No Chicago Public Square Monday, Labor Day. Please be here Tuesday.
Square comes to you free—unless you’re one of this thing’s generous supporters, who include Larry Montgomery, Laurie Huget, Leslie Sutphen, Lisa Krimen and Lora Engdahl. You can join them for just pennies a day here. And now the news:
■ Steve Rhodes in The Beachwood Reporter: “The Trib made a very bad call.”
■ Newly released bodycam video shows Chicago police shooting and killing an armed man running away.
■ The federal judge overseeing reforms at the Police Department has scheduled his longest-ever “fairness hearing” for public comment on the settlement.
‘Do I want to spend the next four years … at the beck and call of people that, otherwise, I wouldn’t be hanging around with?’ That question from a Chicago alderman suggests he’s leaning toward retirement from the City Council after 35 years, doesn’t it?
■ Ex-Gov. Pat Quinn has won a round in his campaign to limit Chicago mayors—including Rahm Emanuel—to two terms in office.
‘If I have to send in some investigators, I’ll do it.’ Gov. Rauner sounds kind of upset about reports of nepotism, patronage and infighting at the Illinois Tollway.
■ The Tribune’s Eric Zorn: Rauner “has squandered the right to be taken seriously when it comes to jobs.”
■ Illinois’ state treasurer tells the Trib he hasn’t spoken to Rauner since they were both sworn in three years ago.
■ An employee accuses a company owned by gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzker of union-busting.
‘Wherever God put him … I’m sure he’s right where he’s supposed to be.’ After the Joliet Diocese’s $1.4 million settlement of sexual abuse charges, one of the victims tells the Trib he’s relieved the priest involved is dead.
■ Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed condemns “the silence of a church ruled by men.”
■ Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich is retreating.
Anybody home? With potential replacements reluctant to endanger their reputations and risk legal exposure, President Trump’s allies are privately fretting about a White House brain-drain.
■ And this won’t help: Trump’s planning to cancel federal worker pay raises that had been scheduled to kick in next year.
‘I certainly don’t hate him.’ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg says readers misunderstand his attitude toward the president: “If Americans elected a dog as president, would you hate the dog?”
■ A Democratic candidate for Congress from Illinois says he regrets comparing Trump to bin Laden.
■ Conservative columnist Mona Charen asks whether Republicans “recognize how they have dishonored themselves.”
■ A Republican Pennsylvania county official referred to black NFL players who kneeled during the national anthem “over paid [sic] baboons.”
‘Shooting a great number of random people is a normal thing that a troubled person does.’ That’s the conclusion some researchers fear journalistic profiles of mass shooters help troubled people reach.
■ Police seized more than 20 guns and hundreds of rounds of ammo from the home of a man accused of threatening to kill Boston Globe reporters over the Globe’s leadership of a national newspaper campaign to condemn the president’s attacks on journalism.
■ NBC News rejects accusations it threatened to smear reporter Ronan Farrow if he kept investigating charges of sexual abuse by movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Is your hometown hotter now than when you were born? An interactive New York Times feature lets you type in a town and a year to see how things have changed.
■ NASA has discovered troubling bubbling lakes in the Arctic.
Dueling memorials, streamed live.
■ The star-studded funeral program for Aretha Franklin could last all day.
■ Sen. John McCain will be honored with a service at the Capitol, beginning at 10 a.m. Central. (Not invited: Sarah Palin.)
■ And jazz great (and former WNUA-FM colleague to your Square publisher) Ramsey Lewis delivers what may or may not be his last Chicago concert.
Microsofties. Companies that provide Microsoft’s subcontractors, like custodians, will have to guarantee those workers 12 weeks’ paid parental leave.
■ Apple’s set to roll out new iPhones Sept. 12.
Correction. Yesterday’s Square misspelled the first name of Sen. Lindsey Graham. And not one of you bothered to write about that. You’re slipping, gang. Remember: First person to spot a Square error and write to Squerror@ChicagoPublicSquare.com gets a shoutout right about here.