Do you value Chicago Public Square? Help it thrive by sharing it with friends, inviting them to subscribe for free. And now the news:
‘It filters down.’ In a speech on the floor of the U.S. House, Chicago Congressman Luis Gutierrez drew a line from President Trump’s “bullying” and “bigotry” to the case of a drunken ignoramus now charged with a hate crime in his harassment of a woman wearing a Puerto Rican flag T-shirt.
■ Trump says protesters’ giant “Angry Trump Blimp Baby” makes him feel “unwelcome” in London during his U.K. visit.
■ Updating coverage of Trump’s travels.
■ Trump’s former Health and Human Services secretary is under orders to repay the government $341,000 for extravagant travel on the public dime.
■ An Ohio police chief says “a mistake was made” in the arrest of President Trump’s friend-turned-nemesis Stormy Daniels.
A ‘s__tshow of a hearing.’ The Daily Beast’s Rick Wilson—a Republican political strategist—says veteran FBI agent Peter Strzok’s televised testimony before Congress about his anti-Trump text messages “turned into a disaster for Republicans.”
■ Esquire’s Charlie Pierce calls it “the most embarrassing episode in representative democracy in 400 years.”
‘You tell me how he died, OK?’ A Cook County judge laid into the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services for a slow investigation into the fire death of a 3-year-old boy in foster care.
■ Neil Steinberg in the Sun-Times: Republicans “don’t mind if our government contributes to the death of babies, particularly babies who are darker skinned and in nations other than our own.”
Assessor depressor. Documents newly unleashed by a Tribune lawsuit spotlight shortcomings in soon-to-be-deposed Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios’ office—for instance, the revelation that more than a fifth of home values were adjusted during “hand reviews,” sometimes relying on commercial sites like Zillow.
■ The Trib’s Eric Zorn delivers “potty talk” to explain Gov. Rauner’s “Go Flush Yourself, J.B. Pritzker” ad campaign.
Green menace. More than 100 illnesses in Illinois and Indiana have been linked to McDonald’s salads.
■ Under legal fire, McDonald’s and other big fast-food companies have agreed to stop forbidding employees’ jumps from one franchise to another within the same chain.
‘Angry and fuming.’ The Build-a-Bear chain’s one-day sale proved so successful a lot of parents consider it a massive failure …
■ … and Chuck E. Cheese is piling on.
■ Business Insider: “Facebook won’t ban … a site that says 9/11 was staged and the moon landing was fake.”
■ Twitter’s purge of fake accounts has cost Justin Bieber, Barack Obama and Katy Perry millions of followers.
Chicago’s Musky scent. Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s brother plans to launch an urban farm in the Englewood neighborhood—near Whole Foods at 62nd and Green streets.
■ A critical Bloomberg cover story asks whether Elon Musk is focused on the right things.
A good day for Chicago. Lots of area ties in Thursday’s Emmy nominations.
■ Meet Chicago-born musician Boots Riley, whose dark political science fiction comedy Sorry to Bother You opens wide in movie theaters this weekend.
■ Chicago native Chaka Khan plays Pitchfork next weekend.
Correction. Incredibly, yesterday’s edition of Chicago Public Square got the name of The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians wrong.