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Dead ends’ dead ends. The Tribune’s scorecard for the Chicago Police Department: Three weeks after Chicago’s most violent weekend of 2018—75 shootings—only one person has been charged.
■ A second man’s been convicted in the 2013 murder of 15-year-old honor student Hadiya Pendleton.
‘You do have to wonder about that neighbor.’ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg reflects on the case of someone who called the cops on the parents of an 8-year-old Wilmette girl walking her dog around the block.
■ State Attorney General Lisa Madigan is pressing the Chicago Archdiocese to account for priests with Illinois connections among about 300 accused of molesting more than 1,000 children in Pennsylvania.
‘It’s not who I want to be.’ A celebrated new member of the White Sox has deleted racist and homophobic tweets …
■ … which reminds us of the by-far-most-clicked item in yesterday’s Chicago Public Square.
■ An ESPN morning show host says she’s stopped watching football.
New Metra stop? The Trib reports the Fulton Market district may be in line for its first commuter rail station.
■ Carson’s remaining department stores are set to close for good by Aug. 31.
■ Two more Sears and Kmart stores in Illinois are closing.
■ It’s five years in prison for ex-government contractor Reality Winner, convicted of leaking to reporters details of a voting system cyberattack that The Intercept in 2017 called “the most detailed U.S. government account of Russian interference in the [2016] election that has yet come to light” …
■ … but Trump complained on Twitter: “This is ‘small potatoes’ compared to what Hillary Clinton did!”
■ A presidential tweet is drawing praise from ex-KKK leader David Duke.
■ Porn performer Stormy Daniels’ lawyer in her case against the president, Michael Avenatti, is in Chicago—a surprise visitor to the Democratic National Committee summer summit—and talking about running for president himself.
■ The Manhattan district attorney’s office is reportedly weighing criminal charges against The Trump Organization—the president’s personal business—and two people in the company’s senior management, which includes two of the president’s sons.
■ Of note: The president’s power to pardon doesn’t extend to state crimes.
‘Infuriating. Outrageous.’ The Trib’s Eric Zorn says stories about GoFundMe campaigns to help sick people demonstrate how U.S. health care has “turned hundreds of thousands of Americans into beggars rattling their digital tin cups.”
■ Parker Molloy in Media Matters: Journalism’s “obsession with uplifting stories” obscures healthcare horror.
Hawaii’s trial. The most intense hurricane on record ever to approach Hawaii so closely offers a preview of weather in a warmer world.
■ To benefit the environment, a suburban brewpub will charge patrons for water.
Corrections. Yesterday’s Square went out by email with (at least) two typos—an extra to and an errant present participle—both spotted by Square’s No. 1 goof-spotter, Mike Braden. If you beat Mike in reporting an error to Squerror@ChicagoPublicSquare.com, you can see your name here, too.
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