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■ The numbers behind their reporting.
■ They want to hear from you if you know of someone struggling with an addiction to video gambling. (Illustration: David Alvarado, ProPublica.)
Preckwinkle dodges. In the first of three panels gathering Chicago mayoral candidates before the Tribune editorial board, Toni Preckwinkle weaseled past questions about how
■ See the full session on Facebook.
■ The Beachwood Reporter’s Steve Rhodes watched: “Bill Daley: I still can’t figure out why exactly he wants this job. … All I can say is, please don’t let this happen, Chicago.”
■ The next batch of candidates was to meet with the Trib editorial board at Square’s email publication deadline, 10 a.m.
■ At a Pilsen forum, the candidates shared their plans for improving Chicago transit.
■ Candidate Paul Vallas calls a lawsuit over his campaign’s annoying and unsolicited text messages to voters “a dirty trick.”
■ PolitiFact rates Preckwinkle’s campaign-ad claim she played a big role in exposing the deadly police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald “half true.”
Furlough freebies. A growing collection of organizations is offering federal employees who aren’t getting paid during the government shutdown things like free lunches and temporary jobs.
■ The typical fed worker is out $5,000 so far.
■ The Intercept: Why Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t just end the shutdown.
■ The Sun-Times’ Phil Kadner says the shutdown isn’t painful enough and so wants a law: “If we’re ever going to shut down any part of the government to make a political point, we shut it all down.”
■ House Speaker Pelosi is asking President Trump to postpone his State of the Union address until after the Union has, you know, a budget.
■ New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand announced her presidential candidacy on Stephen Colbert’s show.
Don’t say Trump never gave you anything. His “hamberders” typo on Twitter made merriment for many.
■ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg: “Ancient Romans knew how to handle Twitter better than we do.”
Funny thing. A day after T-Mobile announced a merger that would require Trump administration approval, The Washington Post reports, nine T-Mobile execs had reservations at a Trump hotel.
■ After a Motherboard investigation that found customers’ location data being trafficked on the black market, Sprint is the latest company to say it’ll stop selling that data.
■ Tempted to join that “10-year challenge” on Facebook—sharing photos of yourself then and now? Wired has reasons you might want to think twice about that.
‘White nationalism lost.’ The New York Times’ David Leonhardt analyzes a federal court ruling blocking a Trump administration plan “designed to intimidate Latinos—both legal and illegal—into not responding to the census.”
■ The Democratic National Committee is dropping its sponsorship of the Women’s March after one of
■ Why, after 20 years, are all of R. Kelly’s chickens only now coming home to roost? The Trib’s Steve Johnson talks to the Chicago reporter arguably most responsible.
Worrisome warmth. Earth’s oceans were hotter last year than during any other year on record.
■ Mother Jones: “The Next Likely EPA Chief Has Almost Completed His Former Coal Client’s Wish List.”
■ The shutdown is crippling climate science research.
■ Tedium revisits the chlorophyll craze of the 1950s.
Apology. Yesterday’s Square linked to a five-year-old article about the dangers of privately owned mapping services like Google’s and Apple’s—but neglected to note the piece’s age.
Thanks … to reader Mike Braden for helping to clarify the item above about the Women’s March. (Updated 10:30 a.m.)