Time’s up at 60 Minutes / Mayor vs. mayor / Happy birthday, YouTube

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Time’s up at 60 Minutes. Asserting that “I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right,” the show’s executive producer, Bill Owens, is quitting.
■ Poynter’s Tom Jones: Owens’ departure comes as the show and CBS parent Paramount face a $20 billion lawsuit from Trump …
■ … and more than two months after Owens reportedly vowed in the face of a settlement, “I will not apologize for anything we have done.”
■ Press Watch columnist Dan Froomkin: “The Trump regime should be covered as a criminal enterprise.”
■ The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch flags “the stunning grift of Trump’s inaugural fund”—and the people and organizations that have contributed.

Today’s mindbender. Acknowledging that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “is, of course, a dumbass,” investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein suggests that Hegseth’s “being … drummed out of office by the uniformed military,” undermining “the very principle of civilian control.”
■ USA Today’s Rex Huppke: “Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender became the fifth—count ’em, the FIFTH!—IRS head since Trump took office Jan. 20. If this keeps up, the president is on pace to go through roughly 80 IRS commissioners in his four-year term.”

Mayor vs. mayor. Mayor Johnson delivered a rare slam by name at his predecessor, Rahm Emanuel, accusing Emanuel of following a “new-liberal” agenda that Johnson says has become a playbook for Donald Trump.
■ Johnson elaborated: “The shutting of schools. The firing of Black women. Privatizing our public education system.”
■ Political strategist James Carville came to Emanuel’s defense: “Incompetent people are jealous of competent people.”
■ Everyone Is Entitled to My Own Opinion opinionator Jeff Tiedrich this past Saturday: “Could James Carville please fuck all the way off?”

Trump’s ‘war on children.’ ProPublica: The administration is quietly putting kids at risk by cutting funds and staffing for investigating child abuse, enforcing child support payments, providing child care and more.
■ Ex-Illinois Rep. and former Head Start project volunteer Marie Newman: “Lost amidst the urgent and ongoing horror of vanishing people and deporting people illegally, was Trump’s decision to kill … the highly effective preschool funding program primarily used in rural areas and low-income urban areas to provide quality preschool.”
■ Mother Jones: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Health and Human Services Department plans to eliminate services for LGBTQ youth who call the national suicide and crisis hotline.
■ The Bulwark: Trump’s turned COVID.gov into “MAGA fan service.”
■ ProPublica founder Dick Tofel: The Trump administration’s trashing of federal data collection programs creates new opportunities for journalism.

‘I dream I’m still in there.’ In his first media interview since spending 10 days in a detention facility for undocumented immigrants, a U.S. citizen tells Popular Information the Trump administration’s lying.
■ The AP: International students stripped of legal status in the U.S. are racking up court victories.

‘A disaster for ordinary people.’ Illinoisans seeking help from the increasingly understaffed Social Security Administration are struggling.
■ Beginning May 5, the Trump administration aims to start clawing back federal student loans from those in default.

Breathe uneasy. A new American Lung Association report ranks Chicago’s air among the nation’s worst.
■ Check your air quality by ZIP code here.
■ The American Prospect: “The Trump administration is objectively pro-cancer.”

Murderer to be sentenced. Updating coverage: After pleading guilty to the shooting that left seven people dead and more than 40 injured at Highland Park’s 2022 Fourth of July parade, Robert E. Crimo III today faced the prospect of life in prison without parole …
■ … after survivors and relatives of the dead get their say in court.
■ Doorbell camera footage caught gunmen robbing a Glenview couple as they arrived home from dinner.

■ … posted by one of two co-founders who hail from the University of Illinois.
■ One of YouTube’s early musical successes, OK Go, returns to its Chicago roots Friday.

Sign here, please. As journalism faces unprecedented assault from the Trump administration, Chicago Public Square has joined the Press Freedom United campaign—a national community of journalists and concerned citizens sending an open letter to Congress and the White House demanding immediate action to uphold the First Amendment.
■ We invite you to sign by next Wednesday at noon for delivery May 1.

Are you public? Are you Square? You know who is? Author Mark Wukas—who happens to be Chicago Public Squarian No. 1—and who can be seen in a new Tribune profile wearing a Square T-shirt …
■ … one of which can be yours, free, if you pitch in to help underwrite the cost of producing this newsletter.
■ Donna Rigsbee made this edition better.

Who’s who getting sued / Homeland insecurity / Webby winners

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Who’s who getting sued. Setting the stage for what CNN calls “a titanic clash,” Harvard University’s filing suit against some of the Trump administration’s top officials for withholding billions of dollars and threatening to strip the university’s tax-exempt status—ostensibly because of “antisemitism.”
■ Read the suit—which MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell calls “a thing of beauty”—here.
■ Public Notice columnist David Lurie: “Resistance is not futile. Harvard is demonstrating that bullies don’t like to get hit back.”
■ House Republicans are also citing antisemitism to summon DePaul University’s president for an inquisition May 7.
■ Popular Information pegs the amount school districts across the country stand to lose as the Trump administration ends pandemic relief funding a year early—to help fund tax cuts—at $3 billion.

Homeland insecurity. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s purse—including her driver’s license, medication, apartment keys, passport, government access badge, blank checks and about $3,000 in cash—has been reported stolen.
■ Despite reports that the White House is looking to replace embarrassingly un-secure Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CNN’s Stephen Collinson says Hegseth looks safe for now—because his removal would force Trump to admit he’d made a mistake …
■ … but that hasn’t stopped the internet from launching memes comparing Hegseth to a head of lettuce.
■ Poynter: “Hegseth’s latest excuse is much of the same: It’s the media’s fault.”

‘Treat White House briefings as the travesty they are.’ That’s No. 3 on press critic Mark Jacob’s list of “five ways major media can seek redemption” for their failure to warn the public about Trump’s threat to democracy.
■ The plainspoken Jeff Tiedrich: “Imagine a United States president who literally says ‘we cannot give everyone a trial.’ … Mad King Donny actually went there.”
■ Robert Kuttner at The American Prospect: “Unless Trump’s other efforts at dictatorship are restrained by the courts, he is very likely to come for the press.”
■ Columnist Eric Zorn mourns the loss of opinion pages—including columns and letters to the editor—in the Sun-Times on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

‘They say he taught compassion
Even for the foe and sinner—
But now he’s gone and I’m still here
That means that I’m the winner!’
■ Pulitzer-winning columnist Mary Schmich files another TrumPoem—this one speculating on the president’s reaction to the death of Pope Francis.
■ Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich, who’ll join the conclave to pick the next pope, says he doubts it’ll be an American.
■ Jimmy Kimmel last night: “Is there anything more Catholic than waiting until Monday to die so you don’t upstage Jesus?”

Happy Earth Day to you. As the Trump administration moves to disarm so many environmental protections, the Chicago-based Environmental Law & Policy Center’s CEO, Howard Learner, offers six ways for Illinoisans to step up.
■ Columnist Ramona Grigg looks back 55 years to the first Earth Day.
■ Chicago faces the prospect of rough weather this evening into early tomorrow.

Webby winners. The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences has announced its 29th annual roster of those honored for excellence on the internet.
■ The Associated Press website front page was down this morning.

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