Not so safe / ‘It’s inhumane’ / Last rites

Not so safe. Texas Democrats seeking refuge in Illinois to forestall a controversial congressional redistricting vote were evacuated—along with hundreds of others—from a St. Charles hotel after a bomb threat.
 They’re now pleading for donations to fund an exile that they say could last weeks or months.
 Or not: Texas Sen. John Cornyn says the FBI’s agreed to help hunt down those Texas lawmakers.
 USA Today explains how a new Texas map could help Donald Trump. (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
 The AP: Ignoring the 14th Amendment, Trump wants the census to ignore some people.
 The Trump administration’s dropped two long-running civil rights and fair housing cases in Chicago.

About Illinois’ maps. Reader Elizabeth Austin responds to questions about Illinois’ odd-shaped congressional districts: “You cannot tell whether a district is gerrymandered by looking at it. I’m not saying the 13th was fairly drawn—but compliance with the Voting Rights Act can make districts look weird even when they’re fairly drawn.”
 From the archives, she shares the Brennan Center’s 2021 analysis dubbing Texas’ existing scheme “one of the most politically and racially skewed maps of this redistricting cycle.”

A disaster. July’s flash flooding has merited official disaster declarations for Chicago and Cook County—which could mean financial help for those most affected.
 Our air quality sucks again today.
 Meanwhile, The American Prospect reports, Federal Emergency Management Agency employees have been reassigned to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

‘It’s inhumane.’ An ex-worker at ICE’s “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention camp describes what she saw.
 Answering a Homeland Security call that historian Heather Cox Richardson says “continues to echo the language of Nazis,” Trumpian ex-Lois & Clark Superman actor Dean Cain says he’ll take the oath to become an ICE agent.
 Columnist Evan Hurst: “The next ICE agent you call a microdick loser might be Dean Cain!”
 Hollywood Reporter: Last night’s South Park brutally mocked Homeland Security boss Kristi Noem as “a puppy-shooting, face-melting ICE villain” …
 … and, Variety says, had Vice President Vance offering to rub baby oil on Satan.
 The Guardian: Vance’s team had the Army Corps of Engineers take the unusual step of raising an Ohio river’s water level to accommodate his family’s boating trip.

Constitutional flaw. The Library of Congress has explained why big chunks of the U.S. Constitution vanished from its official website …
 … coincidentally, People notes, parts of the document that Trump doesn’t like.
 Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein notes a meme spreading “like a virus” through the Trump bureaucracy: “Nihilistic violent extremism.”
 Popular Information explains why you might not know that 2024 was America's safest year since the ’60s.

Last rites. WBEZ and the Sun-Times report that Chicago’s struggling Weiss Memorial Hospital—set to lose major federal health insurance cash this weekend—will likely close tomorrow.
 The guy who owns Weiss and Oak Park’s West Suburban Medical Center has been M.I.A.
 An Arm and a Leg offers a guide to shopping for health insurance.
 USA Today’s Rex Huppke: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vax policies will kill people.

‘Is there anything you can say to reassure panicked transit users … we’re not going to go over the fiscal cliff?’ Streetsblog Chicago’s John Greenfield grills Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch on the future of the CTA and the RTA.
 Chicago magazine’s Ted McClelland answers the question “Why does Chicago have elevated trains?

Grounded, delayed. Travelers at O’Hare and airports across the nation found their itineraries disrupted last night after a technical problem hosed United Airlines’ technology.
 It tells customers the problem’s fixed, but says to expect residual delays.

Nice work if he can get it. WTTW reports: Former Ald. Walter Burnett stands to collect $121,000 a year from his city pension while earning $311,000 a year as head of the Chicago Housing Authority.
 Meanwhile: Mayor Johnson says Chicago’s finances have reached “a point of no return.”

Outta gas. The lead singer of the Lollapalooza-featured band Silly Goose—handcuffed after delivering a pop-up concert at a downtown gas station late Saturday night—tells the Sun-Times it’s “kind of funny.”
 Dead bars: Chicago’s McKinley Park News has mapped dozens of taverns closed in its neck of the woods.

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 Mike Braden made this edition better.

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‘Whatever it takes’ / ‘A nightmare’ / What ChatGPT’s telling kids

‘Whatever it takes.’ That’s Gov. Pritzker on last night’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert—refusing to rule out the possibility that Illinois could redraw its own congressional map if Republicans do the same to add a prospective five seats for their party in Texas.
 Colbert challenged Pritzker on the state of maps here: “You already have some crazy districts in Illinois. … It’s like the stinger on a scorpion down here” …
 … a complaint Pritzker deflected with a joke before asserting that the problem with Texas Republicans’ plan is that they’re redrawing the map between census counts instead of waiting for the next one.
 The Wall Street Journal calls Illinois “a gerrymandering hot spot” …
 … recalling Pritzker’s 2021 retreat from his support for an independent commission to draw Illinois’ legislative map.
 Texas’ governor is asking his state’s Supreme Court to remove from office the Texas House Democratic leader—one of several huddling in Illinois to forestall a vote on the new map.
 Colbert’s show opened with a musical tribute to his ol’ home, Chicago—ending with a cut of Pritzker doing a shot of Malört.

Forward—to the past. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is canceling $500 million in funding for vaccine development.
 Trump’s administration is restoring and replacing a couple of Washington statues honoring the Confederacy.
 Mother Jones: “Right-wing activists have long warned of the coming federal invasion. Where are they now?

‘Big Balls’ beaten. One of the most prominent members of the Trump/Musk “Department of Government Efficiency,” Edward Coristine, was reportedly attacked in a Washington carjacking attempt …
 … prompting Trump to threaten a federal takeover of D.C.
 Popular Information: The federal immigration crackdown could cripple local law enforcement.

‘Trump’s economy is telling you a story the president doesn’t want you to hear.’ USA Today’s Chris Brennan sums up the president’s approach: “Everything his opponents do is designed to destroy it, and only he can fix it.”
 Satirist Andy Borowitz, in a post that he insists is “100% factual”: Trump’s a math dunce. (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
 Flashback to 1981: Meet [then-future Pulitzer winner] Jack Ohman—at 19, the youngest syndicated U.S. editorial cartoonist, ever.

‘A nightmare.’ The founder of a small nonprofit that investigates civil rights violations tells ProPublica Trump’s war on Big Law has made it tougher to find help challenging the administration on a range of issues.
 Law professor Joyce Vance: Trump’s desecrating the Justice Department.
 The Better Government Association’s Illinois Answers Project: Medicaid managed care organizations are seeing billions in profits as small clinics and hospitals drown in denied and delayed claims—and as some stop accepting Medicaid altogether.

‘You cheated the very thing you put a face to at the City Club of Chicago.’ A federal judge has sentenced longtime Chicago lobbyist and City Club chief Jay Doherty to prison for his role in a scheme to bribe (also convicted) former Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan.
 The judge said Doherty’s contrition came “too late in the process.”

‘The situation in Gaza involves people being deliberately starved.’ Columnist, former U.S. Rep. and “wife and mother of Jewish Americans” Marie Newman: “It is time for Americans to stand up and demand peace.”
 The AP: In what would be a major escalation of the war, Israel’s considering reoccupying Gaza.
 The Guardian: Israel’s relying on Microsoft services to play back cellular communications—“a million calls an hour”—made by ordinary Palestinian civilians.

What ChatGPT’s telling kids. New research—including hours of audio interactions between the AI entity and researchers posing as teens—delivers what the AP calls “startlingly detailed and personalized plans for drug use … or self-injury.”
 On a road trip to Michigan, Tribune columnist Laura Washington sees a pattern in all the billboards hawking marijuana shops and personal injury attorneys—and little else.

If you’re counting on ESPN for objective coverage of pro football, count again. The NFL’s selling most of its media businesses to Disney—in exchange for 10% of ESPN …
 … making life tougher for ESPN reporters.
 Disney’s CEO says ESPN’s journalism won’t change. (But he would say that, right?)
 The Hulu app’s time is near its end.
 If the season premiere of South Park grabbed your attention, check out Episode 2 tonight.

Public radio’s online strength. As federal funding evaporates, Nieman Lab’s Joshua Benton is launching a monthly ranking of NPR stations’ website audiences.
 WBEZ’s No. 21.
 College of DuPage-owned blues-and-jazz-oriented WDCB’s launched its own app.

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 Jeffrey L. Wiseman made this edition better.

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