Who’ll pay? The Tribune lets you search by ZIP code to learn which Illinois residents would see their tax burdens rise under a plan to adopt a graduated income tax.
■ Metra’s talking to the CTA, Cook County and Pace about cutting fares on the Metra Electric District and Rock Island train lines, which connect downtown to the South Side and the south suburbs.
‘I condemn this unauthorized posting.’ The president of the Illinois Republican County Chairman’s Association is apologizing for a satiric Facebook assault on the four Democratic congresswomen known as “The Squad” …
■ … a post the Cook County Democratic Party calls “racist and inflammatory.”
■ Fox News host Geraldo Rivera, who’s considered President Trump a friend, says Trump’s attacks on the congresswomen make defending him “impossible.”
■ One member of “The Squad,” Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley, grew up in Chicago (February link).
■ The Trib’s Dahleen Glanton: When Democrats “air their ideological dirty laundry in public,” they hand Trump “an invaluable gift.”
‘Absolutely.’ Ex-Sen. Al Franken
■ Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, among the first to predict 2008’s financial meltdown, says “warning lights are flashing” for a repeat.
■ Mother Jones: “The Untold Story of the Progressive Insurgency That Is Remaking Congress.”
Country radio listeners won’t hear an interview with presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg. It was killed by programming execs at Cumulus Media …
■ … which owns Chicago stations WLS-AM (home of blowhards Mancow Muller and Rush Limbaugh), WLS-FM and WKQX-FM.
■ Media watchdog Robert Feder: Dallas-based Nexstar Media could take over Chicago’s WGN-TV and Radio within weeks.
‘Political sycophancy.’ An ABC News reporter’s groveling tweet thanking Trump for taking reporters’ questions has triggered an avalanche of criticism …
■ … and a defense by her husband, a Fox News reporter.
■ The widow of a journalist killed in a gunman’s attack on the Annapolis Capital Gazette is working to finish his life’s work.
Heat deaths. The Cook County medical examiner’s office says the weekend weather claimed at least two lives in Chicago.
■ Now, beware 7-foot waves along the Lake Michigan shoreline.
■ Scientists plan an unveiling next month for a plaque honoring Iceland’s first glacier lost to the climate crisis.
Why— why … that’s almost $4.70 per person! Equifax, whose sloppy data security exposed the Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and—in some cases—credit card and driver’s license numbers of nearly 150 million people, has agreed to a settlement worth up to $700 million …
■ … and by one count, it’s more like just $4 per victim.
■ How you’d be able to collect.
A better Butterfinger. The Trib reports that, after a recipe revamp under new Chicago-based leadership, sales of the candy bar are up for the first time in years.
■ A new documentary dives into Chicago’s history as the world’s candy capital.
Is Chicago Public Square worth $5 a month?The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians—including a cohort of people whose names begin with J, like Jeff Hanneman, Jeff Weissglass, Jeffery Angevine, Jeffrey Langer, Jennifer McGeary, Jennifer Packheiser, Jerry Delaney, Jerry Role, Jill Chukerman, Jim Grimes, Jim Kelly, Jim Peterson, Jim Prescott, Joan Berman, Joanne Rosenbush, JoBeth Halpin, Joe Hass, Joe McArdle, John Culver, John Iltis, John McClelland, John Messina, Joseph Lynn, Joseph Pesz, Joseph Sjostrom, Judy Hoffman, Judy Sherr, Julia Gray and Julia Winn—thinks so. Especially if your name starts with K, now’d be a great time to join ’em here.
■ And thanks to reader Mike Braden, first to report a redundancy in the Franken item and a comma missing from the Equifax item above.