‘A culture that was really sick.’ Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi says he’s making progress in fixing problems with the county’s assessment of big commercial property—and, the Sun-Times reports, that’s making business groups nervous.
■ The developer of an affordable housing complex that Northwest Side residents stalled for years tells Block Club Chicago the more than 700 people applying for 75 apartments include some who originally opposed the project.
■ A Sun-Times editorial calls on the Chicago Park District to end holiday surge pricing for lakefront parking.
They’re back. For the first time since the pandemic’s onset, Chicago’s iconic Berghoff restaurant today reopens in full.
■ Chicago’s criminal court system is coming back to life.
■ The government’s top infectious disease expert is horrified by a crowd’s cheers at the Conservative Political Action Conference over the weekend in response to word the U.S. has missed its COVID-19 vaccination goals. (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
Crime conclave. Updating coverage: President Biden was set today to host mayors and police chiefs from around the country—including Chicago Police Supt. David Brown—to talk about ways to stem the nation’s rising tide of shootings and killings.
■ Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office says it’s approved charges in 84% of the felony cases filed by Chicago cops over the 4th of July weekend.
Chicago Public Square wouldn’t be around …
‘People should be furious.’ Political analyst Lauren Martinchek on Sunday’s fling into space by Richard Branson: “No one should be celebrating … a billionaire’s pet project, driven by … the knowledge that the system from which they benefit is destroying the only planet we call home.”
■ NBC News’ Chandra Steele: “The stratification of who gets to leave the stratosphere is not another division we need.”
■ Despite Chicago’s intense light pollution, an architectural photographer has been able to capture stunning images of distant space, sharing them on his Instagram account.
‘We realized this was more than a movie.’ Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson talks to critic Michael Phillips about the long-forgotten Harlem Cultural Festival, resurrected in his critically acclaimed documentary, Summer of Soul …
■ … which is now streaming on Hulu.
■ The Guardian: “The canon of concert movies is one largely written by white people.”
Shipwreck sanctuary. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has declared 962 square miles of Lake Michigan “The Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary,” a designation that brings resources to help ID dozens of undiscovered wrecks.
■ A man renovating his Michigan home unearthed 158 bowling balls.
‘She is never overly impressed with herself or anybody else.’ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg profiles the almost 107-year-old first Black woman to graduate from Iowa’s Grinnell College.
■ The Conversation: The U.S. hasn’t changed how it measures who’s poor since President Johnson declared a war on poverty.
■ Communications strategist and occasional Chicago Public Square kibitzer Elizabeth Austin reviews The Man Who Hated Women, a new book about a turn-of-the-last-century guy whose obsessions with “the sanctity of heterosexual marriage, the blasphemy of contraception, the heinousness of abortion and the existential social threat of unfettered female sexuality … stalk and terrorize new generations.”
‘Startling.’ Reflecting on a Sunday TV interview, media writer Tom Jones concludes that “Maria Bartiromo’s transformation from once-respected journalist to full-blown Donald Trump sympathizer appears complete.”
■ CNN: Tucker Carlson is reportedly “furious” at Fox News executives for not supporting his claims that the National Security Agency spied on him.
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