Chicago’s climate crisis. A massive New York Times piece explores the challenges facing a city “built on a shaky prospect—the idea that … Lake Michigan’s shoreline will remain in essentially the same place it’s been for the past 300 years.”
■ City Cast Chicago boils it down: Global warming is behind extremely high and low Lake Michigan water levels.
■ Critic Nina Metz recommends the 2019 documentary about Chicago’s catastrophic 1995 heatwave, Cooked: Survival by ZIP Code, “as a key to understanding our reality going forward.” (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
■ The body of a Loyola University graduate has been found in the rubble of the Surfside, Florida, condo that collapsed.
■ Confronting a drought, California’s governor is asking residents to cut their water use by 15%.
■ The Weather Channel says it’s “doubling down” on climate change coverage.
Be nice to your fellow Chicagoans. One of them is the winner of yesterday’s first $1 million prize in Illinois’ vaccination lottery.
■ The Tribune: COVID-19 has hospitalized more than 500 fully vaccinated Illinoisans …
■ … but The Atlantic says that shouldn’t be surprising.
■ COVID-19 hospitalizations are on the rise again in Illinois—because Missouri.
■ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch drove two hours to go “inside the bizarre political philosophy of America’s unvaccinated.”
■ Loyola Medicine is among the first Chicago hospital systems to require shots for all employees.
■ Pfizer and BioNTech are seeking emergency approval for a third—booster—shot to protect people from “all currently known variants” of COVID-19.
Local elections matter. Center for Media Engagement researchers and a journalism professor warn that QAnon has pivoted its exiled online movement to the real world, with a focus on local elections—especially school boards.
■ The AP: “QAnon has receded from social media—but it’s just hiding.”
■ Columnist Irv Leavitt: The principal aim of a suburban Chicago library’s new conservative majority “is to gut its budget.”
■ Acknowledging that its campaign contributions to members of Congress who opposed certification of Joe Biden’s election “troubled some stakeholders,” Toyota says it’ll stop doing that.
■ Columnist Lyz Lenz’s “Dingus of the Week”: National Review, for giving a University of London professor a forum “to bemoan the fact that women simply do not want to sleep with Trump supporters.”
■ The Daily Beast: “Tucker Carlson’s Extremely Mad That Journalists FOIA’d His FOIA Request to NSA.” (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor—again!)
‘Chicago is not the murder capital of the country. … Is that comforting? It shouldn’t be.’ But Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg sees futility in tracking shootings like a box score.
■ A 28-year-old man’s been charged in the shooting of a Chicago cop and two federal agents.
■ The Trace: Over the last decade in Chicago’s Roseland neighborhood, more than 1,200 people have been shot.
■ A Chicago Public Schools official says a principal who, along with her daughter, was shot over the weekend will recover fully.
■ A Sun-Times editorial praises the New York governor’s approach to gun violence.
■ A Chicago inspector general’s report concludes the Chicago Police Department’s hiring process rejects a disproportionately high number of Black and female candidates.
Divvy’s coming. Chicago’s expanding the presence of the nation’s largest bike-share system in the Northwest and Southwest Sides.
■ CTA ridership is on the rebound.
■ GM is recalling almost half a million pickup trucks whose airbags can explode without warning.
‘A historic moment in the years-long right-to-repair movement.’ Motherboard hails President Biden’s move to end manufacturers’ power to keep you from fixing—or from paying independent repairers to fix—cellphones and other electronic devices you’ve bought.
■ The executive order is a boon to farmers …
■ … and people who want cheap hearing aids.
■ Also coming from the White House: New limits on the detention and arrest of pregnant immigrants in the U.S.
‘As more and more paywalls protect … expensive-to-produce news, more casual consumers end up reading … hyper-partisan and hateful content.’ Spotlighting a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign journalism professor’s new book, CNN’s Brian Stelter explores the downside of a world where the best journalism is available only to the wealthy.
■ Nieman’s Joshua Benton: “USA Today has officially joined the paywall party.”
■ Reader columnist Ben Joravsky’s relationship with the shrinking Trib is … complicated: “I despise what the new owner—Alden Global Capital—is doing,” but “I don’t want the paper to die.”
■ NewsNation, the formerly Tribune Co.-owned cable channel that used to be known as WGN America, is rearranging its deck chairs again.
‘It fits perfect!
It is black!
It has a red label on it for favorite news source!
It was meant for me!
I am one happy girl!’
That’s Chicago Public Square reader JoBeth Halpin’s reaction after receiving one of these limited-edition caps. Until 11:59 Central time tonight, everyone who chips in at least $75 to help keep Square coming—paywall-free!—will get one. Here’s where to pledge.
■ Thanks to Bob Ness, Mark Wukas and Mike Braden for making this edition better.