The surge. Axios says the COVID-19 pandemic “is getting dramatically worse in almost every corner of the U.S.”
■ Stats from the country’s three most populous states suggest “apocalyptic” models for what’s to come.
■ Cases are rising most quickly among 18- to 49-year-olds.
■ The Conversation: Five things you should do right now to fight COVID-19.
■ A Chicago infectious disease control specialist: “If you’re not afraid of this virus, you’re not paying attention.”
■ The Government Accountability Office reports the Trump administration sent $1.4 billion in pandemic stimulus checks to more than a million dead people.
State vs. state. New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are requiring people arriving from states with high coronavirus rates to quarantine for 14 days—with fines of up to $10,000.
■ … who include a rare black bear wandering the western part of the state. (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
■ The White House says quarantine rules won’t apply to President Trump.
■ Updating coverage: The president returns today to Wisconsin, a battleground state much changed since his last visit …
■ … including the National Guard activated by Gov. Tony Evers after violent protests in Madison.
■ In the face of multiple crises, Illinois State Police report a huge increase in requests for gun permits.
Not so fast. Even though Chicago’s recovery plan clears live entertainment venues to reopen, most consider it “more cost-effective to stay closed.”
■ At one jazz club that will open: No vocals or wind instruments.
■ Results of yesterday’s Chicago Public Square poll, gauging readers’ willingness to dine inside restaurants: An overwhelming “No way.”
‘The greatest threat in my lifetime to our rule of law and to public trust in it.’ That’s a former deputy attorney general under George H.W. Bush, describing U.S. Attorney General William Barr in testimony to the U.S. House.
■ See his testimony here.
■ A Sun-Times editorial: Everyone should be worried Barr’s Justice Department “is trashing the rule of law for the sake of a Trump pal.”
■ Politico: Trump’s attacks on voting by mail may be backfiring—demonizing it so much that “Republicans, who once dominated mail-in ballots, are souring on it” in Florida.
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‘Pull the plug.’ Politico’s Jack Shafer says Trump’s trashing of the Voice of America signals it’s time to abolish the organization altogether, “to prevent Trump and the U.S. government from engaging in the propaganda business.”
■ Here’s the Voice of America’s report on a lawsuit alleging its new overseer acted illegally when he fired the heads of the VOA and its sibling agencies.
Google’s privacy progress. The company’s making it easier for you to keep what it knows about you from living forever and to conduct your searches incognito.
■ Gov. Pritzker’s unleashing $50 million to expand internet access in Illinois’ rural areas and small towns.
Oak Park in the spotlight. An episode of an HBO documentary series debuting Sunday—based on the work of the late Oak Park-born writer Michelle McNamara—revisits the unsolved case of 24-year-old Kathleen Lombardo, stabbed to death in 1984 near her Oak Park apartment.
■ Oak Park police still aren’t talking about the case.
Headline of the day.
From The Fresno Bee: “Devin Nunes can’t sue Twitter over statements by fake cow, judge rules.”
