‘Un-American.’ That’s President Biden’s assessment of Republicans’ nationwide voter suppression crusade …
■ … including Georgia’s regressive election law rewrite … ■ … which makes it a crime for anyone who’s not an election worker to give food or drink to anyone waiting in line to vote …
■ MSNBC’s Joy Reid is sounding an alarm for the movie industry, which has made Georgia a major production center.
■ Headed to Illinois’ governor: A bill to make permanent this state’s pandemic-driven expansion of curbside and by-mail voting options.
‘A conscious, knowing business decision to … broadcast these lies.’ Fox News faces a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, which accuses Fox of falsely claiming it rigged the presidential election outcome.
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■ Media writer Tom Jones reviews Biden’s first presidential news conference: “Boring. … Probably exactly the way Biden wanted it.”
‘They need to come clean.’ Mayor Lightfoot’s calling for an independent investigation of vaccine administration shenanigans at Loretto Hospital.
■ On the new City Cast podcast, Triibe reporter Matt Harvey assesses Lightfoot’s response to the Loretto scandal: “They’re always talking about how it’s so important to get these people vaccinated. … The best y’all could do was take away … the vaccine doses from Austin?”
■ Fresh dirt on the hospital’s now-departed COO: He didn’t let the board know about his personal ties to a for-profit company with which he’d proposed the hospital build a $2 million dialysis facility.
Research’s new frontier. COVID-19 vaccine tests have begun on kids.
‘A very disturbing trend.’ Citing a rise in positivity rates, Lightfoot is putting the brakes on Chicago’s indoor business reopenings …
■ … but outdoor fun will be easier to find.
■ A Tribune analysis: While most suburban counties simply issued warnings, Chicago collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines from bars, restaurants and other businesses that ignored pandemic restrictions.
$1 billion lost. The Illinois Economic Policy Institute says that’s the cost to Illinois government agencies from pandemic-driven drops in transit fares and fuel tax revenue.
■ Indiana University researchers: Air travel doesn’t seem to have been a big factor in COVID-19’s spread.
Illinois’ next holiday? The full Senate is getting a bill to declare Juneteenth—June 19—“National Freedom Day.”
■ On its way to the governor’s desk: A massive bill aimed at eliminating race-based health care disparities.
■ Illinoisans will get extra time to sign up for Affordable Care Act coverage this year.
Cops ‘under attack.’ That’s the assessment of Chicago Police Supt. David Brown after the fourth shooting of a city police officer in two weeks.
■ A Chicago officer accused of lying about a fatal police shooting has chosen to resign before the department could fire him.
■ Jacob Blake Jr.—a Black man shot in the back by a white Kenosha officer—is suing that cop.
■ Illinois State Police are investigating the police shooting and killing of a man allegedly holding a gun at a Jimmy John’s restaurant in Forest Park.
■ Satire from The Onion: “Police Say Dead Homeless Individual Threatened Them With Weapon As Far As You Know.”
QAnon’s afflictions. A social psychology researcher says followers of the group associated with the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection “are different from the radicals I usually study in one key way: They are far more likely to have serious mental illnesses.”
■ A member—and former Chicago chapter president—of the all-male fascist group Proud Boys says he wants to be an Illinois state senator.
Where have all the people gone? The Metropolitan Planning Council assesses Illinois’ status as “one of the only states with a declining population.”
■ A Trib editorial: Illinois’ state insect—the monarch butterfly—needs your help now.
■ Earth Hour, a 60-minute global spotlight-by-way-of-darkness on the climate crisis, begins at 8:30 local time Saturday night.
■ The Conversation: How humans became the best throwers on the planet.
Sorry about that. Yesterday’s Chicago Public Square bore a link to a Facebook group post that wasn’t accessible to the public—in which media journalist Simon Owens deflated the argument “Why would I pay for a … newsletter when I can subscribe to Publication X for the same price?” Simon’s kindly granted permission to reproduce the passage here.
■ You can subscribe to his email newsletter free here.
■ First to note the problem: Square reader Steve Sheffey, who has an email newsletter of his own.
■ You’re always welcome to pay whatever price you choose to support Square.
Chicago Public Square supports the Chicago Headline Club.