Emanuel’s first challenger. A 30-year-old tech entrepreneur from the South Side, Neal Sales-Griffin, has filed to replace Rahm Emanuel as Chicago’s mayor. (Photo: Sales-Griffin’s Twitter page.)
‘Illinois deserves a conflict-free attorney general.’ Sun-Times columnist Laura Washington says one Democratic candidate comes with conflicts galore: “Big Tobacco, Big Utilities, the red light cameras and casinos industries.”
■ The editor of the Chicago Defender newspaper is out after taking a $10,000 payment from a Democratic candidate for the Illinois House.
All Trump’s children. Well, at least some:
■ Ivanka Trump never cut her ties to the family business. Now that’s a problem.
■ Donald Trump Jr. has a previously undisclosed business relationship with a longtime hunting buddy who the AP reports has had special access to the Trump administration.
■ Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner’s brother has donated $50,000 to the March 24 gun-control rally March for Our Lives.
Oops. Deputy White House press secretary Raj Shah says that, if the 2016 Trump campaign colluded with Russia, the president would have known. Could be a problem for the president if special counsel Bob Mueller comes up with evidence someone on Team Trump did collude …
■ Privately, White House administrators have scolded Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Housing Secretary Ben Carson, Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin and EPA chief Scott Pruitt over embarrassing ethical lapses.
■ In a 60 Minutes interview last night, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos appeared to be uneducated about her job.
■ Newsweek: For the price of Trump’s planned Veterans Day military parade, the U.S. could feed every homeless veteran for at least two weeks.
‘Ten months I’ve waited to do that joke!’ Announcing her comeback after that infamous photo showing her holding Donald Trump’s head, Oak Park native Kathy Griffin joked to Bill Maher that if she could revisit that moment, “I’d do Mike Pence.”
■ As the sun set on WLUP-FM 97.9, Steve Dahl’s ex-partner, Garry Meier, remained MIA.
‘Yeah, they were hilarious.’ Meet the Press host Chuck Todd wasn’t buying Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s defense of the president’s insulting words for Todd at a campaign rally over the weekend.
■ Columbia Journalism Review’s Pete Vernon: Trump’s attacks on journalists are boring … and dangerous.
■ NPR reports the chief digital executive of the Chicago Tribune’s parent company, Tronc, has a history of large expenses and lavish parties—and persuading his employers to acquire his friends’ startups.
Corrections and announcements.
■ The daylight saving time image in Friday’s Chicago Public Square was wrong: The arrow pointed the wrong way.
■ OpenTable should have been one word in the subject line.
■ Reader Sandy Lentz noted an s missing from the word “means” in the phrase, “Her lawsuit indicates the Trump campaign broke election laws and means …”
■ Most popular link by far in Friday’s Square? This one.
■ Happy National Support Chicago Public Square Day.