3 strikes.
■ A massive climate strike is on—around the world, across the U.S. and in Chicago—as people take to the streets demanding action to protect Earth’s environment, in a movement fronted by a 16-year-old girl.
■ As part of a historic action by nurses in four states, 2,200 University of Chicago Medical Center nurses left work this morning on a one-day strike … and the hospital’s response has been to lock them out for five days.
■ What the General Motors strike means for the country.
■ Vox: 5 questions about labor strikes you were too embarrassed to ask.
‘Nature is unraveling.’ New research concludes the bird population of the continental U.S. and Canada has shockingly fallen by more than 25% over the last half-century.
■ Updating coverage: Massive flooding from Tropical Storm Imelda left hundreds stranded and at least two dead in the Houston area …
■ … and brought an alligator into one couple’s home.
■ NBC News: The Trump administration ignored its own evidence of climate change’s impact on migration from Central America.
Trump-Biden-Ukraine-whistleblower connection. CNN’s Brian Stelter connects some of the dots in a still-mysterious complaint that President Trump said something very, very bad in a private conversation with a foreign leader.
■ But Trump tweets that, with whomever and about whatever it was, it was a “perfectly fine and respectful conversation.”
■ Twitter has deleted more than 10,000 accounts that it says have been spreading propaganda and sowing unrest.
A New York minute showing. New York’s mayor has abandoned a presidential bid that Vox says didn’t make much sense to begin with.
■ Kamala Harris has a high-powered Illinois leadership team.
■ Vox: Elizabeth Warren really has just one plan.
■ As of next month, you can ask Alexa to make a political contribution for you.
Toys R Chicago. Defunct retailer Toys R Us next month will return to life, sort of, on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue.
■ Amazon is staking
■ Tribune Media—the broadcast arm of what used to be Tribune Co., including WGN-TV and Radio—officially now has a new owner.
‘This is the same Wheaton College that in 2015 canceled its own students’ health insurance, on short notice, lest one of them use it to secure contraception under Obamacare.’ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg turns a skeptical eye on a First Amendment lawsuit filed against Chicago for keeping students from proselytizing in Millennium Park.
‘Unsettling information.’ The Trib’s Blair Kamin reviews the third Chicago Architecture Biennial, a free exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center, aiming to “upset the way you see the city.”
■ The exhibit includes a journalistic investigation contesting the official Chicago police report of a cop’s shooting and killing of a 37-year-old African American barber.
■ The Beachwood Reporter’s Steve Rhodes on some news organizations’ acceptance of travel expenses to cover the event (Item 4 in this link): “The coverage is being paid for by the covered. Tight newsroom budgets are no excuse for accepting this kind of arrangement.”
At Area 51, ‘hope and fear.’ Updating coverage: A happening that started as a joke was unfolding today outside a once-secret Nevada military base.
■ Its instigator has disavowed the whole thing.
Blackface day of amnesty? Responding to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s admission into the Embarrassing Blackface History Hall of Fame, The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah proposes one day when “those people who have a blackface photo … can put it online without getting canceled.”
■ Here’s a list of politicians with a history of blackface.
Thanks to a number of readers—including Pam Spiegel, Matt Baron and Michael Rosenbaum—for flagging a handful of typos in this edition.