Driving for City Hall / ‘Creepy’ / Hey, Google: Pay up

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Driving for City Hall. Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias has gone public: He’s running for mayor of Chicago…
■ … even as he also runs for reelection as secretary of state.
■ See his announcement here.
■ A Tribune editorial (gift link) calls on all the candidates to tell it straight: “What cuts they’re open to, how they plan to bring the reluctant along and what reforms they are ready to put in place. Quickly.”

Cop-outs. A Trib report (gift link) finds that, as hundreds of Chicago police officers await resolution of serious misconduct charges against them, prosecutors have disqualified them from testifying in criminal cases.
■ As the cyclosporiasis outbreak rages on, Oliver also helpfully (or not) offered a disclaimer commercial for Taco Bell.

‘Creepy.’ That’s how Politico’s Shia Kapos says an unnamed legislative staffer describes scandal-scarred and ousted Illinois State Rep. Harry Benton’s behavior …
■ … in a legislative inspector general’s report finally released to the public.

■ If Democrats take the House and Senate in November, columnist and former U.S. Rep. Marie Newman has a list of “what needs to be reversed, restored and rebuilt immediately.”

Pool coverage. The Justice Department’s abandonment of criminal charges against a former Olympian for touching the algae-blemished Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool isn’t sitting well with the president …
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: The case fits a pattern of Donald Trump’s Justice Department “repeatedly misleading grand juries or committing misconduct in getting indictments.”
■ Columnist Steven Beschloss: “This should be enough evidence that this man has abandoned the rule of law … and should be removed from office.”

Slush flushed? In a move aimed at securing his confirmation, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has formally ordered abortion of Trump’s plan for a $1.8 billion slush fund to pay off his political allies …
■ … but that document also keeps in place a deal giving the president and his family immunity from tax audits over past behavior.

‘Why all this war is bad talk? I’m making a fortune!’ USA Today’s Chicago-based columnist Rex Huppke mocks oil companies’ Iran war profits.
■ Phildelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch (gift link): “The smell of death surrounds Donald Trump’s regime from Guatemala to Pittsburgh.”

Hey, Google: Pay up. Tech columnist Kim Komando: If you owned a Google or Nest thing or used Assistant between May 2016 and March 2026, the company may owe you up to $56—to settle complaints you were recorded without saying the devices’ “wake words.”
■ You can file here.
■ Your notice, including a unique ID and PIN, may have gone to Spam. (Hey, that’s what happened to your Chicago Public Square columnist.) Search for “GoogleAssistantPrivacyLitigation.com”—although you can also file without those things.
■ They don’t make it easy. You’ll need receipts and device serial numbers—which you may find here.

Bash bashes RFK Jr. Poynter media writer Tom Jones on yesterday’s State of the Union on CNN: “Dana Bash did her job—and RFK Jr. didn’t handle it well.”
■ Former New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan: “Adam O’Neal … at the command of Jeff Bezos … wrecked the Washington Post opinion section but at least he’s out.”
■ Award-winning former radio reporter turned media critic Rob Archer worries about “what happens if mainstream news media goes the way of Blockbuster Video.”

WSJ regrets. The Wall Street Journal has corrected a story highlighted in Friday’s Chicago Public Square (gift link): “Chicago’s new bike lanes spark a rebellion from businesses” …

How about $1—Is $1 good for you? Friday’s reminder that you can support Square for just a buck a month seems to have resonated with a number of readers who signed up over the weekend to underwrite the cost of this newsletter’s production and distribution.
■ Join their ranks today and see your name atop tomorrow’s supporter roll call—like Craig Cheslog, Wendy Bennett, Terri Reardon, Clif Wilson, Steven Yandel (again!), Sherry Kent (again!), Julie Johnson (again!), Teresa Powell, Jordan Wilkerson, Mark Miller, Angela Mullins, Roger Blickhan, KT Sullivan, Jim Kelly, Marc Magliari, Mary Meegan, Daniel Forden, Bob Tucker, Barbara Hayskar, Heather Foote, Eric Hochstein, Lucy Smith, Carol Hirschtick, Griz Alger, Bill and Lynne Higgins, Thom Clark, Tom Barnes, Philip Prale, Sheila Flaherty, William Bork, Gary Kochanek, Tim Smith, Ryan Ver Berkmoes, Christopher Comes, Ginny Lee-Herrmann, Paul Clark, Jenny Wittner, Ann James, Barbara Heskett, Sue Zablocki, Jeanne Loshbough, Sherry Nordstrom, Patty Wallenberg, Molly McDonough, Eileen Larsen, Another Debbie Becker, Mark Thurow, Craig Koslofsky, David Boulanger, Lisa Price, Tom Revord, Beth Bales Olson, Christine Cupaiuolo and Jan Kieckhefer.
■ Mike Braden made this edition better.

Pink slime vs. higher ed / 7 twisters / Perfectly surprising quiz / SPOILER ALERT

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Pink slime vs. higher ed. Columbia Journalism Review: Several local news sites owned by a paid partisan network called Metric Media sent “simultaneous FOIA requests to administrators at [among others] … the University of Illinois, seeking emails and statements that included terms such as ‘Indigenous’ and ‘Diversity.’ But it didn’t end there.”
■ Here’s a list of Metric’s Illinois outlets.
■ Pink slime defined (2020 link): Websites masquerading as local news but in fact promoting a partisan agenda and gathering data on users.

ABC ‘has had enough.’ Poynter media writer Tom Jones reviews the Disney-owned network’s “fervent filing” with the Federal Communications Commission, accusing the FCC of “attempted censorship” in its extremely early and rare review of licenses for local ABC TV stations, including Chicago’s Channel 7.
■ Read the filing here.
■ In a Politico interview, FCC chair Brendan Carr “refused to say … there should be any limits on Trump using the FCC against media companies.”
■ The Freedom of the Press Foundation: President Trump’s new director of national intelligence, Jay Clayton, is “a threat to press freedom.”

‘A mob boss extracting bribes from corporate America.’ That’s how columnist and former Chicago TV news exec Jennifer Schulze sees Trump portrayed in a Wall Street Journal exclusive whose headline is (gift link) “‘The Boss Wants This Money’: Inside Trump’s Unprecedented Fundraising Operation.”
■ Beware stories whose headlines begin “Trump says he may …” but the president says he might put off until after the November elections his nomination of sycophantic (April link) Todd Blanche to be attorney general.
■ Columnist Heather Delaney Reese: Elon Musk is back to buying elections.

7 twisters. Monday’s Chicago-area tornado tally has risen by two.
■ Illinois’ tornado total, 1950-2020: 181. It’s topped that just this year alone.
■ Gary Legum at Wonkette: “Dumb blue states should have voted Trump if they were going to have weather emergencies. Suck it, losers.”
■ The Trump administration’s cut off work on a project to keep invasive Asian carp out of the Great Lakes.

‘Will we get what we’re paying for?’ Flagging the onset tomorrow of a sales tax increase, a Tribune editorial (free link) moans, “Illinois’ transit bailout is the gift that keeps on giving—higher taxes and fees.”
■ McSweeney’s “Field Guide to Legacy Media Pundits in the United States” includes “The White Man No One Likes (Mediocris triumphans). HABITAT: Op-ed pages, editorial boards, magazines on their last legs.”

School layoffs averted. Counting on uncertain help from the state, the Chicago School Board’s approved a budget that reverses plans to cut 1,000 jobs …
■ … but it’s left in question the future of the school formerly known as the Chicago High School for the Arts.

ICE ‘speed trap.’ Pulitzer winner Will Bunch (gift link) spotlights a small Pennsylvania town whose cops have turned over 32 immigrants to the feds since March.
■ The Wall Street Journal (gift link): “Chicago’s new bike lanes spark a rebellion from businesses.”

Perfectly surprising. Past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Fritz Holznagel has assembled a news quiz with answers that are “unexpected or just a little odd” …
■ … all of which your Chicago Public Square columnist got right.
■ Want to improve your scores on these challenges? Sign up for The Conversation’s email.

Claude gone wild. Wired: Anthropic says its artificial intelligence creation hacked into three real-world organizations.
■ Read Anthropic’s Claudea culpa.
■ LinkedIn’s added an option to flag hokey content with the label “Seems like AI slop.”

New life for old gadgets. Block Club: A West Side nonprofit will refurbish old laptops and broken phones and give them to the needy.
■ Consumer Reports rates the year’s best phones.

‘Lollapalooza is one of the city’s most powerful cultural stages.’ Politico’s Shia Kapos surveys the political movers and shakers assembled earlier this week for the festival’s kickoff lunch.
■ Hulu and Disney+ subscribers can watch some of the performances live.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day reviews. Critic Richard Roeper: “The darkest and most existential entry in the 21st century canon of ‘Spider-Man’ movies is also one of the finest.”
■ Jocelyn Novek at the AP: “Does Tom Holland’s Peter Parker sound … like more of a native New Yorker than before?”
■ New Yorker cartoonist Jason Chatfield: “The latest is the best one about New York. Not a frame of it was shot here.”
■ The Onion’s list of things to know about the movie includes “Q: How does Brand New Day compare to other Spider-Man movies? A: The main difference is this one comes out now, while the others came out in different years.”

‘SPOILER ALERT: All of Odysseus’s men get killed in the movie. You should skip over this spoiler alert if you’d rather not know that.’ Pulitzer winner Dave Barry shares “the complete, unedited screenplay” for The Odyssey—“based on a story by the ancient Greek screenwriter Homer, who spent 2,700 years in development meetings but tragically died before seeing the film get made.”

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■ Mike Braden made this edition better.

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