ron Fournier says Platner’s “toast—and perhaps so are Democrats’ prospects for defeating Republican Sen. Susan Collins—because Maine Democrats refused to acknowledge the obvious: Platner never was a worthy candidate.”

■ Law professor Joyce Vance: “A candidate who has sexually abused women … should be out. He’s not fit. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Brett Kavanaugh seeking confirmation to become a Supreme Court justice. Or an Eric Swalwell who’s a representative in the House.”

■ Abortion, Every Day columnist Jessica Valenti: “If Democrats weren’t so obsessed with chasing ‘moderate’ male voters, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

■ Statistician and FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver: “Platner has given Democrats far too many reasons to cut their losses.”

Whoops. With the aliveness of Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell in question, The Hill accidentally published an article suggesting he’s dead.

■ His staff has said nothing since pronouncing last week that he was “continuing his recovery” in a hospital.

‘Overturn this.’ Belgium—and its soccer fans—are mocking President Trump’s World Cup meddling after its team knocked the U.S. out of the competition.

■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “The president of the United States pressuring the president of FIFA to change the rules for his favored player perfectly represents the way Trump thinks about the rule of law in the United States.”

■ The Onion, last week: “Report: That’s Enough Soccer For Now.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)

‘Brazen abuse of authority.’ A New York man who emailed a critical note to the former head of ICE—calling him “a monstrous human being” who “will never know peace”—is suing the government on First Amendment grounds after federal agents visited his home with a warning.

■ Columnist Heather Delaney Reese: Trump’s post-midnight social media spree after America’s 250th birthday fireworks “was disturbing, even for him—100 posts in one day!”

AI safety law. Gov. Pritzker’s signed a bill requiring artificial intelligence companies to devise plans against “catastrophic risk.”

■ It makes Illinois the first state to require AI labs get those plans audited by third parties.

■ House Speaker Chris Welch: “These decisions are too consequential to be left to a federal government that can’t even meet people’s basic needs.”

■ Tech watchdog Cory Doctorow says U.S. state governments can beat Big Tech: “When states fine U.S. companies and order their breakup, it’s a lot harder for those companies to flout those orders.”

■ Microsoft’s cutting 4,800 jobs.

Not deep enough? The Chicago region’s Deep Tunnel network of underground tunnels and reservoirs is, for the first time, close to full after this weekend’s heavy rains—meaning that even a little more rain carries the risk of region-wide flooding.

■ Three children who died in a boat that capsized in Friday’s storms at Lake Geneva have been identified as residents of Batavia and Wheaton—ages 6, 7 and 10.

■ Axios Chicago offers a guide to dealing with storm damage.

■ To make up for that fog-ruined Independence Day fireworks show, Navy Pier’s offering free rides on its Ferris wheel Wednesday nights through Labor Day.

■ Columnist Eric Zorn sees objections to the sensible heat-wave advice “turn up your thermostat” as “just part of the bizarre Red Scare quality to Republican rhetoric these days.”

‘A beacon of Black accomplishment.’ The Sun-Times reports the death at 99 of George E. Johnson, who founded Johnson Products Co.—with hair care products designed for Black consumers.

■ A friend celebrates Johnson’s wider contributions to Black culture: “Without George Johnson … there would not have been a Soul Train or a Soul Train Music Awards.”

■ The Tribune (gift link): “Emmett Till would’ve been 85 this year. A Bronzeville exhibit reflects on his legacy.”

■ Chicago’s celebrated Jesse White Tumblers take the spotlight tonight on NBC’s America’s Got Talent.

‘The audience didn’t leave. They stopped coming on purpose.’ News consultant and veteran Chicago TV executive Jill Manuel says Reuters’ 2026 Digital News Report “confirms what local TV has been afraid to say out loud.”

■ Maybe Republicans’ regulatory threats are chilling ABC’s The View: Since the FCC launched its witch hunt in February, Semafor reports the show “hasn’t featured a single political candidate running in a competitive midterm race.”

■ Mark Jacob at Stop the Presses: “The former MSNBC … has found its footing as a major pro-democracy voice. … While other networks and The New York Times clutch their pearls and say Trump is ‘testing norms,’ MS NOW is calling out corruption and authoritarianism. It calls lies ‘lies.’”

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