Trump-Lightfoot chat. After talking to President Trump last night, Mayor Lightfoot says he’s agreed not to create a Portland-style paramilitary strike force in Chicago under the feds’ “Operation Legend” initiative.
■ A Sun-Times editorial: “If Operation Legend truly is about partnering with the Chicago police, and not just another heavy-handed Trump campaign stunt, more power to it.”
‘Apparently you are officially a clown.’ WGN-TV reports text messages between the mayor and the police union chief provide evidence of just how strained their relationship is.
■ Chicago’s getting its own Wall of Moms to keep armed federal agents on their best behavior—inspired by women in Portland …
■ … whose Democratic mayor the feds tear-gassed last night.
Unrelated developments.
■ Presidential niece-turned-author Mary Trump described her uncle last night for Stephen Colbert: “He’s comfortable doing heartless things.”
■ Video yesterday captured a lightning strike at the Statue of Liberty.
Feds on Line 1. A source tells the Tribune the U.S. attorney’s office has subpoenaed AT&T as part of a widening criminal investigation centered on Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.
‘The enemy is you.’ As Illinois’ COVID-19 positivity rate creeps upward, Gov. Pritzker is chastising people not wearing masks in public.
■ Indiana’s governor is getting around to imposing a statewide mask mandate—next week.
■ CNN fact-checks Trump’s latest lie-filled “coronavirus briefing”—including his assertion that kids “don’t catch it easily.”
■ The U.S. reported more cases in the last two weeks than in all of June.
■ The longtime manager of a James Beard Award-winning Chicago fish shack is dead of COVID-19.
■ A Michigan convent lost 13 sisters to the pandemic in a month.
The struggle ahead. That extra $600 a week in federal pandemic unemployment benefits expires this weekend, leaving the out-of-work with a measly 47% of their regular wages under Illinois’ program.
■ For the first time since March, the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits is up.
■ Congress is still dithering about what to do next.
■ The Chicago City Council has OK’d an increase from 30 days to at least 60 for notice landlords must give tenants before raising rent or canceling a lease.
■ University of Oregon researchers: Low-wage service workers face rising emotional hazards in the pandemic—including unpredictable customer behavior and anxiety about their own health.
‘Now is not the time to be silenced.’ A year after stepping into semiretirement, Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell is returning to full-time status, partly to help ensure the paper is “practicing what we preach when it comes to racial inclusion and equity.”
■ With the addition of a single S, a Chicago park named for a slaveholder is on track instead to honor an abolitionist.
■ Trib columnist Dahleen Glanton: “Christopher Columbus was a fraud,” and Chicago’s statues of him—and his holiday and Columbus Drive—need to go.
■ But, Trib architecture critic Blair Kamin contends, don’t let a mob make the call.
Who’s racist now? Streetsblog Chicago proprietor John Greenfield tweets: “Remember when @chicagosmayor called journalist @meyerson’s use of the common planning and advocacy term transit death spiral ‘incredibly offensive ... and racist’? The phrase figures heavily in this new New York Times piece.”
■ The City Council has reformed Chicago’s oppressive vehicle impoundment laws.
■ Discovered underneath one of the Art Institute of Chicago’s treasured Picassos: A hidden painting.
■ A survey projects a third of the museums in the United States won’t last the year.
World of refugees. As Earth warms, ProPublica and the Times have for the first time modeled how displaced people might relocate around the planet.
■ The Conversation: “Humans inhabited North America in the depths of the last Ice Age, but didn’t thrive until the climate warmed.”
■ Discover: Solar eruptions may trigger earthquakes.
Fake fans. As baseball’s crippled season begins
■ Baseball’s new pandemic rules: No high-fives after homers and no spitting.
Who keeps Chicago Public Square free for all? Generous readers including Jim Holmes, Susan Allen, Theresa Jabaley, Crissy Kawamoto, Jennifer Fardy, Mike Gold, Mike Trenary, Keelin Wyman, Alec Bloyd-Peshkin, Kevin Lampe, Michael Collins, Jeff Hanneman and Teresa Powell. You can join them with a one-time tip (cool) or an ongoing pledge (cooler). And if you can’t chip in now, please know you help Square grow just by opening and reading each day.■ Thanks to Pam Spiegel and Chris Koenig for making this edition better.