Cubs ❤ Trump. The team’s co-owner, Todd Ricketts, is hosting an invitation-only pre-game reception for major donors to the Trump Victory Fund Saturday at Wrigley Field.
■ Among the event’s announced “special guests”: Todd’s fellow Ricketts and Cubs co-owner, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts …
■ … but, Rickettses aside, not a single Illinois Republican politician.
■ Politico: The Trump 2020 campaign still doesn’t have an Illinois fundraising chairman.
‘I don’t like the way that they are conducting themselves.’ Mayor Lightfoot took a rhetorical hatchet to the methods of developers behind a massive transit-oriented development proposed for near Soldier Field—condemning them for “absolutely” ignoring the area’s aldermen …
■ … even as she rolled out new ethical restrictions she wants imposed on aldermen.
■ Read her proposal in more detail.
■ The mayor’s off to California for “business and politics,” but she’s flying commercial …
■ … unlike her predecessor, Rahm Emanuel (2017 link), speaking of whom …
Emanuel’s next gig. He’s revealed he’s joining (surprise!) a Wall Street investment firm …
■ … prompting U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to burn him on Twitter.
■ The Reader’s Ben Joravsky sarcastically defends indicted Ald. Ed Burke: “If Mayor Rahm was dumb enough to throw millions to wealthy developers, a slimy shakedown artist like Burke would be dumb not to get himself $45,000 here or there.”
Judge dumped. Injustice Watch: Cook County’s elected Circuit Court judges have voted not to renew the appointment of an associate judge accused of making “insensitive, improper” remarks to people of color …
■ … the first time in at least 20 years a Cook County associate judge has lost a reappointment bid.
‘We apologize for any inconvenience.’ Jewel-Osco is among grocery stores removing Fairlife dairy products from their shelves after release of video showing mistreatment of animals at the Indiana farm of Fairlife’s parent company.
■ See the video (graphic animal abuse depicted) shared by the nonprofit Animal Recovery Mission.
■ Fairlife’s response.
Online sales taxes rising. New Illinois legislation stands to raise prices here effective Jan. 1.
■ Also awaiting the governor’s signature: A bill clarifying and asserting the legality of needle exchanges for heroin addicts.
■ Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown: “Whether you call it … earmarks or plain old-fashioned horse trading, it took a lot of sweeteners to get lawmakers on board Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s $45 billion state construction plan.”
Bank closings. U.S. Bank is expanding in the Sun Belt but abandoning more of its Chicago-area locations.
■ Crain’s has the list.
■ The new owner of the vast Oak Brook campus McDonald’s abandoned to return to Chicago is one of the founders of the House of Blues nightclub chain.
■ Ebony magazine’s photo archive—a broad and deep record of African-American history—is up for auction.
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