Death in Kenosha. At least three people were shot—two fatally—as demonstrators, police and armed counter-demonstrators engaged in unrest triggered by the police shooting of Jacob Blake over the weekend.
■ Police were seeking a man armed with a long gun in last night’s confrontations. (Update, 4:09 p.m.: They've arrested a 17-year-old from Illinois.)
■ A family lawyer says Blake is paralyzed and unlikely to walk again without a miracle.
■ Blake’s mother says he’d be troubled by “the violence and the destruction” that has followed his shooting.
■ Blake’s grandfather, the Rev. Jacob Blake Sr., fought for fair housing in Evanston in the 1960s and ’70s.
■ NBA players are considering a boycott in protest of the shooting.
■ Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell: “President Donald Trump couldn’t have written a better script … than the one playing out in Kenosha.”
Falsehoods and distortions. An Associated Press fact-check found no shortage of misdirection as speakers heaped praise on Trump in Night Two of the Republican National Convention …
■ … and much of the rest of the night shattered political norms …
■ … but, Poynter’s Tom Jones observes, “If the plan was to excite the base … Republicans performed well” …
■ … and Axios says Trump could pull off another upset win.
‘It may … be illegal.’ A House committee has opened an investigation into whether Secretary of State Mike Pompeo broke longstanding rules—and his own guidance to State Department workers—by speaking at a partisan convention.
■ The Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet: Pompeo’s speech from Jerusalem was really about evangelical, not Jewish, votes.
■ Politico’s Shia Kapos: “Melania Trump was the first headliner … to recognize the coronavirus death toll.”
■ Tribune columnist Dahleen Glanton: Ex-UN Ambassador Nikki Haley’s Monday night speech revealed her to be “disgracefully ignorant or a blatant liar.”
■ Columnist Charlie Madigan: “I have no more time for this kind of crap so my convention watching is over.”
Republicans behaving badly. A speaker was yanked from the convention schedule last night after she urged her Twitter followers to investigate a supposed Jewish plot to enslave the world.
■ Alaska’s Christian conservative Republican attorney general is quitting after a ProPublica/Anchorage Daily News investigation revealed he’d sent hundreds of text messages to a junior state employee’s personal phone—inviting her at least 18 times, often using kiss emoji, to come to his house.
■ E. Jean Carroll, who’s accused Trump of rape, has begun an Atlantic series of interviews with other women who claim the president assaulted or harassed them.
■ After a few backs-and-forths, scandalized scandal-scarred Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. has apparently finally quit. (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
■ The Conversation: “What the Falwell saga tells us about evangelicals and gender roles.”
■ USA Today commentary: “I’m Billy Graham’s granddaughter. Evangelical support of Donald Trump spits on his legacy.”
‘The Smollett case is an embarrassment. The Roscetti case is a travesty.’ The Tribune’s Eric Zorn acknowledges that Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx needs to come clean about “the TV actor who allegedly staged a hate crime against himself and then walked free,” but he says her Republican challenger also needs to explain his role in “the horrific and troubling case of four teenagers falsely accused” in a 1986 rape and murder.
■ Ex-Gov. Bruce Rauner has switched his voter registration to Florida.
COVID kids. Coronavirus cases among U.S. children are up 21% since early August.
■ Chalkbeat: The future of police in Chicago Public Schools is up to the school board today. (Watch the meeting on the web here.)
Masks up. Illinois is tightening its restaurant and bar rules: Customers have to wear masks when interacting with employees—including when orders are picked up for carryout or delivered to a table.
■ Mayor Lightfoot wants your ideas for how to keep restaurants humming when winter rolls in—and there’s a $5,000 prize for the three best ideas.
■ New to Chicago: Community refrigerators—like Little Free Libraries, but with food.
■ KFC is dropping “finger-lickin’” for the pandemic’s duration.
‘It was a mistake.’ Gov. Pritzker says the state goofed in relaxing pandemic rules for the surging southwestern part of the state.
■ Chicago’s top doc: “The whole state is now at … a level of new cases that is of concern.”
■ Looking to cut down on Chicago’s problem “party houses,” Mayor Lightfoot is proposing to make permanent the pandemic ban on single-night home rentals.
Doctors perplexed. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now says people without COVID-19 symptoms may not need to be tested—even those who’ve been in close contact with the afflicted.
■ Food and Drug Administration chief Stephen Hahn is apologizing for overstating the potential benefits of treating coronavirus patients with convalescent plasma.
■ Bloomberg: “Hahn badly erred.”
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■ Thanks to Chris Koenig and Pam Spiegel for making this edition better.