HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL CRISES. Developing: A suburban school has suspended its varsity football season until further notice because of “a possible hazing incident” that the principal, without elaboration, says will trigger “a difficult time for our school.”
■ The Illinois High School Association stopped testing athletes for performance-enhancing drugs two years ago and didn’t tell anyone.
■ Developing: Four college basketball coaches face federal charges in a wide probe of fraud and corruption in the NCAA.
BLUE LIVES TATTERED. A couple of black Chicago cops seen on Instagram kneeling with a Chicago activist in a sign of opposition to “police brutality and racism” face the prospect of a reprimand for violating department rules against political activity on duty.
■ The chief of Chicago’s brand-new Civilian Office of Police Accountability is reportedly leaving to run for Illinois attorney general.
It’s wrong to do it in the streets,
It’s wrong to do it in the tweets.
You cannot do it on the field,
You cannot do it if you’ve kneeled.
And don’t do it if you’re rich,
You ungrateful son of a bitch,
Because there’s one thing that’s a fact:
You cannot protest if you’re black.
■ Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson: “America has a racial demagogue as president,” but “protesters have chosen their method poorly.”
■ Jelani Cobb at The New Yorker: “Ungrateful is the new uppity.”
■ Rex Huppke at the Tribune: “Perhaps Trump should fire himself. If he were black, I bet he would.”
■ The White House press secretary says President Trump’s “son of a bitch” remark was supposed
■ Deadspin senior editor Diana Moskovitz on White House news conferences: “Stop asking this shithead bad questions poorly.”
■ Deadspin’s Patrick Redford to Trump: Stop using Pat Tillman, the NFL player who left the game to serve in the Army, where he was killed by friendly fire.
■ … And Tillman’s widow agrees.
‘NOW I CAN GO BACK TO TALKING ABOUT THE KARDASHIANS.’ Jimmy Kimmel is grateful the Graham-Cassidy plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act is foundering. But it’s not dead yet:
■ President Trump isn’t giving up.
■ The Sept. 30 deadline isn’t really a deadline.
■ Ezra Klein at Vox: “Cannot imagine a worse visual for a health bill polling at 24% than activists in wheelchairs being pulled screaming from a Senate hearing.”
■ Cosponsor Lindsey Graham fires back at Trump for criticizing John McCain’s opposition to the bill: McCain “can do whatever damn he wants to. He’s earned that right.”
This is tonight.
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APOCALYPSE NOW. As the magnitude of Hurricane Maria’s devastation of Puerto Rico emerges, its governor says the situation has reached “humanitarian crisis” proportions.
■ And yet, the president tweeted oddly about the island’s debt of “billions of dollars to Wall Street and the banks.”
■ This has become the most active month on record for hurricanes.
■ Chicago’s flirting with another day of record heat.
OUT AT EQUIFAX. The CEO is “retiring” after the company’s epic data breach.■ Wired: The many ways Equifax bungled its response.
■ ProPublica: How the U.S. military became one of the country’s biggest polluters.
ALABAMA SHAKES. You can’t tell the players in today’s Republican Senate primary without a scorecard.
■ Dueling rallies pit Trump supporters against the candidate Trump’s supporting.
■ A win for the leading candidate, a.k.a. “the Ten Commandments judge,” could bode well for the Democrats in December’s general election.
KATHY, MINUS ERIC. Longtime WTMX cohost Kathy Hart ends a self-imposed five-month absence from the airwaves with an appearance Wednesday on WFLD-Ch. 32’s morning show.
■ After more than a quarter-century, DJ Richard Milne is wrapping up his longtime WXRT showcase for new Chicago-area music, Local Anesthetic (fourth item in Robert Feder’s post).
MISTAKES, WE HAD A FEW. Yesterday’s emailed issue of Square suffered from typos:
■ A misspelling of Colin Kaepernick’s last name. (Thanks, Jessica Mackinnon.)
■ An extra “my” in a subhead. (Thanks, Aaron Barnhart.)
■ Repetition of the word “now” in one item and a missing period in another. (Thanks, Mike Braden.)