Chicago’s ‘stark reminder.’ The discovery of a laser-scope-equipped rifle in a hotel room overlooking a downtown Chicago beach is ratcheting up concern over hospitality industry security, the Tribune reports—particularly as Lollapalooza and big crowds head back to Grant Park.
■ Mayor Lightfoot’s launched a million-dollar fund for tips on illegal guns. (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
■ The mayor says violent crime on the South and West Sides has prompted her to adjust her agenda: “People are scared.”
Yeah, it’s apparently been cool until this. Gov. Pritzker’s signed a first-in-the-nation law forbidding police from lying to underage kids being interrogated …
■ … a practice long associated with false confessions and wrongful confessions convictions …
■ … but cops may be able to get away with it through Jan. 1.
■ The City Council’s poised to offer $1.2 million to the family of a 16-year-old who police shot and killed in a foot chase five years ago.
‘Abysmal.’ That’s how the ACLU describes the Chicago police record on respecting personal privacy as it goes to court demanding the city reveal more about cops’ monitoring of social media.
■ The family of a 19-year-old found dead in the trunk of a burning car had trouble getting answers from the police—until the Sun-Times got involved.
■ The Chicago Police Board has fired a veteran cop for a 2017 crash that killed an off-duty officer and another driver.
■ An off-duty Chicago cop who struck and killed a 9-year-old riding a bike Wednesday night reportedly ignored a stop sign.
■ Guess which ex-mayoral candidate has been acting as an unpaid member of the police union’s contract negotiations team?
And now they can go back to being empty Kmart (etc.) stores. Cook County is closing its last three mass COVID-19 vaccination sites, to focus instead on a “hyperlocal” approach to getting shots in people’s arms.
■ Acknowledging that Chicago pandemic caseloads are trending upward, the city’s top doc says at least “they’re moving slowly.” (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
■ As a pandemic ban on Illinois evictions approaches its end, the Chicago City Council is moving toward approval of some permanent protections for tenants.
■ A University of Pennsylvania pediatrics professor explains why kids need their own, separate trials for a COVID-19 vaccine …
■ … which a Food and Drug Administration official says probably won’t win authorization before winter.
Hot air. PolitFact rates as False a widely shared Facebook post asserting that atmospheric carbon dioxide “is not a problem.”
■ The new chief of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the Chicago region is getting warmer faster than the rest of the planet.
■ Describing himself as “stunned” by the devastating floods that have left more than 100 people dead in Germany and Belgium, Germany’s president warns, “Only if we decisively take up the fight against climate change will we be able to limit the extreme weather conditions we are now experiencing.”
■ Greenland is suspending all oil exploration.
■ Columnist Lyz Lenz’s Dinguses of the Week are the billionaires in a space race, departing Earth “during a global extinction event that has killed and impoverished far more people than it needed to because of income inequality, a problem to which these men directly contribute.”
Trust issues. The Conversation takes a critical look at the consequences of Congress’ approval, 65 years ago this month, of “In God We Trust” as the United States’ national motto.
■ A University of Pennsylvania religious studies professor concludes that white, Trump-loving evangelical Christian leaders’ power is waning.
■ Politico: Ticket sales for a Trump stadium tour are slow.
‘Why haven’t you seen it yet?’ TV critic Aaron Barnhart says NBC/Peacock’s The Amber Ruffin Show is what late night needs.
■ Political analyst Lauren Martinchek: NBC’s parent company is funding the Republican Party.
■ As MSNBC turns 25—you’re officially old if you remember what the MS used to stand for—The Onion takes a satiric look back at the channel’s history.
■ And thanks to Mike Braden for making this edition better.