Chicago Public Square—website, email and podcasts—will always be free. That’s because of The Legion of Public Squarians, whose support keeps this thing coming. You can join them, for just a few cents an issue. And now, the news:
■ Pulitzer-worthy satire from The Onion: “U.S. Claims Drone Was Minding Own Business On Its Way To Church When Iran Attacked It Out Of Nowhere” and “Bolton Argues War With Iran Only Way To Avenge Americans Killed In Upcoming War With Iran” and “Chuck Schumer: ‘The American People Deserve A President Who Can More Credibly Justify War With Iran.’”
Want to watch next week’s Democratic presidential debates? CNN’s Brian Stelter explains you’ll have a hard time not seeing them.
■ Candidate Elizabeth Warren, who plans a free town hall meeting at Roosevelt University next Friday, says she’d outlaw private prisons and detention facilities.
■ The Washington Post: “Joe Biden is desperate to change the subject.”
■ Politico: What if Trump refuses to leave office?
‘Real reporters don’t ask for a statement or if a news subject has anything to say.’ The Beachwood Reporter’s Steve Rhodes critiques TV reporters’ encounters with Chicago Ald. Carrie Austin in the hours after her office was raided by the FBI.
■ Despite the raid, Cook County Board President and Democratic Party Chairwoman Toni Preckwinkle has been undecided on whether to keep Austin as vice chairwoman.
A reminder that when the announcer says Stephen Colbert’s show is ‘live on tape,’ it’s neither ‘live’ nor on ‘tape.’ The much-hyped interview with Mayor Lightfoot scheduled for Thursday night has been put off until tonight.
■ At a meeting of the Chicago Police Board she once headed, Mayor Lightfoot declared the city’s mental health services for its police officers are “woefully inadequate.”
■ Trib columnist Eric Zorn: Remember when the CTA’s Ventra card was a daily pain?
‘We have had no summer yet.’ An ice-cream truck vendor is just one of many people whose Chicago-area businesses are suffering because of the cold, wet weather.
■ Illinois’ official state insect is in jeopardy because the only plant it can lay its eggs on is disappearing.
■ A Sun-Times editorial: As the Trump administration promotes polluting coal energy, “Illinois must move ahead on its own energy legislation to move the state away from fossil fuels.”
‘I had never in my life encountered that kind of hostility.’ ExxonMobil’s Joliet Refinery faces two sex-discrimination lawsuits, including one filed by a woman who blames harassment for a fall and concussion that cost her her job.
■ WGN-TV reporter Marcella Raymond discusses the post-traumatic stress disorder engendered by her coverage of Chicago mayhem: “It was like one murder one day, one murder the next day, a fire one day and a fire the next day.”
‘If you’re sick and tired of Ticketmaster’s hidden fees …’ Consumer Reports is launching a campaign to press Ticketmaster to stop adding those fees …
■ … on tickets to things like the Rolling Stones’ Chicago shows tonight and Tuesday.
■ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg reluctantly has tickets to the second show: “Jagger should start the show saying, ‘Our new stuff is crap, but don’t worry, we won’t play any.’”
‘An audio-first world.’ The CEO of iHeartRadio, Bob Pittman*, hails a new study that concludes millennials are listening to more audio than any other generation …
■ … but relentless use of mobile phones may be triggering development of hornlike spikes at the back of users’ skulls.
■ If you’re gonna listen to something, you could do worse than the Chicago Public Square Podcasts.
* Remembered by some in Chicago as an upstart program director at a pioneering FM station in the ’70s.
