■ … to become the nation’s largest operator of local TV stations …
■ … if the FCC approves.
■ Media critic Robert Feder: Nexstar’s board of directors includes Chicagoan Dennis FitzSimons, the then-Tribune Co. chairman who presided over the company’s decline* into The Deal from Hell. (That’s a 2011 link.)
■ Meanwhile, a new conservative media alliance is taking shape.
Chicagoist (p)reborn. Chance the Rapper is teasing his relaunch of a beloved Chicago website with Hannibal Buress and a bunch of puppets satirically (but educationally) explaining what an alderman does.
■ The Tribune’s Nina Metz calls the video “a hell of a start.”
■ The Trib explains why so many mayoral candidates have little to say about the feds’ raid on powerful alderman Ed Burke’s offices.
This means war. The Chicago mayoral campaign is getting real: Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle plans to challenge thousands of signatures on State Comptroller Susana Mendoza’s petitions.
■ Among the almost two dozen candidates: 87-year-old “Grandma Clark.”
■ Where candidates stand on contender Bill Daley’s call to consider taxing the earnings of non-Chicagoans who work in Chicago.
■ The latest numbers on an experiment with dockless bike-sharing suggests it wasn’t as popular in poorer neighborhoods as some had hoped.
■ Esquire’s Charlie Pierce: “He could have stood up … against the rising, brainless fanaticism that entered the Republican Party. … There is no evidence that he ever did.”
■ Jon Allsop in the Columbia Journalism Review: “It is ironic … the press glossed over Bush’s failures and flaws when so many of them track closely with recent developments in our politics.” (Cartoon: Keith Taylor.)
■ The Tribune’s Dahleen Glanton says Donald Trump may be worse than Richard Nixon: “Nixon knew he was a crook and kept his family away from his corrupt activities.”
Happy birthday, Illinois. The state turns 200 today …
■ … but the celebration ain’t gonna be all that.
Split quick. Divorce in your future? Do it this month or lose the alimony deduction.
■ The U.S. divorce rate is way down—but that seemingly good news obscures bad news about the economy.
■ U.S. abortion rates are at an all-time low.
Apologies.
■ Sorry about that accidental email re-send Friday of Monday’s corrected edition of Square. (Lesson learned: Don’t turn the MailChimp campaign back on until you have new stuff.)
■ And sorry about last week’s unscheduled Square hiatus for personal reasons. We’re good to go again.
* During an era in which your Chicago Public Square publisher worked for Tribune Co.