Chicago Public Square will take Friday off in honor of the Juneteenth holiday. Speaking of which …
Juneteenth’s bustin’ out all over. Updating coverage: President Biden was set today to sign into law a bill designating the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983: Juneteenth National Independence Day, or June 19, celebrating slavery’s end …
■ … although it wasn’t clear when it would be first observed.
■ Watch the ceremony live at 2:30 Central.
■ The 14 Republican representatives who opposed the holiday included none from Illinois.
■ Gov. Pritzker’s signed a bill making Juneteenth an officials Illinois holiday …
■ … but state workers will get the day off only when it falls on a weekday—which won’t happen until 2023.
■ Mayor Lightfoot’s turnaround, embracing Juneteenth as an official city holiday, ticked off Fox News troglodyte Tucker Carlson, who labeled her “America’s worst mayor.”
■ Chicago’s skyline this weekend will glow red in honor of the holiday.
■ The city’s Black-owned restaurants aim to make $1 million with Juneteenth food specials.
‘I absolutely feel betrayed by the mayor.’ A Chicago woman who was handcuffed, naked, as police officers searched her apartment—even as she told them they had the wrong home—blasts the city for dragging its feet on amends.
■ The Illinois House is close to sending the governor a bill to create a 21-member elected Chicago school board—over Lightfoot’s objections—but Politico Illinois explains that “potential flaws” prompted the measure’s sponsor to put a hold on it.
Returned to sender. After months of complaints about miserable mail delivery in Chicago, the city’s postmaster is out …
■ … replaced by a former Kansas City postmaster.
■ An ex-Chicago alderman and a University of Michigan professor explain how getting the Postal Service into banking could create a financial lifeline for millions of Americans without a bank account.
‘Mask shaming.’ A University of Chicago bioethicist discusses how things have changed: “The very people … shaming you for wearing a mask are the same people who insisted on the right not to wear a mask and not to be shamed for it.”
■ The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated its mask guidance for unvaccinated people.
■ The Conversation: “Will post-pandemic hookups bring happiness or despair?”
‘What are you so afraid of?’ An ABC News reporter is winning praise for sticking it to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
■ Biden apologized after losing his temper while answering a CNN reporter’s question: “I shouldn’t have been such a wise guy.”
Rulings rendered. The Supreme Court’s tossed out a Trump-backed effort to kill the Affordable Care Act, preserving millions of Americans’ health care coverage.
■ In a move that could make it easier for religious organizations to refuse services to LGBTQ people, justices unanimously sided with a Catholic group that rejects same-sex couples as foster parents.
Culver’s coming. The success of a North Lawndale native’s Bronzeville location has set the stage for another South Side Culver’s restaurant in Pullman.
■ JP Morgan Chase is pledging $150 million in grants and low-cost loans to benefit the West and South sides.
■ Coming off historic highs, lumber prices have taken their biggest tumble ever.
More Tribune exits. Additional departures as Tribune Publishing’s vampiric new owners dangle buyout offers: Chicago magazine’s editor-in-chief and publisher Susanna Homan and senior writer Bryan Smith.
To avert ‘a long, damaging afterlife.’ The Associated Press says it’s going to stop publishing the names of people charged with minor crimes and “stories driven mainly by a particularly embarrassing mugshot.”
■ City Bureau co-founder Darryl Holliday: “These changes are soooooo overdue in newsrooms across the country and should come with … an apology.”
■ Tech and culture newsletter author Charlie Warzel: “Newsrooms don’t understand the internet they send their journalists onto.”
‘The future of late night.’ Critic Aaron Barnhart says Showtime’s “Desus and Mero are more like two demented newscasters than a pair of traditional comics.”
■ Don’t have Showtime? See them on YouTube.
Reminder in case you’ve forgotten what it said at the top: Square will take Friday off in honor of Juneteenth.
■ Thanks to Mike Braden for making this edition better.