[Republishing to clarify and correct the Costco item below.]
Chicago Public Square’s taking a few days off. We’ll meet back in your inbox next Thursday. Here’s news to usher in the weekend:
Thanks for coming. Texas Democrats who fled to Illinois and other states to block Republican redrawing of the state’s election maps say they’re ready to return home—on a couple of conditions …
■ … but not before joining the Millennium Park observance of Saturday’s “Fight the Trump Takeover National Day of Action” …
■ … one of about 200 events in at least 34 states.
■ Law professor Joyce Vance celebrates Democrats’ decision to “finally bring a gun to the gun fight.”
■ The American Prospect’s David Dayen credits California.
■ At the Illinois State Fair yesterday, Politico’s Shia Kapos reports, “Republicans pledged loyalty to Donald Trump, his agenda and his Texas allies’ plan for redistricting”—but “there were some cracks in the show of unity” …
■ … ahead of what Axios’ Justin Kaufmann expects will be one of Illinois’ “most active and competitive election seasons in recent history” …
■ … as Republicans seek their first statewide seat in more than a decade.
■ Gov. Pritzker’s signed a couple of laws that he says will enhance worker protections under attack by the Trump administration.
■ The American Prospect: Trump’s war on workers’ rights has surpassed Ronald Reagan’s.
‘An affront to the dignity and autonomy of the 700,000 Americans who call D.C. home.’ Washington’s attorney general is challenging Trump’s takeover of its police department …
■ … including Attorney General Pam Bondi’s naming of the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration as the capital’s “emergency police commissioner.”
■ The Washington Post (gift link, courtesy of Chicago Public Square supporters): Bondi’s seeking to roll back D.C. police policies on immigration …
■ … and she’s fired a Justice Department worker accused of tossing a sandwich at a federal officer patrolling Washington.
■ The AP: “Trump’s ‘safe and beautiful’ move against D.C. homeless camps looks like ugliness to those targeted.”
■ Columnist Ryan Cooper explains “Why Republicans are terrified of nonexistent crime: They need an excuse to violently subjugate liberal cities.”
■ The Post again (another gift link): In a “highly unusual arrangement,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is living free of charge at a Coast Guard commandant’s home.
Oligarch reunion. With the fate of Ukraine on the line, Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin were to meet today in Alaska for their first summit in four years.
■ The Onion: “Fun Getaway With Murderous Dictator Just What Exhausted Trump Been Needing.”
■ McLoughlin’s since gone on to greater professional heights—including the creation of a gripping podcast series, You Look Like Me, documenting her quest as a “sperm-donor conceived journalist” to meet her half-siblings.
Nice work if you can get it—and he did. But then he quit. NBC 5: Illinois’ highest-paid public school district superintendent—Dr. Kevin J. Nohelty, who was earning more than half a million bucks a year—has resigned amid repeated lawsuits and complaints of unpaid bills.
■ Cook County’s public health chief is out after having failed to renew his medical license.
A Sun-Times first. Pulitzer winner Kimbriell Kelly is the new editor-in-chief at the combined WBEZ-Sun-Times newsroom—the first Black person to hold that role at the paper.
■ She succeeds Jennifer Kho—who in 2022 became the first woman and first person of color in that job.
Look! Up in the sky! The Chicago Air & Water Show returns Saturday—but the teams were to be practicing overhead today.
■ A decade ago, Louise McLoughlin—then of Rivet News Radio*—fearlessly took to the skies with the world’s largest formation flying aerobatics team. Here’s what it sounded like.
‘A browser that actually does your work for you.’ Neuron’s impressed by a new artificially intelligent web browser, Comet.
■ Reviewer Corey Noles: “Search becomes conversation, and conversation becomes action.”
For the second week in a row … Question No. 3 of The Conversation’s weekly news quiz—devised by past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Fritz Holznagel—was the only one to stump your Chicago Public Square columnist.
■ Congrats to The Conversation—as of last month, the nation’s No. 1 nonprofit news site as ranked by estimated monthly visits …
■ … and to Chicago’s Block Club and the Reader, Nos. 7 and 12 respectively.
Costco’s retreat call. Under pressure from reactionary religious types, the chain’s abandoning chosen to forgo the sale of abortion pills.
■ Abortion, Every Day: “Targeting pharmacies is just another way for Republicans to enact a back door ban: If they can’t make the pills illegal, they’ll make them impossible to get.”
Weird Al, interrupted. In the face of Trump’s power grab at the Smithsonian, Weird Al Yankovic has put on hold his plans to donate memorabilia to the institution.
■ Meanwhile: The Smithsonian’s been collecting visitors’ hopes for the next 50 years.
Itsy-bitsy solar. Small solar panels—capable of fitting on a balcony or a deck—are on the rise …
■ … but safety standards are still iffy.
Things that suck. The normally positive Consumer Reports spotlights “the vacuums that performed the worst in our lab tests.”
■ Anticipating an educational TV vacuum as the feds defund public broadcasting, a right-wing “educational resource” aims to supplant PBS Kids.
■ For the first time in years, Pulitzer-winning columnist Dave Barry brings back “Mister Language Person … the only leading grammar authority to have been recognized by both Walmart and the American Society of English Teachers on Drugs.”
‘I have tried to go without your insightful updates and realized I really miss your newsletter.’ A Square reader returned to the fold this week—at no cost, of course, because this service is always free …
■ … thanks to generous folk such as Christine Cooper, John Morath, David Kindler, John Greenwald, Clive Topol, Geraldine Delaney, Marianne Goss (again!), John Teets, Dave Tan (again!), Lee Rusch, Deborah Montgomery, Elizabeth Denius, Rupa Datta, Bill Weldon, Evan McKenzie, Daniel Horvath, Sallie Wolf, Lisa Fritz, Larry Baldacci, Paulette Cary, Stephen Brown, Gary Strokosch, Mike Salerno, Marjorie Isaacson, Joseph Sjostrom, Brian Rohr, Susan S. Stevens, Beth Botts, Valerie Morrow, Claire Barliant, Jim Parks, Robert Toon, Bernard Schoenburg, Reed Pence, Angela Mullins, Kristin Lems, Joyce Porter, Scott Tindale, Linda Baltikas, Robert Feder, Janice Marsh, David Mendell, Jennifer Fardy, Ben Goldgar, Susan Stucki, David Drew, Mary Ellen Nelligan, Geoff Anderson, Michael Weiland, Gail Frost, Keith Huizinga, Jane Williams, Sarah Williams, Kim Johnson, Ken Saydak, Marj Halperin, Fritz Mills, Dan Haley, Rob Breymaier, Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin, Reginald Davis, Shara Miller, Kathy Wyman and Doug Waco, Shayna Robinson, Stephanie Springsteen, Daniel Honigman, Sabrina Deitch, Donna Barrows, Ken Paulson, Kristina Zaremba, James Madigan, Robert Jaffe, Mary Paxson, Mike Leiderman, Roger Blickhan, Patrick Egan, Bruce Pfaff, Roy Plotnick, Tom Williamson, Janet Holden, Orin Day, Jean Remsen, Jan Rogatz, Ilene Siemer, Robert Clifford, Lisa Krimen, Susan Tyson, Arnie Weissmann, and Sherry and Margaret, in memory of Jack Helbig—people whose support over the last almost-2,000 editions (soon, soon) has underwritten production and distribution costs.
■ Join them by kicking in as little as $1, just once, and see your name atop this roll call when Square returns next week.
■ Beth Kujawski made this edition better.
* Whose successor, Rivet360, your Square columnist continues to serve as a vice president.
