Trump Tower on Obama Avenue? As of this morning, close to 500 people had signed a petition calling on Mayor Johnson and the Chicago City Council to rename the block of Wabash Avenue, on which the Trump International Hotel and Tower is located, “Barack Hussein Obama Avenue.”
■ Off to the Vatican tomorrow, Mayor Johnson planned to cheer Chicago-born Pope Leo’s criticism of Donald Trump’s “godforsaken policies.”
‘Everything should be on the table.’ A Tribune editorial demands Chicago do more to suppress “teen takeovers” like the one that drew close to a thousand teens to the Hyde Park lakefront Monday night.
■ A City Council member’s calling for ratcheting up consequences for the parents of such kids.
■ The council’s lone Jewish member says Johnson’s proposal to fight hate crimes falls short because it “fails to address the unique nature of anti-Jewish hate.”
Emanuel’s ‘grand bargain.’ Chicago’s ex-mayor—widely viewed as a potential presidential candidate—traveled to Dartmouth College yesterday to roll out a plan to revive U.S. higher education (New York Times gift link).
■ Can you watch this Emanuel video and imagine that he’s not running for president?
■ Roosevelt University political science professor and self-styled “predictor of doom” David Faris: “There is no groundswell of support for him, he is not remembered particularly fondly even in Chicago and all of the people who are truly excited about him could fit into a single conference room.”
‘Alarming.’ An AP investigation finds immigration detainees taking their own lives at a rate that suggests authorities aren’t properly overseeing the tens of thousands swept up in the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation strategy.
■ A Chicago high school kid detained by ICE for months is back home in time for graduation.
■ The original lead prosecutor in the discredited “Broadview Six” case against immigration crackdown protesters has been fired from her job with the Senate Judiciary Committee.
■ Alleged misconduct by prosecutors in that case could aid the defense of two people tied to charges of fraud at Loretto Hospital.
■ Doctors and faith leaders are demanding the reopening of Oak Park’s West Suburban Medical Center.
Trump’s ‘winning streak’ a loser? The victory of the president’s Republican primary choice for the U.S. Senate—defeating an incumbent who didn’t drink all the Kool-Aid—demonstrates what the AP calls Trump’s “tightening grip on the party” …
■ … and delivers a reminder that, in the words of columnist and ex-Republican political strategist Rick Wilson, “no one who enters his orbit gets out alive … politically, at least.”
■ It may also in the fullness of time show that Texas Republicans, to quote columnist Charlotte Clymer, “shot themselves in the foot.”
■ Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer: “Republicans just nominated the one guy who could lose Texas.”
■ In a rare challenge to a Democratic primary winner—whose last-minute entry was kinda cheesy (March link)—three independents have submitted the thousands of signatures they need to make November’s general election ballot for Illinois’ 4th congressional district.
■ Columnist and former U.S. Rep. Marie Newman on Hawaii’s ban of corporate political ad spending: “Every state can and should.”
■ 51 candidates have formally filed for November’s election of Chicago’s first fully elected school board.
■ Popular Information exposes a Republican dirty tricks operation—under the deceptive name “Lead Left.”
‘It would be perfectly fine to kill an abortion provider, an activist, or even someone who drives a friend to the clinic.’ Abortion, Every Day columnist Jessica Valenti flags a North Carolina bill that would give anyone “the right to defend … the life of another person, even by the use of deadly force if necessary, from willful destruction by another person.”
■ Read it here.
■ The foundation’s seeking more signatures from current and former journalists, press freedom advocates and professors of journalism and First Amendment law.
■ In what Poynter’s Tom Jones calls “the most drastic step any administration has taken to curtail information from getting out,” Trump’s White House is planning what The Washington Post (gift link) calls “a government-wide nondisclosure agreement.”
■ Speaking of free speech: The American Civil Liberties Union’s landed a $225,000 settlement for a woman fired by Ball State University after she posted to Facebook criticism of assassinated reactionary activist Charlie Kirk.
■ Trib media columnist Robert Channick catches up with news anchors displaced from WGN-TV and the now-gone CBS News Radio.
■ The Trib’s out with its 2026 Critic’s Choice Food Award winners (gift link).
7% off. Yesterday’s Square confused Pope Leo XIV and Leo XIII, the first to explicitly condemn slavery.
■ Thanks to several readers quick to note the error.
■ The latest Leo quoted Gandalf in his new letter on artificial intelligence.
■ YouTube says it’ll start automatically tagging videos that make “significant” use of AI.
■ Walter Fyk made this edition better.
