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■ Coincidentally, here’s Bloomberg today: “Perhaps a sign of things to come for American journalism … the future is never guaranteed and the hustle for donors never stops.”
… And now the news:
■ His father is a lawyer whose license had been suspended.
■ His mother is seven months pregnant.
■ Their bail: $5 million.
■ The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, which had been involved with the family since 2013, pledges “a comprehensive review … to understand our shortcomings.”
‘It would be hard to explain away.’ The Chicago Public Schools’ inspector general says the city’s charter schools seem to be underreporting incidents of sexual abuse.
■ Does your Chicago public school have a lousy principal? The Reader explores flaws in the disciplinary system. (Reader illustration.)
‘We smell a set-up.’ A Sun-Times editorial says the timing of the leak of a federal investigation into Gov. Pritzker’s toilet-removal tax-reduction scheme is curiously fortuitous for “powerful opponents … of a graduated income tax.”
■ The governor: “Any review of this will show that all the rules were followed.”
■ Pritzker’s going to the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Saturday in D.C.
■ Maryland’s governor is calling for Baltimore’s
Chicago’s ‘kitten season.’ The Tribune’s John Keilman reports an army of volunteers is trying new strategies to control the city’s population of feral cats.
■ LiveScience from 2013: The neutering of adopted cats, who tend to be the friendliest, may be reversing feline evolution—selecting for aloof cats.
■ The Atlantic in 2017: Cats used humans to conquer the world.
Suburban gas leak. Updating coverage: An early-morning Lake County ammonia spill sent dozens to hospitals and closed several schools.
■ Consumer advocates accuse Peoples Gas of using “propaganda” and bogus safety threats to justify an $11 billion modernization program inspired by last year’s deadly and catastrophic system failure in Boston.
Biden vs. Trump. Ex-VP Joe Biden’s launched his long-expected presidential campaign—portraying himself not as an elder statesman but as, in The Daily Beast’s words, “the toughest brawler” in a fight to pry the present occupant out of the White House.
■ Biden’s announcement video: “If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation.”
■ He quickly became the first announced Democratic candidate with the backing of more than one U.S. senator …
■ … and he’s inherited Obama’s coveted email list …
■ … but not a full Obama endorsement.
■ For Bernie Sanders yesterday at a group courting female voters of color: Groans.
Last letter from a Hitler acolyte. The Tribune’s Steve Johnson explains how some of the final words from Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels—written just before he and his wife killed their six children and committed suicide—ended up among the family papers of a Chicago-area health care consultant.
■ Newly digitized photos show Hitler at the brink of power, assembling his hateful team.
Alexa knows. Amazon employees familiar with the company’s voice-driven devices tell Bloomberg the team auditing the technology can not only hear users’ words to Alexa but also easily find a customer’s home address.
■ BuzzFeed News: Amazon sellers are paying $10,000 a month to trick their way to the top of the listings.
Paper or air? The Guardian documents “the surprisingly dirty fight for the right to dry your hands.”
■ The Onion: “Environmentalists Warn Swedish Fish Population Being Decimated By Great Pacific Sour Patch.”
But still in 4th place for Jeopardy! consecutive wins. Record-setting contestant and Illinois native James Holzhauer won again Wednesday.
■ His advantage over other players? He’s an experienced gambler: “I can write down $60,000 as the Final Jeopardy wager and not be trembling at the thought of losing that money.”
■ A Vulture quiz: Can you solve the Jeopardy!
■ The Naperville North student newspaper revisits Holzhauer’s days at the school: Scholastic Bowl, Math Team, Worldwide Youth in Science and Engineering, and Junior Engineering Technical Society (from April 16).
■ Tiger Woods’ balls are selling out.
Thanks … to reader Aaron Barnhart for catching words out of order in the Jeopardy! quiz item above.