Read the debate / Supreme block / Aide raid

Read the debate. NBC News has transcribed last night’s first Democratic presidential faceoff, sortable by topic.

The Washington Post has annotated that transcript …
 … and picked the losers—including Beto O’Rourke, who failed to provide a specific answer to a question about tax rates and instead served up “an apparently pre-rehearsed Spanish monologue.”
Poynter’s Tom Jones: The night’s biggest winner wasn’t one of the candidates.
Vox: The night put to rest Democrats’ longstanding avoidance of debate over gun regulation …
 … but they flubbed “the question that mattered most” …
 … and, The Atlantic says, they avoided the toughest questions about abortion …
 … but they devoted more time to climate than in all the 2016 debates combined.
Intelligencer assesses Elizabeth Warren’s “huge risk” when she raised her hand in answer to one question …
 … but Vox’s Matthew Yglesias says she demonstrated “she’s ready to compete with President Trump.”
Mother Jones explains the 1929 law at the heart of one of the night’s most heated exchanges.
Politico: Amy Klobuchar disrupted a mansplaining.
The Daily Beast calls it “The Night the White Guys Wouldn’t Stop Talking.”
 The Boston Globe’s tally: Who talked the most?
The Wall Street Journal boils down the candidates’ 45-second closing statements.
BuzzFeed News credits New York Mayor Bill de Blasio with “electrifying what had been a sleepy round of introductions and repeatedly pulling the conversation to the left.”
Columbia Journalism Review: Too many candidates, too many moderators.
How to watch tonight’s Round Two debate.

‘My friend got fired for spitting on a Trump.’ A GoFundMe page to raise money for a woman falsely claiming to be the person who spit on Eric Trump has nevertheless raised thousands of dollars.
The owners of the restaurant involved say that they’re not sure what happened, but that “no customer should ever be spit upon,” and they’ve “placed [the employee] on leave.”

Supreme block. Updating coverage: The Supreme Court has—at least for now—forbidden the Trump administration from asking a citizenship question on the 2020 census
 … after catching the administration in what seems to have been a lie about its motivation(Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
 Election reformers lost a round as justices ruled along ideological lines that federal courts have no role to play in policing the drawing of political maps for partisan gain.
Specifically, the court said, maps drawn by North Carolina Republicans and Maryland Democrats are constitutional despite their biased nature.

What you can do. The Tribune’s Rex Huppke offers some ways to help refugee migrant children.
Block Club Chicago: As shoppers fear deportation sweeps, business is plummeting along Chicago’s Hispanic Magnificent Mile, 26th Street.
Bank of America says it’s cutting ties with companies that run immigrant detention centers.
Employees of the Wayfair home furnishings company walked off the job to protest the company’s contract to supply a federal detention center near the border.
A.V. Club: “Things are so bad that f__king Highlights is speaking out against family separation.”

Aide raid. The feds have swept through the home of a former veteran operative for Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.
Mayor Lightfoot is considering another incursion on aldermen’s clout: Stripping them of power to pick their operational lieutenants, the ward superintendents.

This car. Police have released an image of the vehicle driven by the person who shot an off-duty police officer in the head early Wednesday …
 … and there’s a $10,000 reward for info leading to a conviction.
Police are also hunting the driver whose Range Rover struck and killed an 18-year-old man near Buckingham Fountain Tuesday night.

‘Deft and satisfying.’ Variety’s Owen Glieberman Gleiberman likes Spider-Man: Far From Home.
The Field Museum’s new exhibit, “Fantastic Bug Encounters!”, lets you hold a giant cockroach if you want.
Amazon will mark its Prime Day promotion with a live streaming concert headlined by Taylor Swift—for Prime members only.

Like Chicago Public Square? A few cents a day will help keep it coming for everyone.

Subscribe to Square.