Special note. Chicago Public Square will take a few days off. Back Tuesday. And now the news:
Facebook 👎 Trump. The company’s kindasorta independent Oversight Board has upheld Donald Trump’s ban from the platform after his incitement of the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol …
■ Here’s the text of the full decision, which finds Facebook failed to impose the proper penalty in the first place.
■ But Trump has launched his own blog …
■ … which tech journalist Charlie Warzel says is “just garbage.”
■ Tribune columnist Eric Zorn: A Texas election bodes ill for anti-Trump Illinois Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger.
■ Trump critic Rep. Liz Cheney is in a fight for her Republican Party leadership role.
Walkers welcome. As of today, Walgreens, Walmart and Sam’s Club stores in Illinois are offering COVID-19 vaccines without appointments.
■ President Biden’s new goal: At least one shot in 70% of adult Americans by the 4th of July.
Where have all the children gone? The U.S. birthrate has fallen to its lowest level in more than a century.
■ With the application deadline just a little more than a month away, Chicago’s summer jobs program for those from 14 to 24 has more openings than applicants.
■ Today’s the last day to apply for an internship with Block Club Chicago.
‘Last week was terrible.’ The CEO of Chicago software company Basecamp has issued an apology after a third of the company quit.
■ But, he says, the policies that prompted the exodus will stand.
Peloton premonitory. The company’s recalling all its treadmills after the death of a child injured by one.
■ It’s offering full refunds.
Not so clean. New research at Harvard concludes that natural gas—long promoted as a cleaner energy alternative—is now responsible for more deaths and greater health costs in Illinois than coal.
■ A manager at the nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute to the Trib: “We need to stop burning things.”
■ The U.S. housing market is hot-hot-hot, but a pandemic-triggered lumber production slowdown has sent new-home prices skyrocketing.
Off-court mayhem. A drive-by shooting wounded two Division I-bound Chicago high school senior basketball stars—a young man and a young woman.
■ A Chicago mother whose daughter was gunned down eight years ago is pleading for a Mother’s Day moratorium on shootings.
‘Sending cops out on what amounts to thousands of false alarms is a huge waste.’ A Sun-Times editorial calls on Chicago to take a critical look at its often inaccurate, $33 million ShotSpotter gunfire detection system.
■ Columnist Clarence Page: “If Chicago is in hot pursuit of a better police chase policy, why is it moving so slowly?”
■ The Sun-Times’ Phil Kadner: “Lady Justice is no longer blind. She wears a bodycam and holds a smart camera up to her eyes.”
‘The worst highway configuration in America.’ West Side business owners and residents are calling on Congress to target $2 billion in federal infrastructure funding to fix the Eisenhower Expressway as it passes through Oak Park—and the “death trap” that is Lake Street beneath the Green Line between Talman and Laramie.
■ Meanwhile, further west: Naperville is now home to one of just four deluxe Starbucks Reserve stores in the world.
‘It was the only time I cried after a show.’ Saturday Night Live cast member and Columbia College Chicago grad Aidy Bryant tells the Trib’s Nina Metz about her worst professional moment—on the stage at Second City.
■ Coming this weekend: Vax Live, a celebrity-studded broadcast and online show encouraging people to get, well, you know.
Of note. The Grant Park Music Festival is back for Millennium Park this summer.
■ The Chicago Symphony Orchestra returns to the stage later this month for the first time in more than a year.
Why contact tracing apps were ‘a bust.’ Journalist, science fiction author and computer science professor Cory Doctorow takes a critical look at the University of Illinois’ experience—and some University of Chicago-spawned economic theories.
■ From 2019: A Chicago Public Square podcast interview with Doctorow.
■ The winners will be announced a week from Friday.
■ You know who shares in these honors? Readers whose financial support helps keep Square coming—and helps pay contest entry fees, too. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Special note to people who miss special notes at the top of Chicago Public Square. Chicago Public Square will take a few days off. Back Tuesday.
Chicago Public Square supports Public Narrative. (Because we Publics have to stick together.)