Red light break / Lies, damned lies, and… / 'Planet in upheaval'

RED LIGHT BREAK. Drivers in Chicago now get three-tenths of a second to enter an intersection after a camera-monitored stoplight turns red. Doesn’t sound like much, but it’s three times the old limit—and a city spokesman says it would have cut such tickets last year by almost a third.

Where cameras are being installed and removed.
A Northwestern University study concludes the cameras provide significant safety benefits.

EMANUEL’S SECRET INBOX. A Tribune investigation raises the prospect execs and investors broke the city’s ethics law by emailing the mayor’s personal email accounts.
Full texts of the emails in question.

‘JAW-DROPPING SPENDING.’ Illinois State Comptroller Susanna Mendoza, a newly elected Democrat, says her staff has uncovered questionable expenses in Republican Gov. Rauner’s office—but his staff dismisses what one calls “wild accusations.”
Hear Mendoza’s full speech yesterday to the City Club.
Eight years later, the City of Chicago is still paying for its failed bid to host the 2016 Olympics.

COURTHOUSE SHOOTING. A man walking into a Chicago courtroom was hit six times Monday.
The Ohio pastor who’s pals with the president has canceled what was to have been a Chicago “gang summit” today.

LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND … Using not one but two Twitter accounts, President Trump found himself on the wrong side of the truth during testimony about his administration’s ties to Russia.
Fox News has yanked off the air senior analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano—the guy Trump credits for unverified claims British intelligence wiretapped Trump Tower at then-President Obama’s request.
Mayor Emanuel’s bioethicist brother says the president’s press secretary made “false news.”
Crain’s Greg Hinz: How do you handle a lying president?

… OR IS THAT BEST NIGHTMARE? The editor-in-chief of the liberal ThinkProgress website says New York’s attorney general could be Trump’s “worst nightmare.”
Elsewhere in Clan Trump: Daughter Ivanka is in line for a White House office and security clearance, even though she’s not a government employee—raising ethics questions. And amid staff objections, The Guardian has canned plans to move its U.S. office into a building linked to the president’s son-in-law.

LONG DAY’S NIGHT. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch could face 10 hours of questioning in the Senate. The Washington Post is updating proceedings live.
Five things to watch.
Live video of the hearings.

HEALTH CARE, TAKE 2. U.S. House Republicans have retooled their plan in the hope of securing the votes they need for passage Thursday.
… including a special appeal to New York politicians.
Behind closed doors, Trump warns Republicans, “You will lose your seats in 2018 if you don’t get this done.”
Yale law prof says America needs to decide: Is health care something it owes citizens?
Mark Brown in the Sun-Times: Trump’s budget would hurt far more than just Meals on Wheels.

ELECTRONICS AIRLINE BAN. The U.S. has ordered that devices like laptops, tablets, cameras, DVD players and electronic games be confined to checked luggage on flights from eight Muslim-majority countries.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation lists five creepy things your internet service provider could do if Congress repeals the FCC’s privacy protections.

‘A PLANET IN UPHEAVAL.’ After the hottest year on record, the World Meteorological Organization has delivered a disturbing diagnosis for the earth.
How Americans perceive climate change, state by state, in six maps.

‘FRIENDS TO THE END.’ A couple of world-famous cartoonists linked to Chicago, Jay Lynch and Skip Williamson, died within 11 days of one another.
A longtime friend Mike Gold remembers Lynch: “Unlike many of us hippies, Jayzey eschewed drugs … if you didn’t count nicotine.”

THE HAPPIEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD IS … increasingly, not the United States.

But Dave Chappelle is back, courtesy of Netflix.
The original ending to “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” could have been much happier.
And Lollapalooza tickets go on sale just as this edition of Chicago Public Square arrives in email boxes.

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