Notes:
■ Chicago Public Square will take a summer break. Back July 6 with this newsletter’s 1,001st edition.
■ Read on to learn how you can get a Square cap commemorating this, No. 1,000.
A climate catastrophe? Experts suspect rising sea levels may have contributed to the collapse of a 12-story, 40-year-old condo building in the Miami area.
■ The Washington Post: “The impacts of climate change on the infrastructure of the region … will be a management problem for years to come.”
■ More than 100 people were still among those unaccounted for in the collapse …
■ … including two men with Chicago ties.
■ President Biden was set to discuss the disaster today.
Treepocalypse. Hundreds—maybe thousands—of trees were lost in the tornadic storm that devastated the western suburbs, and the consequences could far exceed the loss of shade.
■ Through Saturday: Chicago’s bracing for thunderstorms, heavy rain and flooding. (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
‘The mayor isn’t very good at this, is she?’ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg compares Lori Lightfoot to the late Jane Byrne, “another brash amateur who blew into office on her outsider cred, then couldn’t do anything but alienate people.”
■ Close to half the City Council’s members—including the mayor’s own floor leader—have signed a letter calling on her to stop breaking parliamentary protocol.
■ After an aborted meeting Wednesday, the City Council was to gather again today to consider—among other things—renaming Lake Shore Drive for Jean Baptiste Point DuSable …
■ … maybe with the compromise “DuSable Lake Shore Drive.”
■ A Loyola University history professor: The DuSable story “shares unsettling similarities” to myths enshrouding Christopher Columbus.
Meter beater? Three drivers aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America have filed an antitrust suit against the private company that landed the much-hated 75-year deal to run Chicago’s parking meter system …
■ … and they hope to make it a class-action suit to benefit many other motorists.
Running back. Just a year after taking the job, the principal of Chicago’s vaunted Walter Payton College Prep High School is quitting …
■ … in the face of intractable racial tension she was brought in to address.
■ A Sun-Times editorial: Chicago needs to “take a final big step toward police-free schools.”
■ A University of Missouri-St. Louis professor warns: Closures of Black public schools in Chicago and across the nation threaten neighborhood stability.
No fireworks. Continued COVID-19 concern means Navy Pier’s 4th of July celebration will be pyrotechnics-free this year.
■ For the first time since the pandemic’s rise, a cruise ship was set to sail from a U.S. port Saturday.
■ For the first time this season, the White Sox tonight will open their stadium to a capacity crowd.
‘The mental trauma … is overwhelming.’ A Cook County public defender is among those pressing Illinois to restore prisoners’ constitutional right to a speedy trial—suspended since the pandemic’s start.
■ The U.S. Senate is sending the Chicago-based 7th Circuit Court of Appeals only its second Black judge—and its first ex-federal public defender—ever.
We’re No. 1. An Illinois man is the first to be arrested on charges of harming a member of the media in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
■ He’s also the 500th person to be arrested in connection with the riot.
■ The Biden administration is suing Georgia over its voting restrictions, alleging they discriminate against Black Americans.
‘I have devoted all of my adult life to pursuing this strange, phantom intersection between smart and stupid.’ Conan O’Brien has signed off from his TBS show and a career in late-night TV …
■ … in a show that opened with an “exit interview” conducted by Homer Simpson, for whom O’Brien used to work.
‘Terrible across the board.’ Critic Nina Metz: Streaming TV user interfaces are a mess.
■ Consumer Reports: How to cut your internet bill.
Kasspirations. Departed Tribune columnist John Kass says he’s snapped up 35,000 email subscribers for his new website …
■ … and he tells the Sun-Times’ Fran Spielman he’s in talks about new opportunities as a broadcaster.
■ Reader columnist and Kass critic John Greenfield is convening an ironic “John Kass Going Away Party.”
Chicago Public Square turns 1,000. Today marks our 1,000th dispatch. That Square has reached this milestone is a tribute to the readers who open it each day, and to those whose financial support demonstrates that an independent roundup of news of and for the Chicago area has real value.
■ To mark the occasion, we’ve commissioned* a brand-new, limited-edition black cotton twill cap embroidered with the Square logo.**
■ We’ll send one of these caps to the readers who, beginning now, make the 10th, 20th and 30th pledges of support for Square in any amount—a one-time tip, or a monthly or yearly contribution of (really) as little as $1.***
■ Want one? Ready … set … go here.
■ The challenge to Square readers earlier this month—to predict when this 1,000th edition would reach inboxes—has two winners: Angela Mullins, who uncannily figured today’s would be No. 999; and Mike Fainman, who cleverly predicted simply “10:00 AM”—with no date. Not quite what we had in mind, but he has a point, and so he and Angela will get Square caps.
■ And thanks to reader Doreen Rice for making this edition better.
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* Which is to say: Ordered and paid for.
** Not to be confused with the white caps that made their debut in March—although these, too, are low-profile, with a soft crown and an adjustable buckle for one-size-fits-all comfort.
*** Inclined to game the system? Sure, go ahead and make as many discrete pledges as you like to increase the odds you’ll land one of these rarities.