‘Wrong, Mr. Mayor’ / ‘Is peace the one with the tanks?’ / Radio silence

■


‘Wrong, Mr. Mayor.’ Sun-Times architecture critic Lee Bey on Mayor Johnson’s tumescence for a new Bears stadium at the shore: “Chicago’s crown jewel is its lakefront. And you’re helping to tarnish it.” (Image: Bears rendering.)
■ Other top Illinois Democrats aren’t so hot …
■ … and the same from Friends of the Parks: “The powerful and wealthy are demanding that our entire city stop and fast track their plans to expand operations on the people’s lakefront.”
■ Trib sports columnist Paul Sullivan: “As Burnham said: Make no little plans when you can have a translucent roof instead.”
■ Columnist Eric Zorn: Just say no to public funding for the plan …

‘You should buy the story.’ Live updates: That’s ex-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker quoting Donald Trump in Trump’s New York criminal trial today—as Trump allegedly told Pecker to acquire and suppress a former Playboy model’s claims of an extramarital affair with Trump.
■ More live updates: The U.S. Supreme Court was hearing arguments over whether Trump’s immune from prosecution for plots to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump’s an unindicted co-conspirator. Arizona’s indicted Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani for their 2020 efforts.
■ Arizona’s House has sent the Senate a bill to repeal the state’s near-total ban on abortion.

‘The largest for-profit hospital chain is putting pregnant women at risk.’ But Popular Information says shareholders of HCA Healthcare—which claims to be one of the world’s “most ethical companies”—are fighting back.
■ Change Healthcare—parent subsidiary of UnitedHealth—admits it paid a ransom to hackers who crippled the company and its patients in February.

Spoken like a guy unfamiliar with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s Ohio. Stinging from shouts of “Mike, you suck” during a speech at New York’s Columbia University, House Speaker Mike Johnson wants the National Guard deployed on the Mideast war protest-riven campus.
■ Columbia journalism professor Margaret Sullivan: “University officials … shut down the campus radio station temporarily over the weekend, and locked out some students from a building where they were making a documentary about the protests.”
■ Northwestern University students have set up a pro-Palestine tent encampment.
■ Eric Zorn again: “Protest for peace and for the rights of the persecuted and the oppressed. … But don’t tell us that Hamas are the lovable good guys.”
■ The Intercept: The feds are investigating the University of Massachusetts Amherst for anti-Palestinian bias—including slow action against a student who yelled at protesters, “Kill all Arabs.”

‘Is peace the one with the tanks?’ Count Daily Show host Jordan Klepper among those skeptical of President Biden’s declaration that his signature on a $95 billion bill that includes military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan made yesterday “a good day for world peace.”

Flight delayed or canceled? Get cash. New federal rules require automatic compensation for inconvenienced travelers …
■ … stripping airlines of their ability to decide what constitutes a “significant” delay—instead setting a three-hour limit for domestic flights and six hours for international trips.

‘Rat hole’ relocated. Chicago’s removed and replaced the section of Roscoe Village sidewalk celebrated for its imprint of an animal …
■ … but city officials say it’ll be preserved—for at least a while.

How Google enshittified search. Tech skeptic Cory Doctorow: “Worker power has been smashed” as “competition has receded from tech bosses’ worries, thanks to lax antitrust enforcement that saw most credible competitors merged into behemoths.”
■ Law prof Joyce Vance says the Federal Trade Commission’s “sea change” decision to end the use of noncompete agreements could bring major economic benefits.
■ The Onion satirizes the public response: “Great! Now all I need is a job I can quit for a better job.”

Radio silence. Broadcasting giant Audacy’s corporate-wide layoffs include at least some digital staffers at Chicago’s all-news WBBM.
■ The abrupt shutdown of Foxtrot and Dom’s Kitchen grocery stores has triggered a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the hundreds of workers terminated “without any prior notice.”
■ The Conversation: “Large retailers don’t have smokestacks, but they generate a lot of pollution.”

Want one of these free? Pitch in to support Chicago Public Square at the Booster level or better and you get your pick.
■ Pssst! You can cancel anytime. Which makes a great deal for you, if not for Square. (But at least we get that name out there in the world!)
■ Or get $5 off for a contribution at any level. 
■ Thanks. Howie Anderson made this edition better.

Groceries gone / ‘Go to a state school’ / Pandemic flashback

■

■ Eater Chicago: Store workers kept in the dark until almost the last minute were “instructed not to talk to customers about the matter.”
■ Holding a credit from those stores? Fuhgeddaboudit.
■ Fresh research could send shivers through the halls of Big Tobacco and Alcohol: The new generation of weight-loss drugs—think Ozempic—seems to suppress the desire for those vices.
■ Illinois’ bankrupt Oberweis Dairy says it expects to keep running under new ownership.

‘CTA: Show Dorval Carter the exit door.’ A Sun-Times editorial says it’s time for Mayor Johnson to replace the Chicago Transit Authority’s president.
■ Reader columnist Ben Joravsky on Johnson’s success in letting controversial tax increment financing districts expire and use that money to pay for programs to help the poor: “I should be happy, but all I do is cry.”
■ Chicago magazine’s Ted McClelland rates Johnson’s first year in office: “The mayor is not incompetent, he’s inexperienced.”

Footlooser. The Chicago Loop Alliance says pedestrian activity downtown is finally—sometimes—back to pre-pandemic levels.
■ Police say a man last night was held up in the Loop at gunpoint by one female and five males.
■ Never mind River North: A new report finds Green Street through Fulton Market now Chicago’s most expensive commercial way.

‘Go to a state school.’ FiveThirtyEight founder—and University of Chicago alumnus—Nate Silver shares that advice with college-bound people: “The Ivy League and other elite private colleges are losing esteem—and they deserve it.”
■ A Tribune editorial: “Elite university presidents … utterly failed to anticipate what was coming their way after Hamas attacked Israel and Israel responded in a way that killed thousands of civilians in the Gaza Strip.”
■ Press Watch proprietor Dan Froomkin: “The media should be celebrating college protesters instead of demonizing them.”
■ A Palestinian-American professor at New York University describes the police crackdown on student protesters Monday night: “Panicking” and “screams.”
■ A Jewish student at Columbia University writes for Zeteo: “Don’t believe what you’re being told about ‘campus antisemitism.’”
■ Columbia early today reported “important progress” with the protesters.
■ Poynter’s Tom Jones: Columbia’s student journalists have “expertly documented” the story.
■ The AP: What began at Columbia is spreading nationwide.
■ Politico: President Biden’s not sweating fallout from the protests.

‘He violated the gag order during the hearing about whether he violated the gag order!’ Jimmy Kimmel recapped yesterday’s proceedings in Donald Trump’s criminal trial.
■ CNN: “Former National Enquirer boss David Pecker … revealed in granular detail how Trump worked hand-in-hand with the infamous national tabloid to … smear his political opponents.”
■ The Daily Show roasted Biden for his suggestion that cannibals may have eaten his uncle—a thing that PolitiFact debunked last week.

Pandemic flashback. From Chicago Public Square on this date in 2020:
■ “Please ignore him.” Gizmodo rips into President Trump for floating “the potentially dangerous idea of injecting disinfectant” into coronavirus patients.
■ Wonkette’s Evan Hurst pleads with Fox News viewers: “DO NOT INJECT YOURSELF WITH BLEACH OR WINDEX.” (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)

And while we’re looking back … Matthew Yglesias explains why George W. Bush was a terrible president.


TikTok’s tick-tock. Biden says he’ll sign a bill that the Senate has approved, requiring TikTok’s China-based parent to sell the thing under threat of a ban.
■ The AP explains: “No, TikTok will not suddenly disappear from your phone. Nor will you go to jail if you continue using it after it is banned.”
■ Washington Post columnist Will Oremus calls it “a gift to Big Tech”—notably Facebook parent Meta and Google.
■ NewsGuard founder Steven Brill: “There’s a First Amendment-friendly way to clean up social media. But tech CEOs won’t like it.”

History derailed. In the face of intransigence by Republican Sen. J.D. Vance, Biden was set to abandon his bid to name Chicago’s first female U.S. attorney.
■ Washington Post columnist George Will (gift link): “112 ignoble, infantile Republicans voted to endanger civilization.”

One for the books. A far north suburban school board has un-canceled its participation in a statewide program where fourth through eighth graders get to vote on their favorite titles.
■ That followed a torrent of protests from parents and students—including a second grader who spoke before the vote.

Thanks. Charlie Pajor made this edition better.

Subscribe to Square.

It’s free.