‘They’re out of control’ / Ready to act? / Quizzes / Journalism’s bad news

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‘They’re out of control.’ That’s former Chicago top cop Garry McCarthy commenting on a WBEZ/Sun-Times analysis that finds federal immigration agents have been involved in eight car chases and used force in at least 76 Chicago-area incidents since Sept. 8.
■ Block Club: Chicago’s police district councils want a public airing of how cops have helped or otherwise interacted with federal immigration enforcers.
■ Sun-Times analysis finds Border Patrol poster boy Greg Bovino and his agents have favored Donald Trump and Republicans in their campaign giving.
■ 404 Media: Google’s chosen a side in Trump’s mass deportation effort—“hosting a Customs and Border Protection app that uses facial recognition to identify immigrants, and tells local cops whether to contact ICE about the person.”

Back to school. A Chicago daycare teacher abducted by the feds last week—in the presence of children—has been released.
■ CNN: Trump’s administration has arrested thousands of parents and guardians of migrant kids.
■ Chicago magazine: Trump’s immigration atrocities have united Chicago and its suburbs as never before.
■ Author and columnist Dan Sinker: “Everyone I know is exhausted … from being witness to neighbors, friends and family going missing. … Everyone I know is exhausted. Everyone I know is ready to go another round.”

Ready to act? In a letter to the Tribune (gift link), a who’s who of retired Chicago broadcast news veterans appeals to the public to step up against “a brutal and illegal campaign against fellow Chicagoans, mainly Latinos. … Support groups fighting for due process or who help immigrants during this siege.”
■ Axios points out five ways to report agent violations.
■ Today at noon, the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois holds a virtual town hall meeting to answer your questions about immigration policy changes affecting the region’s everyday life.

‘It’s raining documents from the Jeffrey Epstein files and … Trump is flailing.’ USA Today’s Chicago-based columnist Rex Huppke sees “a mad MAGA movement facing a reckoning: Is Trump really worth all this? Or is it time for a breakup?”
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “We are watching the ideology of the far-right MAGAs smash against reality, with … Trump and his cronies madly trying to convince voters to believe in their false world rather than the real one.”
■ Lyz Lenz’s Dingus of the Week: The Epstein Files. (Link corrected.)
■ From the Square mailbag: Reader Barry Koehler takes issue with columnist Charlie Madigan’s contention that those files are useless. “The Epstein case isn’t just about Trump. … There are many, many more rich and powerful people that … need to be exposed and prosecuted if warranted. This must be brought to the brightest sunlight possible for all of America to see. If it isn’t, then rapists, child molesters and groomers will continue on to harm more innocent victims.”
■ Sifting through some of them, The Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel comes away feeling like he’s witnessing an episode of HBO’s satire Veep.
■ PolitiFact explains: “The Epstein files, Trump and Congress: What happens next?” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
■ Media writer Tom Jones: Editors are treading carefully on the Epstein story—because “one careless line could spark a lawsuit.”

Guns and pregnancy. New state-by-state research finds that homicide rates among pregnant women rise with the rate of gun ownership.
■ One man convicted of randomly punching women in downtown Chicago has been sentenced to seven years in prison—and another’s facing felony charges in two similar incidents.

5/8 is the new 6/8. Past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner and The Conversation’s quizmaster Fritz Holznagel refuses to take it easy on your Chicago Public Square columnist. Can you get more than five right this week?
■ How about topping 3/5 on City Cast’s Chicago news quiz?
■ You’ll no doubt do better than 5/10 on Justin Kaufmann’s Chicago movie quote quiz.

Journalism’s bad news. Jim Avila, a Glenbard East High School graduate who went on to an award-winning career as a Chicago TV and ABC TV network reporter, is dead at 69.
■ George Knue, a pioneering Trib editor who—among other groundbreaking moves in 43 years with the paper, founded ChicagoSports.com—is gone at 74.
■ Sun-Times, Crain’s, Chicago Daily Law Bulletin and Tribune veteran—she launched the Trib’s Blue Sky Innovation tech section—Andrea Hanis is dead at 56.
■ Longtime Reader theater critic Tony Adler was 71.
■ Charlie Madigan mourns the newspaper business’ collapse: “Every good, honest reporter is on a mission. But it wasn’t the same mission as media owners … all about fat profits.”

Chicago’s own New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. ABC says we don’t have to stop celebrating the arrival of 2026 when New York’s broadcast is over: It’s going to air a Central Time version, from here to the rest of the nation.
■ Former Chicago TV news anchor Deborah Norville has a new game show.
■ R.I.P., “MSNBC”—as of tomorrow.

Thank you. Chicago Public Square keeps coming because readers like (maybe even including) you keep supporting it financially—for as little as $1, just once.

Now, the deluge / R.I.P., the penny / Failing hospitals / Check that password

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■ At least one indicates Trump “spent hours” with an alleged victim at Epstein’s house.
■ Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer: “We now have an email from Jeffrey Epstein that says Trump knew about what Epstein was up to and that he spent time with one of the victims.”
■ Ryan Cooper at The American Prospect: “How on Earth are we just now hearing about Trump’s ‘hours’ with an Epstein victim?”
■ Journalist Aaron Parnas, who “spent much of last night” reading those docs: “The White House is virtually paralyzed this morning.”
■ Popular Information: At least one newly released record contradicts Trump’s claims of ignorance.
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “I can’t wait to hear all about how Joe Biden’s autopen went back in time and ginned up a bogus email confirming that Donny asked Ghislaine to stop befriending and then trafficking the Motel-a-Lago ‘spa girls’ whom Donny and Eppie used to fight over.”
■ Got a few days? See those files yourself here.
■ Law prof Joyce Vance: “There is more. The FBI’s investigative files have not been released. The Trump White House is still doing everything it can to prevent their release.”
■ Columnist Charlie Madigan says the Epstein files are useless: “The president has already created a record that would send a normal person to holy hell. Why are you looking for more proof he is a worthless creep?”
■ Gov. Pritzker’s fear: “He’s going to do everything in his power to distract.”

‘There’s no back to normal.’ CNN: Resolution of the shutdown doesn’t mean the federal goverment’s peachy-keen today.
■ Columnist Eric Zorn: “The Democrats … gave the Republicans just enough votes to end the shutdown. For nothing. They got nothing. They lost.”
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “House Democrats were right to call it the ‘Epstein Shutdown.’”
■ White House Watch: “Indivisible, MoveOn and 50501 have all issued demands for Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer to step down after he failed … to keep his caucus united against a massive increase in health insurance premiums.”
■ A Tribune editorial (gift link, courtesy of those whose financial support underwrites the cost of producing Chicago Public Square) defends Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, who voted to reopen the government, as an “honorable public servant.”
■ Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman: “The Republican brain doesn’t want to understand health care.”

■ In another courtroom, a judge has ruled that the government’s detention of a Chicago preschool teacher was illegal.
■ ProPublica on ICE’s infamous Chicago assault: “Venezuelans were rounded up in a dramatic midnight raid but never charged with a crime.”
■ “The Broadview Six”— Democratic candidates, officeholders and activists including a congressional candidate and an Oak Park village trustee—all pleaded not guilty to charges of impeding agents outside that ICE facility.
■ Block Club: University of Chicago workers want the university to take a stronger stand against immigration intimidation on campus.
■ Add U.S. Catholic bishops to those condemning Trump’s immigration policies.
■ The sculptor of Chicago’s “Bean” is threatening to sue border agents who posed by his work.

R.I.P., the penny. Ending a 230-year run, the U.S. Mint has minted its final one-cent piece.
■ Infuriating City Council conservatives, Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin has unilaterally chosen to protest the Trump administration’s policies by ending city investment in U.S. Treasury bonds. (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
■ The New York Times (gift link): The Trump team has plans that could put as many as 170,000 formerly homeless people back on the streets.

Failing hospitals. Although Illinois’ overall ratings for hospital safety are up in the latest report from the nonprofit Leapfrog Group, four—three in the Chicago area—got Fs.
■ Search for your hospital here.
■ The latest Michelin ratings strip a star from Chicago’s celebrated Alinea.

Blood money. A small-town Kansas newspaper published by a former University of Illinois journalism professor (2023 link) has won $3 million from Marion County for disavowed raids—one on the home of the publisher’s mother and co-owner, who died of cardiac arrest aggravated by the appearance of as many as seven cops.
■ Former Trib editor James O’Shea sees a severe threat to the First Amendment in a case now before the Supreme Court.
■ Indiana University’s backing away from its move to cut funding for its student newspaper print edition.

Check that password. Watchdog website Have I Been Pwned reports the hacking of passwords from almost 2 billion online accounts.
■ Check your email address for data breaches here—and, if so, update your logins.

‘A towering achievement.’ A.V. Club’s Hunter Ingram praises documentarian Ken Burns’ new PBS series, The American Revolution.
■ The Trib’s Rick Kogan (gift link): “Watching this series will prepare you … to confront some hard truths.”
■ … which premieres Sunday.
■ Until then, we have South Park, which The Hollywood Reporter says last night portrayed Trump and Vice President Vance “making love in the Lincoln Bedroom—in a scene that goes on and on and never gets comfortable to watch.”
■ The Jerusalem Post: “Adolf Hitler likely had micropenis.”

Thanks. Chris Koenig and Mike Braden made this edition better.
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