'Please ignore him' / 'A recipe for disaster' / 'Truly sorry'

‘Please ignore him.’ Gizmodo rips into President Trump for floating “the potentially dangerous idea of injecting disinfectant” into coronavirus patients.

Wonkette’s Evan Hurst pleads with Fox News viewers: “DO NOT INJECT YOURSELF WITH BLEACH OR WINDEX.” (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
A pulmonologist warns, “It’s a common method that people utilize when they want to kill themselves.”
Lysol: “Under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body.”
Experts decry Trump’s continuing grasp for miracle cures.
Watch his adviser Dr. Deborah Birx’s body language as Trump rattled on about science he doesn’t understand.
CNN’s Brian Stelter sees two fronts in public health experts’ war: Fighting the virus and countering “Trump’s misleading and mindless statements.”
Trump to a Washington Post reporter who challenged his grasp of science: “I’m the president and you’re fake news.”
The Onion:Potentially Promising COVID-19 Vaccine Hits Roadblock After Testing Reveals It’s Just Shotgun.”

He was for it before he was against it. Trump and Vice President Pence repeatedly endorsed Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s widely condemned plan to reopen his state—until Trump told reporters, “I disagree strongly with his decision.”
Noting the coronavirus’ elevated mortality rate among black people, black political leaders see Kemp’s plan, which today allows the reopening of close-contact businesses like barbershops and nail salons—communal gathering places for many in the community—as an attack.
The Post: The coronavirus crisis spells the end for many church congregations.

‘What Trump does not talk about.’ The New Yorker’s Susan B. Glasser notes a glaring shortcoming in the president’s daily dinnertime bloviations: He “never seems to find time to pay tribute to those who have been lost” …
 … a death toll close to 50,000 now in the U.S. alone.

Is Chicago Public Square worth 25¢ a day …

‘We really have no dry goods.’ Food banks in Chicago and across the nation are sounding the alarm about shortages as hunger grows.
Economists to Politico: Shutdowns at meat-packing plants foretell shortages of pork, chicken and beef within a month.

‘A recipe for disaster.’ The CTA’s ridership has dwindled to mostly just essential workers and the homeless.
Tribune columnist Eric Zorn: Even hospitals not flooded with coronavirus patients are struggling.
A WBEZ investigation spotlights Chicago nursing homes’ “dire work conditions and a lack of transparency about outbreaks.”

The masks of May. Gov. Pritzker’s extending his stay-home order through the end of next month and requiring masks be worn in public places where people can’t keep their distance.
Mayor Lightfoot’s launched a task force to plan for the city’s eventual reemergence from the pandemic.
Derailed Wednesday, Lightfoot’s plan to sanctify her emergency powers in the pandemic goes back before the Chicago City Council in a virtual meeting you can watch on the web this afternoon at 1.

Plague diary. A University of Arizona history prof revisits a log kept through London’s 17th Century bubonic plague and finds “striking resemblances” to this 21st Century pandemic.
Wired has assembled an oral history of March 11 (this year), the day everything changed.

‘We shouldn’t be punished up here because we’re not stepping over dead bodies.’ A Chicago alderman is outraged by new Police Supt. David Brown’s decision to shift dozens of cops from North and Northwest Side neighborhoods to the more troubled West Side.
In the face of privacy and discrimination concerns, the Cook County Board has punted on a plan to give 911 dispatchers—and the first responders they coordinate—the names and addresses of known coronavirus patients.
Want to be elected? The coronavirus has triggered big breaks for people who want to get on Illinois’ November ballot as third-party candidates.

‘Truly sorry.’ Trib columnist John Kass is apologizing for writing in Thursday’s paper—days after his colleagues were hit by companywide furloughs, salary cuts and staff cuts—that “cultural elites” in media “are doing just fine during the coronavirus shutdown.”
A Sun-Times editorial: “We haven’t had to make emergency cuts like that,” partly because the paper’s getting $2.7 million from the government’s Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses.
Updating coverage: The president’s set to sign a plan to pump another nearly $500 billion in coronavirus relief into the economy.

Saturday Night (not very) Live. The show will be back tomorrow with a second “at-home” episode.
CNN’s adopting a new Alicia Keys song, Good Job, as the theme for a series celebrating ordinary people rising to the challenges of the pandemic.
Chicago jazz keyboard maestro Ramsey Lewis plans a livestream concert for 1 p.m. Saturday.
FitzGerald’s Nightclub delivers another Facebook Live-from-the-streets performance Saturday (rescheduled: Sunday) with power-pop singer/guitarist Phil Angotti playing music from the back of a roving truck.

… or maybe Square’ s worth 50¢ a day?

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