Ring sting. Got one of Amazon’s Ring camera doorbells installed at your place? Under a plan one civil libertarian warns could turn “creepy,” the Chicago Police Department is close to gaining access to video they collect.
A lid on downtown pot? When recreational marijuana becomes legal in Illinois next year, Mayor Lightfoot is proposing to ban its sale in downtown Chicago …
■ … and her administration is considering a ban on its consumption in public places.
■ The City Council was to get the mayor’s proposals at today’s meeting, which you can watch on the web here.
Bad actor. Prosecutors accuse a Chicago high school theater teacher—who’s also affiliated with several theater companies—of sexually assaulting a student.
■ The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has opened 24 new investigations into sexual abuse by Catholic clergy.
■ The Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago says it’s paid about $200 million in recent decades to settle such cases.
■ New analysis concludes federal spending on kids last year dropped to its lowest level in a decade.
‘I have no obligation to be honest.’ President Trump’s former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was continually snotty in an appearance at the House Judiciary Committee’s first big hearing on impeachment.
■ Vox: Lewandowski’s 30-minute confrontation by House Democrats’ attorney, Barry Berke, suggests committee chair Jerry Nadler might be better off letting lawyers grill witnesses.■ See the whole exchange here. (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
■ Politico: The impeachment rift between Nadler and House Speaker Pelosi “is getting harder and harder to paper over.”
About that tweet … The New York Times reporter who co-wrote a new book on U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh confesses she wrote a widely condemned tweet (“Having a penis thrust in your face at a drunken dorm party may seem like harmless fun”) to promote the paper’s botched publication of an excerpt.
■ Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin says Republicans are enjoying this story …
■ … and he’s joining other Senate Democrats in backing away from a push to remove Kavanaugh from the court: “We’ve got to get beyond this ‘impeachment is the answer to every problem.’”
■ Chicago organizers of a Thunberg-inspired Global Climate Strike are calling on kids to walk out of class and gather in Grant Park at 11 a.m. Friday …
■ … and then at the Field Museum, where admission will be free.
Ladies and gentlemen, your commander-in-chief. Trump promises he’ll be “doing something” about the menace of homeless people living in “our best highways, our best streets, our best entrances to buildings.”
■ Satire (but it’s tough to tell) from The Onion: “Trump Confirms That It Was Iran Or Some Country Like That Behind Saudi Oil Attacks.”
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