'Despicable' / 'An unmitigated disaster' / Reader reduction

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‘Despicable.’ Mayor Lightfoot minced no words in condemning the killer of a 3-year-old boy Saturday night in the Austin neighborhood.
The weekend left at least 102 people shot in Chicago—14 fatally.
One was a 13-year-old girl.
A Tribune editorial: “Every day Chicago loses a young person … this city is shamed.”
The Sun-Times says Lightfoot’s summoned lawyers and community stakeholders to a meeting this afternoon to discuss reforms to the police presence in Chicago schools.
Sun-Times columnist—and, among many other notable roles over decades, a deputy press secretary to Mayor Harold Washington—Laura Washington condemns the Chicago Teachers Union for “that ugly tweet.”

West Side not the best side—in one way. Despite Lightfoot’s order that Chicago cops enforce stay-home orders equitably across the city during the pandemic, WTTW reports almost half of all dispersal orders during the shutdown happened on the city’s West Side.
See the city’s daily dashboard for things including confirmed cases, deaths and people tested.
More than two dozen states report COVID-19 surges.
Actor and comedian D.L. Hughley, who collapsed onstage in Nashville Friday, has tested positive for the coronavirus.

The new rules. Block Club Chicago runs down how things will be different now that Chicago’s 606 and Lakefront Trails are open again.
Friday brings Chicago to Phase Four of its reopening scheme, meaning revivals for indoor dining, museums, schools and the Lincoln Park Zoo—within limits.
Three weeks later, a downtown steakhouse is still boarded up.

‘I don’t think he’s fit for office.’ President Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, has launched the publicity blitz for a book about his 17 months in the Trump White House …
 … including an interview in which he tells ABC News history will remember Trump as “an aberration” for whom he says he will not vote … again.
But he also says he won’t vote Democratic.
Here’s the transcript of another Bolton sit-down.

‘An unmitigated disaster.’ That’s a Republican strategist’s assessment of President Trump’s Saturday night rally in Tulsa—for which teens, TikTok users and fans of Korean pop music are claiming credit.

John Oliver on Last Week Tonight: “There’s absolutely no one in the room with me right now, although interestingly, that’s still somehow only slightly fewer people than were at President Trump’s Oklahoma rally.”
Mother Jones: Trump spent five minutes explaining his halting descent down a ramp—and not one second on “the deaths that have brought so many Americans out into the streets.” (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
Here’s the relevant transcript section.
CNN’s fact-check of Trump finds falsehoods aplenty.


Introducing the new Chicago Public Square tip jar. Not everyone can make an ongoing commitment to keep this thing going. If you’re more of a one-and-done supporter, the Square tip jar is now open. Thanks for reading.


Reader reduction. After 49 years as a print weekly, the Chicago Reader is cutting back to once every two weeks.
The Trib and the Daily Herald have joined The Associated Press and others (including Chicago Public Square) in capitalizing Black when referring to people.

The real Aunt Jemima. As Quaker Oats prepares to retire its Aunt Jemima brand, the Chicago Crusader revisits the life of the woman who brought the character to life—and who was buried in obscurity on Chicago’s South Side nearly a century ago.
Families of two women who portrayed Aunt Jemima want the company to reverse its decision: “Good or bad, it is our history.”

Zoom gloom? If a crush of online video meetings is proving a downer in your workplace, the founder of Zillow, Expedia, and Glassdoor offers tips to make things better.
Carpool concerts are a thing.

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