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

■

■ 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.
A Square public service announcement …
… courtesy of a Square supporter.

Don’t let the deep pan hit ya on the way out / What Trump knew / Kimmel’s loss

■

Don’t let the deep pan hit ya on the way out. A number of reports suggest the U.S. Border Patrol’s withdrawing from the Chicago area …
■ … maybe to return in fourfold strength after the weather gets nicer.
■ Block Club: Despite a pledge to protect free speech, state police keep arresting protesters at the Broadview detention center.
■ Indivisible Chicago planned a rally in Chicago’s Federal Plaza at lunchtime today—to protest the arraignment of six people indicted for demonstrating outside Broadview.
■ The Onion: “Woman Trying To Find Nonpolitical Way To Say Her Cleaner Was Deported.”

OpenUp? The longest U.S. government shutdown in history could end today—in the AP’s words, “with almost no one happy with the final result.”
■ In what Politico’s Shia Kapos calls “a rare public break between the two senators,” Illinois’ Tammy Duckworth says she “couldn’t be more disappointed” with her colleague Dick Durbin for his vote to end the shutdown.
■ Columnist and former Illinois U.S. Rep. Marie Newman: “So what happens next? Schumer and the old guard need to go.”
■ Investigative reporter Ken Klippenstein is more blunt: “Schumer should be humanely euthanized* … (*politically/metaphorically, of course).”
■ The American Prospect explains “one weird trick” to remove Schumer: “Any single Senate Democrat can force a vote on Schumer’s job as minority leader.”

$2,000 for your trouble? President Trump’s promising that “a dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.’’
■ The administration’s also weighing creation of—wait for it—the 50-year mortgage …
■ … or, as The Daily Show’s Josh Johnson put it, “the opposite of affordability. This man is creating generational debt. They’re going to be fighting to get out of grandma’s will.”
■ The Wall Street Journal (gift link): Federal investigators are probing whether the guy who’d be in charge of that program, Northwestern University grad Bill Pulte (Oct. 10 link), improperly got Democratic officials’ mortgage records.
■ Popular Information: Rocket Money is getting out of the Tucker Carlson business.

What Trump knew. In email obtained by Congress, convicted and dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein wrote that that the president had “spent hours at my house” with one of Epstein’s victims. (New York Times gift link.)
■ As the U.S. House returns to work for the first time in months, a pivotal Democrat—who could cast a deciding vote on release of the Epstein files—finally gets sworn in.

‘Mercy for allies.’ ProPublica details how Trump has exploited pardons and clemency to reward his supporters.
■ Case-averse Everyone Is Entitled to My Own Opinion columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “you know who doesn’t know what magnets are? Donny. he’s every-accusation-is-a-confessioning again. Donny’s mystified by magnets. all he knows is they stop working if they get wet.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)

‘Doubling down on stupid.’ California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s piling on Trump’s environmental policies.

Kimmel’s loss. Why Jimmy Kimmel canceled his Thursday show: His bandleader—and friend since Kimmel was 9—Cleto Escobedo III died at 59.
■ Late-night critic Bill Carter praises Kimmel’s on-air farewell to Escobedo for “grabbing viewers by the throat and the heart.”
■ See it here or read a transcript here.
■ Kimmel’s show’s taking the rest of the week off.

A $4,700 week-long trip to a luxury Hawaiian resort. That’s just one of several abusive incidents of Chicago Public Schools employee travel documented by the system’s inspector general after an infusion of federal pandemic relief cash.
■ Read the full report here.

‘Women drivers.’ Launching in Chicago today, Uber is offering that new safety feature for female travelers—giving them the option of choosing drivers of the same gender.
■ Travelers who used the Sonder platform to book rooms with Marriott’s Bonvoy reservation system found themselves abruptly kicked out of those places after the company’s partnership collapsed.
■ Wendy’s is planning to close hundreds of stores across the country.
■ New York Times opinion from Kelly Karivalis (gift link): “Dying shopping malls are the Roman ruins of our civilization.”

To track or not to track? Advisorator Jared Newman wrestles with the creepy and reassuring aspects of sharing one’s location with relatives—and explains how to implement your preferences.
■ He also advises caution when buying a Roomba vacuum—because its maker’s running out of cash.
■ Tech sentinel Cory Doctorow shares a tale of three customer service chatbots: “Two were worse than useless, one betrayed its masters.”

A Square public service announcement …
… courtesy of a Square supporter.

Thanks. Mike Braden made this edition better.

Square up.

🟥 Subscribe free.
🟥 Search Square.

🟥 Square on Bluesky: