‘It wasn’t her finest moment.’ Sources close to Mayor Lightfoot’s office talked to Politico about a startlingly temperamental email Lightfoot sent her staff in January as she confronted multiple crises.
■ The New York Times cites Lightfoot in a national overview: “As Battle Against Virus Wanes, Mayors Confront a New Challenge: Crime.”
■ A mass shooting on Chicago’s South Side Saturday killed a young mother of three and wounded at least nine others.
■ Chicago magazine’s Edward McClelland: “Chicago Is the Perfect Place to Spend Your 30s.”
‘Don’t be afraid.’ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg says renaming Lake Shore Drive for Chicago founder Jean-Baptiste Point DuSable isn’t that big a deal: “Street names change continually throughout the history of the city.”
■ Steinberg colleague Laura Washington: Celebrate DuSable’s Native American wife, too.
■ It’s Juneteenth Week in Cook County, marking the first year of a paid holiday to commemorate slavery’s end in the U.S.
■ Chicago this morning was to host a Juneteenth flag-raising event.
■ Columnist Dahleen Glanton: June 19 isn’t actually the right date.
Free-press summit. News executives from CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post meet with U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland this afternoon, seeking clarity on what the Times’ David Sanger calls “one of the most egregious cases of [Trump-era] government overreach in trying to secretly obtain reporters’ calls and emails.”
■ The Associated Press: “The Justice Department’s top national security official is resigning … after revelations that the department secretly seized records from Democrats and members of the media.”
■ CNN’s Washington bureau chief: “We’re asking the attorney general …to bind future administrations.”
■ The Post’s Jennifer Rubin fears Garland’s Justice Department “will not do enough to protect our democracy.”
■ An open letter to Garland from a fellow Niles West High School honor student: “Defending Indefensible Behavior Is Not Your Job.”
‘A long history of promoting white dominance.’ A theology professor hears troubling echoes in the slogan for this week’s Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville.
■ An Eastern Illinois University political science professor foresees “the most consequential such get-together in recent memory.”
‘We cannot effectively fight antisemitism if we mislabel criticism of Israel as antisemitic.’ Steve Sheffey, writing in his Chicagoland Pro-Israel Political Update: “Accusing Israel of apartheid is not necessarily antisemitic.”
■ Israel has a new leader under a fragile coalition.
Cookie crisis. The Girl Scouts blame the pandemic for a glut of 15 million boxes of unsold cookies.
■ A rise in infections threatens England’s reopening.
‘I have to … be careful when I open my doors.’ Sun-Times Washington bureau chief Lynn Sweet shares her life with the Brood X cicadas.
■ They’re creating some serious problems …
■ … but also topping pizzas.
Chicago’s Pulitzers. The Invisible Institute shares one for a year-long probe of the harm done by police dogs.
■ A University of Chicago associate professor and Esquire columnist won a feature-writing Pulitzer for his Runner’s World essay about “how running fails Black America.”
■ Author Mikki Kendall: The Pulitzers’ “special citation” for Darnella Frazier, the teenager who recorded the death of George Floyd at the knee of a Minneapolis cop, “is not enough.”
■ Poynter’s Tom Jones: “Surprisingly, Trump-related stories were largely absent from the list of Pulitzer winners.”
Late … with a live audience. For the first time in more than a year, Stephen Colbert brings The Late Show back to a studio audience this afternoon—for broadcast tonight.
■ He bid a bitter farewell last week to “the storage closet” from which he’d been broadcasting through the pandemic.
Speaking of live … The new Chicago Public Square/Rivet360 podcast Chicago Media Talks happens live this afternoon at 2 p.m. on Clubhouse, the audio-only social media app for iOS and Android. Not on Clubhouse? Email Clubhouse@ChicagoPublicSquare.com for a free invitation.
■ We’re just days away from a modest observance of Square’s 1,000th regular edition—counting from this one.
■ Square is a proud member of the Chicago Independent Media Alliance, whose fundraiser wraps up tonight after an extended run.
