How she does it / Red Line's next stops / Illinois' risk

How she does it. The Guardian examines the strategies of Chicago’s serial airplane stowaway, Marilyn Hartman, and shines a light on “a justice system ill-equipped to handle mentally ill rule-breakers.”
Agreeing to her release from prison yesterday, a judge warned her three times not to do it again.


‘My job is done.’ In what looks like a sign he’s planning to run against Rahm Emanuel for mayor, Paul Vallas is—three months early—quitting his job leading the troubled Chicago State University.
Tribune columnist Eric Zorn on the Democratic governor’s race: Chris Kennedy “simply isn’t ready to play the game at this level.”
Among the dead in an attack on a hotel in Afghanistan: A publicist who represented disgraced ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
At the Sun-Times, a realignment for columnists.

Red Line’s next stops. The CTA’s mapped a path for the long-planned southward extension of its backbone train route.

‘Fake news, folks.’ President Trump dismisses reports he backed down from a demand special counsel Robert Mueller be fired.
Watch developments deflate Fox News gasbag Sean Hannity on live TV, exposing “parallel media worlds.”
University of Chicago students turned out to protest an invitation to ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon.
Tribune editorial: The test of free speech “comes in whether speakers can voice … repugnant ideas.”
Trump agrees to apologize for retweeting “horrible racist people … if you would like me to do that.”
Lifehacker’s Nick Douglas: “Stop giving life advice, Bill O’Reilly, you evil scumbag.”

‘For a public official’s daughter to admit that in front of her entire staff?’ A Chicago Environmental Protection Agency worker is incredulous at a decision by Trump’s pick to run the office.
Lake Michigan is undergoing a dramatic environmental evolution, resulting in water so blue as to rival tropical areas—but endangering its marine life and a $7 billion fishing industry.
A new Burger King ad attacking the Trump administration’s dismantling of internet neutrality rules has gone viral.

Illinois’ risk. The state could lose a congressional seat if the Trump administration pushes ahead with 2020 census plans to ask people about their citizenship status and immigrants afraid of deportation decide to sit this one out.
CNN: President Trump’s new proposal would dramatically reshape legal immigration.

‘Is it f___ed up that I wanna condo in Tribune Tower?’ Count Chance the Rapper among those coveting a home in an iconic building soon to be vacated by the newspaper that built it.
Tribune columnist Mary Schmich: “No, Chance, it’s not.”

‘You won’t know whether to laugh or cry.’ “She the People” is “one of the funniest revues Second City has produced in the past 20 years. And it is also deeply enraging.”
The U.S. Olympics Olympic Committee is giving the sexual harassment scandal-scarred board of USA Gymnastics board six days to quit.
The historical inspiration for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Amazon’s series about a 1950s housewife breaking into standup comedy (second item in Aaron Barnhart’s History is Power blog).

Clarification. The InStyle interview in which Oprah Winfrey seemingly ruled out a presidential run—lead item in yesterday’s Square—was conducted three weeks before her electrifying Golden Globes acceptance speech.

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