‘The devil’s piss.’ Last Week Tonight host John Oliver devotes this week’s show to explaining how PFAs, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (2020 link)—the thousands of water-resistant nonstick chemicals used in a wide variety of clothing, cooking utensils and fast-food packaging—have been poisoning humans for most of the last century.
■ The Conversation: A fresh review of 25 years’ research raises concern about Tylenol’s risks to pregnant women and their unborn children.
■ The Nobel Prize in medicine goes to two researchers who identified how the body perceives temperature and touch.
Homecoming sting. A suburban high school’s homecoming dance was canceled after police investigating a fight at the football game found guns in a car parked on campus.
■ Chicago cops report three carjackings within hours last night—two of them simultaneously and just blocks apart. (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
■ CWBChicago: Video shows a gunman opening fire on a Northwest Side street corner where minutes before Mayor Lightfoot and Police Supt. David Brown had posed for photos.
■ The Sun-Times: Five men linked to a deadly gang-related shootout Friday in Austin are off the hook after prosecutors declined to file charges.
Eric in the scorning. Media watchdog Robert Feder ponders longtime Chicago radio powerhouse Eric Ferguson’s future at WTMX-FM now that a second woman has accused him of sexual misconduct.
■ Ferguson’s fate may rest in the hands of another woman (2013 link).
■ The National Association of Broadcasters is asking the government to further loosen limits on station ownership because listeners are leaving radio.
Meanwhile, offshore … In an expose they’ve dubbed The Pandora Papers, an international consortium of investigative reporters reveals how hundreds of politicians, celebrities, religious leaders and drug dealers have been hiding investments in mansions, beachfront property, yachts and other assets outside their native countries.
■ The consortium’s director: “This is the Panama papers on steroids.”
■ One of the biggest oil spills in California history could keep beaches closed for months.
■ Environmental changes in the ocean have contributed to a salmon fishing crisis in the Yukon—and an existential threat to the tribes living there.
‘Facebook, over and over again, has shown it chooses profit over safety.’ 60 Minutes introduced the world to the whistleblower who’s been leaking some of the company’s darkest secrets.
■ The Washington Post reports she was aghast when Facebook disbanded its civic integrity team.
■ She has a new website, billing herself as “an advocate for public oversight of social media.”
‘Irreparable harm.’ That’s what Donald Trump tells a federal judge he’ll suffer if he doesn’t get his Twitter account back.
■ On the docket for the Supreme Court session beginning today: Abortion, guns and religion …
■ … and this time it’s personal—except for Brett Kavanaugh.
‘Another painful reminder that Obama is half-white.’ Weekend Update host Michael Che weighed in on Saturday Night Live about concerns Chicago’s Barack Obama Presidential Center will fuel gentrification.
■ When Axios Chicago asked readers their opinion of the project, they “split right down the middle.”
Where some men have gone before. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin plans to send Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, William Shatner, into space a week from Tuesday.
■ Shatner on Twitter: “I’m going to be a ‘rocket man!’”
■ From the archives in 1974 and ’76: Two interviews with Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.
‘Fascinating.’ Critic Richard Roeper reviews a new documentary about 1984’s Ghostbusters.
■ The early returns on Rotten Tomatoes have been upbeat.
Thanks to Chris Koenig for making this edition better.