■ Stephen Colbert on those hot for the horse dewormer ivermectin: “You’ll probably still get COVID, but on the bright side, you could win the Preakness.”
■ A Florida county councilman and COVID-19 denier is in the hospital with … COVID.
■ A Reddit group with close to 160,000 members is bestowing “the Herman Cain Freedom Award” posthumously on deniers who die of COVID.
Booster bewilderment. The AP reports the science surrounding follow-up vaccinations against COVID-19 remains unsettled: “What’s ultimately recommended for an 80-year-old vaccinated back in December may be different than for a 35-year-old immunized in the spring—who likely would get a stronger immunity boost by waiting longer for another shot.”
■ The New York Times’ David Leonhardt: Fears of breakthrough infections of the vaccinated have been exaggerated.
■ Chalkbeat Chicago offers a flowchart to help parents determine whether Chicago COVID cases will force their kids to quarantine.
‘Open to the idea that the slogan criticizing Emanuel ought to be 16 Shots and Some Negligence.’ Writing on Facebook, ex-Tribune columnist Eric Zorn raises the prospect that ex-Mayor—and Japan ambassador-designate—Rahm Emanuel might not have actively covered up the 2014 police shooting of Laquan McDonald.
■ The Sun-Times: Chicago’s seen more murders and shootings this year than in all of 2019—with increases in most of the neighborhoods the city specifically targeted for reduction.
■ A class action lawsuit contends the Chicago Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policy has violated the rights of more than 2 million people.
■ A Trib editorial stresses the “utility as a potent law enforcement tool” of license plate-reading cameras on Chicago expressways.
‘Fatal constitutional flaws.’ A couple of Harvard law professors—including one who taught Attorney General Merrick Garland as a student (February link)—say a decades-old Supreme Court ruling on a liquor license for a Cambridge, Mass., restaurant illustrates problems with Texas’ authoritarian anti-abortion law.
■ Popular Information asks, “Why can every other developed country afford to have paid family leave, except the United States?” (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
‘How the crooked lines and skewed shapes emerge.’ Politico’s Shia Kapos details the means by which Chicago aldermen are working out new ward maps to reflect the 2020 census.
■ Block Club Chicago: More than 20 elected officials are calling on an alderman to apologize publicly after he urged staff not to help constituents who criticized him and he called female residents and City Hall staffers “b-tch” and “c-nt.”
Here comes the sun. The Biden administration is pushing a plan to produce almost half the United States’ electricity through solar by 2050.
■ Illinois lawmakers are closing in on an energy regulation overhaul.
Happy Star Trek Day. The show debuted 55 years ago tonight … and was canceled three years later. From the archives:
■ Audio interviews with creator Gene Roddenberry in 1974 and 1976.
■ A 1995 interview with “the world’s foremost Trekspert.”
■ On Quora in 2013: One answer to the question “What is Star Trek about?”
■ Berwyn-born Bob Odenkirk is back to work after a July heart attack on the set of Better Call Saul.
■ His show has starred Trek veterans.
A reader writes. Email from Brad Perkins arrived in the Chicago Public Square inbox after yesterday’s note that Sept. 11 remembrances will be limited to this Friday’s edition: “I’ve been dreading the amount of faux patriotism that is going to come out this weekend and I’m thrilled that at least one outlet I follow will only commemorate it once.”
■ Thanks, as ever, to the readers whose voluntary support keeps Square coming—free for all.
■ And thanks to Mike Braden for making this edition better.