Passive, aggressive. President Trump seemingly declined House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s handshake before his State of the Union address, and then—when he was done—she pointedly ripped up her copy of his speech …
■ … telling reporters afterward, “It was a manifesto of mistruths.”
■ Chicago-born George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley accuses Pelosi of “one of the lowest moments” in House history.
■ The Daily Beast’s Rick Wilson—a Republican political strategist—calls Trump’s address “A Bataan Death March of Bullsh*t.”
■ Washington Post reporter Ashley Parker saw “a more subdued version of one of his raucous campaign rallies” …
■ … but Trump also clearly was courting black voters.
■ He didn’t say “impeachment.”
■ Mayor Lightfoot, who was in the audience, called the address “offensive.”
Checking up. The New York Times fact-check finds the president “exaggerated and inaccurately portrayed elements of his record.”
■ PolitiFact: A mix of half-truths and falsehoods.
■ NBC News says the president got it wrong when he condemned “sanctuary cities” like Chicago.
■ USA Today video captures five of the speech’s most unusual moments in a minute-and-a-half …
■ Before his address, The Daily Beast reports, “Trump Had America’s Top TV News Anchors Over for Lunch—and Ate Them Alive” …
■ … and not one of them protested his decision to exclude CNN.
Impeachment finale. Updating coverage: The Senate was poised today to render a verdict.
■ The Tribune’s Mary Schmich convenes the Adam Schiff Appreciation Society.
■ The Trib editorial board: Still not too late to censure Trump.
Paper cuts. Iowa’s caucusterf__k inspired basically the same joke from late-night hosts Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah (at 15:15).
■ The final results still weren’t in as of Square’s email publication deadline …
■ … but Joe Biden’s poor showing suggests his campaign is in trouble.
■ Neil Steinberg: “A Trump-Sanders matchup … would mesh with the nightmare quality of our political moment.”
■ A Boston Globe editorial: Iowa and New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation customs must die.
■ Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown is not excited about the prospect of making Illinois’ primary first.
Closing time. Macy’s says it’s going to shutter about one in five of its stores—and lay off thousands.
■ The Wall Street Journal: The Justice Department is putting the squeeze on Google.
■ Those smart light bulbs may threaten your WiFi network security.
‘A loss for Chicago.’ Johnny Lee Davenport, an acclaimed Chicago-bred Shakespearean actor well remembered for delivering “one of the most Chicago of lines about a Chicago icon in one of the most Chicago of movies” is dead at 69.
■ His late-in-life passion: A one-man show portraying the first African-American Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall (2018 link).
Revisiting Chicago’s ‘epic disaster.’ TV critic Aaron Barnhart reviews a documentary about 1995’s killer heatwave—showing this month on WTTW-Ch. 11.
■ A shovelable amount of snow could fall on Chicago beginning this afternoon.
■ Lake Michigan’s rising water levels broke a 30-year record in January.
■ The Los Angeles Times: How recycling culture made America more wasteful.
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Thanks to Mike Braden for spotting a vestigial apostrophe—since zapped—above.