Colbert, Stewart in the balance. Now that Paramount has settled Donald Trump’s revenge-driven lawsuit, media monitor Oliver Darcy says the ground is “shifting fast” for Trump-critical programming on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show and Jon Stewart’s Daily Show. (This important work is sadly behind a paywall that requires an email address. Update, 3:48 p.m.: LateNighter recounts this reporting, paywall-free, here.)
■ Darcy adds: Likely new owners at Skydance want to rid CBS of “what they see as a liberal taint.”
■ CNN’s Brian Stelter: “PBS and NPR have nine days left to await their federal funding fate.”
■ Indiana Public Broadcasting’s cut its whole statewide reporting team.
■ The American Prospect: Public media cuts hurt kids.
‘A travesty.’ Lawyer/columnist Robert Hubbell says the Supreme Court’s clearing of the way for Trump’s federal workforce reductions means the court’s “a lost cause. What remains is only the task of dismantling the reactionary majority by enlarging the Court.”
■ Acknowledging what’s long been de facto policy, the IRS says religious institutions can endorse political candidates without losing their tax-exempt status.
■ Touring Washington’s memorials, Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg notes “lots of DEI ripe for the purging.”
‘The U.S. is much closer to making concentration camps than you think.’ Esquire’s Charlie Pierce says Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” is a sign of worse to follow.
■ Drop Site: That facility’s cost has already ballooned to more than $600 million.
■ 404 Media: ICE is now searching medical bills.
Trump vs. MAGA. As the administration tries to shut down talk of a “client list” for the convicted—and now deceased—sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Poynter’s Tom Jones explains that Trump’s conspiracy-minded followers are having none of it.
■ USA Today’s Chicago-based satirist Rex Huppke: “Did Donald Trump eat Jeffrey Epstein’s client list? Logic suggests he did.”
■ Ronnie Chieng at The Daily Show: “The attorney general said the client list was on her desk. Let me guess—your desk also hung itself?”
■ Men Yell at Me columnist Lyz Lenz attended Trump’s Iowa rally last week: “I witnessed the masculinity crisis … and got my chair stolen.”
■ Grok’ed up. Zeteo: Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot has gone full Nazi.
■ Popular Information: The use of AI by students and teachers is “a gigantic public experiment that no one has asked for.”
■ The Revolving Door Project: “The artificial-intelligence industry is driving a gigantic increase in power consumption—while the Republican Party is doing all in its power to make sure that electricity is generated by pollution-spewing fossil fuels. … The result will be a major increase in all kinds of illness, including cancer.”
‘Chaos to come.’ ProPublica says Texas’ deadly flash flooding represents a taste of what’s in store “as the federal government is running away from the policies that might begin to protect the nation.”
■ Poynter explores how a “100% inaccurate” story of two Texas girls’ miraculous rescue went national. (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
■ PolitiFact rates “Mostly False” the assertion that Trump has “defunded” the National Weather Service …
■ … but The Lever reports: “Before the Texas disaster, Congress and successive presidents ignored demands to fully fund a nationwide system monitoring rivers for signs of flash floods.”
■ The Onion: [Texas Sen.] “Ted Cruz: ‘Vacationing Is How I Grieve.’”
■ Unexpectedly heavy rain last night stranded more than a dozen motorists in Chicago.
■ The Citizens Utility Board wants your energy efficiency tips.
‘One of the worst mass shootings in Chicago history.’ A Tribune editorial (gift link) calls on Mayor Johnson to dial down his “victory laps” on crime in the city after the shooting of 18 people—four killed—outside a River North club a week ago.
■ Police say the shooting was “targeted,” with “a motive”—but the Trib says a “stubborn feud between gangs” has nevertheless left the River North neighborhood on edge.
■ Gurnee cops are investigating shots fired Monday night—no one hurt—in the Six Flags parking lot.
‘A disenfranchised community in the lurch.’ With no notice, Oak Park’s struggling West Suburban Medical Center* has shut its obstetric and neonatal units.
■ Columnist and former Illinois Rep. Marie Newman: The toll of Trump’s new budget includes 300 hospitals and health insurance for 17 million people.
■ Illinois has fined and reprimanded a Champaign abortion provider accused of leaving half a fetus inside a woman’s body.
■ Abortion, Every Day on Indiana’s crackdown on abortions: “Here’s what a reproductive police state looks like.”
‘I heard the baby crying.’ A 33-year-old man’s credited with rescuing a 7-month-old left on church steps after a carjacking in last week’s heat.
■ A fresh advisory for parents: Beware knockoff car safety seats.
A free(r) man. Convicted former Chicago City Council member Ed Burke’s out of prison after nine months …
■ … but he’ll have to serve more time in a halfway house or home confinement—followed by a year of court supervision.
So not all of what’s happening on Trump’s watch sucks.
■ U.S. air travelers no longer have to take their shoes off during security screenings.
■ The Army’s ending its antiquated ceremonial horse programs, which cost a reported $2 million a year.
* Where your Chicago Public Square columnist’s three sons were born (a 1992 column about the birth of the third).
