Epstein, Barr, virus.
■ Updating coverage: The precise circumstances of financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s death await the release of an autopsy.
■ Attorney General William Barr—who has several personal ties to Epstein—has assigned the Justice Department’s inspector general to figure out how Epstein died in federal custody after having been on suicide watch. (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
■ … and Donald Trump helped.
■ Poynter: The Epstein case should prompt journalists to report more on jail suicides—the leading cause of inmate deaths.
■ The Wall Street Journal: Epstein’s brother’s wealth is also a mystery.
■ Updating coverage: The Trump administration is making one of its harshest moves yet to limit legal immigration.
■ Updated count: Trump’s made at least 12,019 false or misleading claims since taking office.
■ The president’s former communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, says the Republican Party should consider replacing Trump on the 2020 ticket.
■ The Onion: “[Park Ridge-based] Koch Foods CEO Applauds Immigrant Arrests As Consequence Of Illegally Accepting Job At Koch Foods.”
■ True fact: Koch Foods paid $3.75 million to settle a lawsuit complaining that supervisors “touched and/or made sexually suggestive comments” to female Hispanic employees.
‘If you can make it to the emergency department, you’re more likely to live in 2019 than you were in 1982, so technology has increased on that side, but also gun lethality has increased as well.’ A Northwestern University researcher studying U.S. gun massacres predicts at least four more before the year’s up.
■ Among close to 50 people shot across Chicago over the weekend: An 8-year-old girl wounded at a barbecue.
A ‘life-saving law.’ Gov. Pritzker has signed a bill requiring public schools to teach LGBTQ history.
■ Illinois is one of just a few states that
■ Presidential candidate Michael Bennet: “I would rather have free preschool … than free college in this country.”
Targeted. If you used an ATM at the State Street Target store, your debit or credit card may have been compromised.
■ ZDNet’s Jason Cipriani is documenting his experience with Apple’s evolutionary new credit card.
■ Apple is offering $1 million to anyone who can hack an iPhone.
Airport paralysis. Thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators shut down Hong Kong’s airport.
■ China’s government ominously labeled the protest something approaching “terrorism.”
Looking down. It’s Manhole Cover Monday on Twitter.
■ Someone dropped a mattress onto the sidewalk in the West Loop overnight—missing a pedestrian.
News news. The reader- and foundation-supported local news startup Block Club Chicago now has more than 8,000 paid subscribers, enabling the hiring of three new full-timers.
■ A deal to merge the nation’s two biggest newspaper chains may not happen after all.■ On this date in 2008, Reader media critic Michael Miner was taken aback—and then not so much so—by an email newsletter that didn’t point just to its parent organization’s web pages …
■ … a notion that lives on at Chicago Public Square—the Switzerland of Chicago-area news—which you can support here.