Chicago Public Square

Chicago Public Square’s taking a break. We’ll meet back here again for a full edition March 12, but watch for a fresh news quiz next Friday.

■ Meanwhile, catch a continual stream of breaking news and commentary on the Square Bluesky page (no Bluesky account required).

Illinois’ ‘Supreme’ win. A state law limiting demonstrations near abortion clinics has survived a First Amendment challenge before the Supreme Court.

■ Abortion, Every Day columnist Jessica Valenti: Montana Republicans’ bill to criminalize women for “trafficking” their own fetuses—traveling to other states to obtain an abortion—“signals more attacks to come.”

Unprotected. Iowa’s become the first state to strip gender identity protections from its civil rights code.

■ Columnist Lyz Lenz’s Dingus of the Week: Iowa Republicans.

■ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg, shopping for a (grand)baby shower: “Gender is complicated, except to our government and Party City.”

‘Internet, you know what to do.’ An “End DEI” website mounted by the Trump Department of Education invites the public to report the teaching of “divisive ideologies and indoctrination” and “illegal discriminatory practices at institutions of learning” …

■ … and the resistance isn’t letting the opportunity for pranks go to waste.

■ Illinois is now the first state to offer public university and community college students free and comprehensive test prep for things like the law school entrance exam.

‘What a waste.’ In an open letter to the EPA’s new boss, former Chicago regional EPA administrator Debra Shore condemns the summary dismissal of “public servants … striving daily to ensure that all Americans have clean air to breathe, safe water to drink, and places to live and work that are not laced with toxic chemicals.”

■ The Wall Street Journal (gift link, courtesy of Chicago Public Square supporters) details the first minutes of Elon Musk’s assault on the federal workforce.

■ A federal judge says the central human resources office for the federal government broke the law when it ordered other agencies to terminate thousands of “probationary” employees—but he says he doesn’t have authority to order those workers reinstated.

■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “Mass firings and the Trump tariff threats are having a ‘chilling’ effect on the economy.”

■ The Washington Post (gift link): A federal worker who voted for Trump hoped his presidency “would change her life, but not like this.”

■ Stephen Colbert has little sympathy for such Trump voters: “They ordered the turd soup and then said, ‘Waiter, there’s turds in my soup.’ Then they came back four years later and asked, ‘Y’all still have that turd soup?’”

■ Wonkette’s Evan Hurst: “Republicans Quitting Town Halls To Spend More Time Hurting American People.”

Welcome back, Polio, HIV and malaria. The New York Times (gift link): The Trump administration’s cut off funding for programs to fight those afflictions around the world.

■ Journalist Dan Rather at Steady: As bird flu jumps to humans, Trump pauses funding for a vaccine.

■ The Atlantic goes inside the collapse of the National Institutes of Health (gift link).

‘Measles vaccines are the new cool thing in Texas.’ Inside Medicine: The outbreak seems to have created some new true believers in science.

■ The New Republic: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s taken a sledgehammer to development of two major vaccines.

■ USA Today’s Rex Huppke: “RFK Jr. shrugs shoulders at deadly Texas measles outbreak. What’d you expect?”

■ The Onion: “RFK Jr. Vows To Make Measles Deaths So Common They Won’t Be Upsetting Anymore.”

Blackout on. A call for 24 hours of spending abstinence to protest billionaires’ malign influence on government and politics was under way today.

■ Chicago faith leaders are down with the program.

■ CNN profiles the guy who birthed the idea.

■ Law professor Joyce Vance: “You may not be able to change what’s happening all by yourself, but with all of our voices combined, a groundswell of outrage … progress is possible. The one thing that’s certain is that if we just shrug our shoulders, Trump continues to grow the kleptocracy.”

■ American Civil Liberties Union guidance to protesters: Know your rights …

■ … including: “When you are lawfully present in any public space, you have the right to photograph anything in plain view, including federal buildings and the police.”

‘Worse than you think.’ Wired on the “Department of Government Efficiency” takeover under Trump: “What’s happening to the U.S. government right now is bad. What comes next is worse.”

■ Environmental nonprofit The Nature Conservancy reportedly agreed to rename the Gulf of Mexico “the Gulf of America” after a threat that it’d lose its federal funding if it didn’t.

■ President Trump was poised today to declare English the United States’ official language.

Storm warnings warning. The Trump administration’s firing hundreds of weather forecasters and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration workers …

■ … and shuttering the nation’s only two tsunami warning centers.

■ The Conversation: “Coastal economies rely on NOAA, from Maine to Florida, Texas and Alaska— even if they don’t realize it.”

■ One of the agency’s policy analysts tells The New York Times: “This is not a move toward efficiency; it's a move toward putting Americans in danger every day.”

New parks boss. Mayor Johnson’s decided to put a City Council member in charge of the Chicago Park District …

■ … meaning Logan Square needs a new alder.

■ Not a bad day to visit a park: Chicago was in line for near-record temperatures.

‘Just fill in the blanks.’ Past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Fritz Holznagel throws down that gauntlet for this week’s super-sized, 12-question news quiz …

■ … on which your Square columnist scored a not-awful 10/12 right.

Need a driver’s license? Beginning tomorrow, bracing for a rush of people seeking Real IDs before a May deadline, Illinois Secretary of State offices will be open Saturdays.

■ Carmakers hoping for top safety ratings in Europe need to make more physical controls for things like turn signals and wipers—leaving drivers free to keep their eyes on the road and not on touchscreens.

‘Suspicious enough.’ Police say the deaths of actor Gene Hackman, his wife and dog at their New Mexico home merit further investigation.

■ Tribune critic Michael Phillips recalls Hackman’s early years in Illinois—including a short time studying journalism at the University of Illinois (gift link).

■ The Sun-Times’ Richard Roeper reflects on Hackman’s “myriad memorable roles.”

■ Screenwriter W. Peter Iliff recounts “the day Gene Hackman almost punched me.”

‘Will anyone outside the White House West Wing and the haunts of billionaires read the Post’s new editorial pages without throwing up?’ American Prospect columnist Harold Meyerson (no relation): “The primary goal of the Post’s new editorial policy is to protect the owner’s wealth.”

■ The Onion: “Bezos Sends Note To Whole Foods Staff Forbidding Criticism Of Grapes.”

■ On Tyranny author Timothy Snyder offers the Post a column that begins—and ends—this way: “I am writing today in support and defense of personal liberties and free markets. I am writing today in support and defense of personal liberties and free markets. I am writing today in support and defense of personal liberties and free markets …”

A reader writes. “Dropped my subscription to The Washington Post today. And bumped up my subscription to Chicago Public Square. Keep up the great work.”

■ If you’re inclined to do the same, let’s try this again, since yesterday’s links were … a little overripe:

Chicago Public Square’s worth about 40¢ an issue.

No, make that 60¢.

I’ll recommend Square to a friend. (Always free!)