Walkouts ‘in every state.’ Updating coverage: Students were planning protests for tougher gun laws today, the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre.
■ Chicago-area walkouts were set to begin at 10 a.m.
■ The Tribune’s Heidi Stevens: “My daughter’s walking out of school today, and I couldn’t be more proud.”
■ The Washington Post: More than 206,000 students have experienced gun violence at school since Columbine.
■ At a Florida high school this morning, at least one person was shot and another was in custody.
■ A Columbine survivor who attended Columbia College has made a documentary about her classmates.
■ In Chicago, a survivor of the Parkland, Florida, massacre told suburban students: “We just held each other.”
■ How April 20 also became a holiday for marijuana aficionados.
■ Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg marks Hitler’s birthday by talking to the Nazi running for Congress from the Chicago area as a Republican and is reminded that Hitler referred to himself as a “world historic genius.”
■ A Tribune editorial: What voters need to know about Brown.
■ Black Lives Matter leader Ja’Mal Green is also in the race.
■ CNN: The biggest Black Lives Matter page on Facebook is fake.
‘Do not vote to approve the Obama center.’ Chanting activists pushing for more community benefits from the Obama Presidential Center on the South Side were kicked out of a meeting yesterday.
■ The landmark Chicago Jewelers building—designed by Adler and Sullivan—has been sold to developers who plan a renovation including a hotel.
■ He’s running against Bruce Rauner, not J.B. Pritzker: His declaration video mentions Rauner several times—and Pritzker not once.
■ … as heard in the latest Chicago Public Square Newscast.
‘America’s mayor’ steps up. Rudy Giuliani is joining Trump’s depleted legal defense team.--… but the real legal news, The Atlantic says, was Trump’s hiring of another couple of lawyers.
■ Trump’s divorce lawyer suggests fear of prison rape will motivate his lawyer, Michael Cohen, to cooperate with prosecutors.
■ The New Yorker’s Andy Borowitz: “Trump Hires Only Lawyer in U.S. with Fewer Clients Than Michael Cohen.” (Cartoon: Keith Taylor.)
Starbucks’ loss, McDonald’s gain? The negative publicity following the arrest of two innocent black men at a Philadelphia Starbucks creates an opportunity for McDonald’s.
■ The victims say they “want to make sure it doesn’t happen to anybody again.”
■ The Onion’s commentary on Starbucks’ pledge of racial bias training for its workers: “The black community has struggled for centuries to win a public-relations band-aid like this.”
■ The Tribune’s Dahleen Glanton: “A barista working behind a coffee counter has the power to make us hold it until our bladder nearly bursts.”
■ The company takes its name from Tolkien’s seeing-stones, like the one used by the evil Sauron.
■ RedEye’s guide to Chicago’s vinyl-oriented events Saturday.
■ Seven Earth Day activities for Chicago families.
‘Why must newspaper websites suck so damn much?’ A CityLab analysis explains.
■ … and indirectly justifies making Chicago Public Square (“no popup videos, no intrusive ads”) your new front page.
■ Fired FBI Director James Comey’s newly leaked memos about his fateful meetings with Trump reveal the president’s interest in jailing journalists.
■ Read Comey’s memos here.
Note to self: Easy on the cold medication. Yesterday’s Chicago Public Square was rife with errors, spotted as ever by alert readers:
■ John R. McClelland noted that a 2016 incident involving a Southwest Airlines engine did not then break a window on the jet.
■ Mike Braden identified redundancy in that item: “A similar accident also punctured a window in a similar incident …” and a subject-verb agreement issue in the phrase “efforts to reform Chicago Public Schools’ special education programs suffers a lack of regular and comprehensive training for staff.”■ Your support for Square encourages more careful proofreading. Chip in a few cents a day, why don’tcha?
