Charged up. Updating coverage: One of President Trump’s closest pals, Roger Stone, has been arrested—accused of lying to Congress and obstructing the special counsel’s Russia investigation.
■ Vox explains the arrest of Stone—a big fan of Richard Nixon.
■ Read the indictment, complete with a Godfather: Part II reference.
‘Be a snitch, a squealer, a rat.’ A Sun-Times editorial delivers a message to aldermen who see criminal conduct among their comrades.
■ Pulitzer-winning columnist Mark Konkol in Patch: “Our city needs to elect more snitches.”
■ The Beachwood Reporter’s Steve Rhodes mock-paraphrases City Council Rules Committee Chairman Michelle Harris on news that Ald. Danny Solis may have secretly recorded other aldermen: “I like to think we’re a family down here, and we work together to protect each other’s illegal schemes. So this really bums me out.”
■ Mayoral candidate Susana Mendoza has changed her mind about campaign cash she got from Solis.
■ The redeveloper of Chicago’s Old Main Post Office has been helping prosecutors build a corruption case against Ald. Ed Burke.
■ A Tribune editorial: “The taint of scandal is spreading.”
Ticketmasters. All of those still on Chicago’s mayoral ballot have committed to reforming the city’s vehicle ticketing system so it stops screwing low-income and minority residents.
■ ProPublica and WBEZ have created a Facebook group for people to share ticketing horror stories.
■ Candidate Toni Preckwinkle pledges to replace lead lines delivering water to Chicago homes.
■ Politico takes a microscope to one of Chicago’s most contested aldermanic races.
A fresh start? Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx says it’s time to legalize marijuana—and wipe the record clean for those convicted of pot misdemeanors.
■ See video of her speech yesterday to the City Club of Chicago.
‘When City Hall rubber-stamps projects that will forever change communities, the city loses.’ A Tribune editorial condemns the Chicago Plan Commission’s fast-track approval of the massive Lincoln Yards development for Lincoln Park and Bucktown.
■ Ald. Michelle Smith: “The last time a government body in this room was asked to make a similarly momentous and expensive decision in so little time was the parking meter deal.”
‘Sickening.’ The DuPage County state’s attorney says an elite volleyball academy director accused of videotaping kids “violated … the trust placed in him by the parents of the athletes.”
■ Florida’s elections chief has quit after a newspaper revealed photos of him in blackface at a 2005 party—dressed as a Hurricane Katrina victim.
Flying? Maybe not. The FAA blames the government shutdown for delays at major airports in the northeast.
■ How you can help those TSA workers not getting paid.
■ Mother Jones: “For the First Time, ‘People Are Having to Stand in Line to Get a Hot Plate of Food.’” (Cartoon: Keith Taylor.)
■ The New York Times: How House Speaker Nancy Pelosi bedevils the president.
The news biz plight. An outstanding historical perspective on all those reporter layoffs—as laid out by a Lehigh University prof … on Twitter.
■ Journalist Peter Hamby, writing in Vanity Fair, quotes MIT researcher Hossein Derakhshan: “The news might be dying, but journalism will not.”
■ Employees at Business Insider’s sibling site Insider have been banned from using Twitter next week.
■ Comedian Patton Oswalt ended a Twitter spat with an act of kindness.
■ Facebook plans to smoosh WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger into a single thing.
■ Reveal: How Facebook “duped game-playing kids and their parents out of money.”
Just don’t. The Trib’s Mary Schmich lists 8 things you must never, ever do when it’s really, really cold in Chicago.
■ Chicago’s weekend forecast: First cold and snow … and then really cold.
■ Robbers in downtown Chicago are taking people’s Canada Goose jackets.
Thanks …
■ … to Amy Savin Parker for inspiration this issue.
■ … to those who support Chicago Public Square for a few cents an issue. How about you?