He’s No. 1. A fired suburban CEO is the first Illinoisan to plead guilty in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
■ He told the court that joining the melee was “the single worst personal decision of my life”—a life in which he’d also contributed thousands of dollars to Donald Trump …
■ An anti-vax criminal defense lawyer representing at least 17 Jan. 6 defendants has gone missing, with some dubious excuses. (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
■ Politico’s Jack Shafer: “The Trump News Show is over and we’re all healthier for it.”
‘The end of abortion as we know it.’ Author and Daily Beast contributing editor Molly Jong-Fast says the Supreme Court’s failure to block “Texas’ insane new abortion law” signals the death of Roe v. Wade.
■ The AP calls it “the most dramatic restriction on abortion rights in the United States since … 1973.”
‘I was not going to extend a forever exit.’ In a speech some described as angry and others as forceful, President Biden explained his decision to end the war in Afghanistan once and for all.
■ Among those stranded in Afghanistan: An interpreter who helped rescue Biden in 2008 …
■ … and a Taliban hostage from Lombard—a Navy vet who’d been there as a contractor.
■ Also The Onion: “Final U.S. Soldiers In Afghanistan Do Some Last-Second Nation-Building On Way To Plane.”
‘Deeply shameful.’ U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is calling on the Senate to reject Biden’s pick of ex-Mayor Rahm Emanuel as ambassador to Japan …
■ … because he “helped cover up the murder of Laquan McDonald—a mere teenager when he was shot 16 times in the back by a Chicago police officer.”
■ A Smithsonian exhibition will honor the memory of 14-year-old Chicagoan Emmett Till—beaten, shot and lynched in Mississippi in 1955—by displaying one of the signs erected in his memory and, like others, defaced by gunfire.
Political hunger game. Legislative maps headed toward approval in Springfield would pit at least 12 Republicans against one another in six redrawn districts: Two in the suburbs, four Downstate …
■ … but federal lawsuits loom.
Unvaxxed? Stay put. New guidance from Chicago to unvaccinated travelers arriving here: Get tested three to five days after your trip and quarantine for a full seven days, even if you test negative.
■ The city’s cited dozens of businesses—including a music school, a soccer club and a grocery store—for violating the new indoor mask mandate.
■ A judge who kept an unvaccinated mom from visiting her son—before reversing that call—has recused himself from the case.
■ The Conversation: State efforts to block school mask mandates parallel 1950s opposition to integration.
■ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg is underwhelmed by anti-vax hysteria: “I take a certain satisfaction in recalling the horrors of the past.”
Follow the money. The Illinois State Board of Education has killed a southern Illinois school’s proposal to use federal COVID-19 relief money to rehab its football field.
■ Add Walgreens to the list of companies raising minimum wages in the struggle for help.
■ Amazon aims to hire 6,000 people for distribution hubs opening next month in the south suburbs.
■ Unemployment benefits expire this weekend for millions of Americans.
‘We’re doing this better than the police.’ The founder of Facebook’s Chicago Egg Hunters group tells the Sun-Times how members tracked down the source of serial egg vandalism …
■ … mostly on the North Side.
■ A poll on the group’s page asks what should become of the offender(s).
■ Police are hunting the person who shot a 4-year-old girl in the arm as she walked with her father on the South Side yesterday afternoon.
‘A terrifying preview of the future.’ Mic: Hurricane Ida is “a reminder that climate change makes hurricanes and other storms more dangerous.”
Jeopardy! jolt. Mike Richards—briefly anointed as the show’s host—is now out as executive producer, too.
■ Add veteran—and Naperville-born—Jeopardy! champ James Holzhauer to the roster of those celebrating.
‘The journey … is fantastic.’ Sun-Times critic Richard Roeper gives Marvel’s new movie, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, 3 stars.
■ Critic Michael Phillips, who gives the movie 3 1/2, is grateful it dodges the comics’ “racially toxic literary and cinematic stain.”
‘Facebook hell.’ Pulitzer winner Mary Schmich* explains how she lost access to her almost 5,000-follower Facebook account when she left the Tribune.
■ Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan says a “Local Journalism Sustainability Act” making its way through Congress would offer “relief to news organizations … gasping for breath.”
If you’re reading this for free … thank readers whose support keeps Chicago Public Square coming. You can join them—for any amount you choose—here.
■ Thanks to Chris Koenig for making this edition better.
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* The subject of this 2014 interview with your Square columnist.