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.
■ The Trump administration’s dropped two long-running civil rights and fair housing cases in Chicago.
■ The Onion: “Watchdog Group Downgrades U.S. From Democracy To Whatever Political System Lobsters Have.”
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.
■ In the works for the Chicago region—in Indiana: A similar hellhole that Homeland Security has dubbed “the Speedway Slammer.”
■ 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.
Why is Chicago Public Square not behind a paywall? For one thing, paywalls are counterproductive and anti-democratic. For another, generous readers—including Rick Blankenbaker, Mike Chamernik, Kathy Catrambone (again!), Liz Fitzgerald, Jim Peterson, Monica Eng, Linda Biondi, Jane Hirt, David Protess, Peter Chien, Amy Dixon-Kolar, Mark Edwards, Cassandra West, Mickey Callahan, Lilia Chacon, Charles C. Allen II, Richard Milne, Lisa Colpoys and Catherine Schneider, k.h., Laurie R. Glenn/Thinkinc., Lisa Price, Jeanette Ruby, Becky Bloom, Brian J. Taylor, Gene Paquette, Valerie Valenzo, Ed McDevitt, Lana O’Brien, Jeff Hanneman, John Gehron, Eileen Lilke, Moondog, Jennifer Bartlett, Ann Tanner, Alison Thomas, H. Evan Williams, Chip Mitchell, Cynthia Wolf, David Layden, Michael Wilson, Julia Winn, Craig Dellimore and Paul Herrick—keep stepping forward to underwrite the cost of this publication’s production and distribution.
■ Join their ranks today—for as little as $1, just once—and see your name atop Friday’s roll call.
■ Mike Braden made this edition better.
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Meet the author. Former City News reporter and longtime New Trier English teacher Mark Wukas* joins “Author Night” Monday at Max and Benny’s restaurant in Northbrook to talk about his critically acclaimed Chicago-set novel, The Kiss of Night.
* Who also happens to be Chicago Public Squarian No. 1.
