… Aaaaand we’re back. Miss Square these last few days? Read on to learn how you can help keep it coming. And now the news:
Illinois’ ‘crucial’ role. Unlike many presidential election years, Politico’s Shia Kapos explains, 2020 could give the state’s voters a big say in picking the Democratic nominee.
■ The Chicago Public Square voter guide is back to help you make the right calls.
■ A Sun-Times editorial urges you to beware sham candidates.
■ Bloomberg’s past keeps yielding remarks that could haunt his campaign. (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
■ The Onion: “Bloomberg Hires Thousands Of Canvassers To Stop Black Men On Street And Force Them To Hear Campaign Pitch.”
■ PolitiFact has been running Bloomberg’s and other candidates’ words through a Stump Speech Analyzer.
■ In Nevada, Joe Biden characterized a voter’s critical question this way: “What the hell’s the matter with your campaign?” … and then didn’t answer.
■ Comedy is headed back to the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner: A Saturday Night Live cast member will host.
Judicial emergency. An independent national association of federal judges has called an urgent meeting today to discuss the crisis embroiling President Trump’s Justice Department.
■ Now that Attorney General William Barr has agreed to appear before the House Judiciary Committee next month, the Just Security blog offers 37 questions for lawmakers and journalists to ask him.
CTA safety push. Chicago police are readying new anti-crime initiatives for the city’s buses, trains and stations.
■ They report “good leads” after a shooting left one dead and two wounded in the pedestrian tunnel linking the Red and Blue Lines at Jackson.
■ The Tribune’s Mary Wisniewski offers five do’s and three don’ts to be safe on mass transit.
■ Across the country, a push is on to make mass transit free.
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‘Ms. Trauss was for anything and everything, so long as it was built tall and fast and had people living in it.’ A housing activist pokes holes in communities’ resistance to new construction—contending, as The New York Times explains, “the people who would eventually live in the buildings … couldn’t argue their side.”
■ The inventory of U.S. homes for sale is the smallest it’s been in at least a decade.
Scouts’ dishonor. Battered by hundreds of sex-abuse lawsuits, Boy Scouts of America is filing for bankruptcy protection.
■ So is the Pier 1 home goods chain.
Bezos bucks. Amazon’s founder is pledging $10 billion to address what he calls Earth’s greatest threat: The global climate crisis …
■ … the second-largest philanthropic donation of all time …
■ … but his own employees’ group, Amazon Employees For Climate Justice, is not impressed.
■ Walmart workers tell The Washington Post they’re bracing for job cuts.
Proper Good is a Chicago Public Square advertiser.