‘I support what he did.’ Mayor Lightfoot defends the deputy police superintendent who cut short a police bagpipe ritual to honor Chicago Police Officer Ella French, who was shot and killed Saturday.
■ For the second time since the shooting, police shunned the mayor.
■ The man accused of buying the gun that killed French, Jamel Danzy: “I’m not a criminal. I’m a good person” …
■ … but Chicago’s police superintendent is outraged Danzy was released before trial.
■ Anjanette Young, who’s suing the city over a wrongful police raid at her home, says Officer French was the one person to show her some respect during the ordeal.
■ Patch columnist Mark Konkol on Lightfoot’s plight: “A growing number of critics … attack her from all sides.”
■ Lightfoot’s proposed budget is $733 million out of whack, but she says that’s a sign the city’s “fiscally bouncing back.”
‘If you feel you’re being judged harshly, it’s because you are.’ Tribune columnist Rex Huppke has a message for the unvaccinated-by-choice.
■ The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce is encouraging businesses to require worker vaccinations.
■ At least 20 Chicago music clubs are requiring proof of full vaccination for admittance.
■ Lost a vax verification card? Illinoisans can retrieve one online.
■ Illinois COVID-19 cases have reached a four-month high.
■ Put the CDC down as recommending COVID-19 vaccines for the pregnant …
■ … as the FDA was poised to authorize booster shots for the immunocompromised.
■ Bloomberg: Florida’s governor “is playing a game of chicken” against the coronavirus.
■ The Daily Beast: “Donald Trump’s former allies keep pleading with him to aggressively back the COVID-19 vaccine. Trump won’t do it.”
■ Ex-Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to those refusing to wear masks: “You’re a schmuck.”
‘The right policy is exactly what’s in that infrastructure bill.’ Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates tells The Wall Street Journal he’ll put his money where his mouth is if Congress signs off on climate initiatives.
■ The Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet: “It’s a big if,” but here’s what the bill would send Illinois over five years. (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
■ A Tribune editorial: “We need this bill. The view from Chicago is that the American infrastructure is lousy.”
■ Chicago’s water and sewer line replacement program spells doom for some trees.
Day 4. Chicago was headed into its fourth straight day of severe weather …
■ … but the heat should retreat by the weekend.
■ Cedar Rapids journalist Lyz Lenz’s Men Yell at Me newsletter revisits the derecho that ravaged her town a year ago—and the government failures that followed: “My roof is finally fixed. But … the town is still broken.”
■ Morgan Stanley analysts: The “movement to not have children owing to fears over climate change is growing and impacting fertility rates quicker than any preceding trend in the field of fertility decline.”
Numbers, numbers everywhere. The Census Bureau today releases the detailed data that will shape elections nationwide for the next decade.
■ Targeting a wave of voter suppression laws across the country, activists are planning Aug. 28 marches for voting rights.
‘A white guy with red flags.’ That’s just one Jeopardy! champion’s reaction to the announcement of the show’s new host(s).
■ CNN’s Brian Stelter: Give it five years.
Email is not free. At least, more of it won’t be—if it comes from The New York Times.
■ But, thanks to readers whose support keeps it coming, Chicago Public Square remains free to all— continuing an editorial approach that so shocked (and eventually pleased) the Chicago Reader’s Michael Miner on this date in 2008.