He’ll be back. Facing the prospect of dismissal for racist and other misbehavior, Chicago police union chief John Catanzara says he’s just gonna quit the department …
■ … and then, he says, he’ll run for mayor.
■ Mayor Lightfoot says Catanzara “saw the writing on the wall.”
■ Under a settlement headed toward City Council approval, the police department would face stricter rules for monitoring racial disparity in police responses.
■ A Chicago data analyst calls for an end to Chicago’s ban on body armor for civilians.
‘For reasonable people of all stripes, the … trial is deeply depressing.’ A Tribune editorial assesses the case against Kenosha killer Kyle Rittenhouse …
What’s in it for you? The Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet runs down some of the goodies in store for Illinois under the infrastructure law President Biden signed yesterday.
■ … and replacement of Chicago’s infernal lead water pipes. (Photo: Brian Crawford in the Chicago Public Square Flickr group.)
Recycling’s ‘bleak’ future. A recycling industry veteran warns that Chicago’s system is broken, because of “modern-day not-in-my-backyard sentiments that now get sold as ‘environmental justice.’”
■ The Midwest's new Environmental Protection Agency chief promises a fresh focus on environmental justice.
■ The U.S. EPA says recycling sucks nationwide.
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All in for boosters. Every adult in the Cook County suburbs is now eligible for a COVID-19 booster shot.
■ A month after the deadline, fewer than two-thirds of Chicago’s cops say they’re vaxxed.
■ Pfizer’s cut a deal with a UN-backed group to let other companies manufacture its experimental COVID antiviral treatment in 95 countries.
■ Charlie Pierce in Esquire: Newly revealed documents from the pandemic’s early days spotlight the Trump administration’s “disregard for the public health that has no parallel in American history.”
■ From veteran Chicago journalist Dan Weissmann’s new First Aid Kit newsletter: How to avoid picking crappy health insurance.
Apartment angst. Veteran real estate reporter Don DeBat at North Loop News: “Rents will rise as landlords battle tax hikes.”
■ Chicago’s sanitation chief says the city needs to do better with leaf collection—which Axios notes is so bad in the city that Oak Park, with 4% as many homes, collected 100 times more leaves by weight.
Suburban ‘culture wars.’ Hundreds of people, some egged on by the neofascist Proud Boys group, turned out for last night’s Downers Grove high school board meeting to protest—and defend—the book Gender Queer’s presence on library shelves.
■ Esquire’s Pierce last week: “We Have Moved Swiftly On to the Book-Burning Portion of the Proceedings.”
‘She completely broke with where we are as a state.’ Wyoming’s Republican Party says it will no longer recognize the state’s one U.S. representative, the Trump-critical Liz Cheney, as a Republican.
■ A conservative radio host says he’s running as a Republican to challenge Democratic Rep. Lauren Underwood.
■ The Onion: “[Sen.] Patrick Leahy Announces He Won’t Seek Reelection To Make Room For Next Generation Of 70-Year-Olds.”
Radio opening. WTMX-FM is looking for someone to replace the disgraced Eric Ferguson atop its morning show.
■ Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg says he favors WBEZ-FM’s proposed merger with his employer …
■ … speaking of which: Here’s that time in 2013 your Square columnist hosted Steinberg and his frenemy Eric Zorn on WBEZ.
The end of ‘unsubscribe hell’? The FTC is ringing the death knell for one of the newspaper business’ favored—and most detested—tricks for keeping people from canceling.
■ Journalist and Columbia College graduate Danny Fenster’s been freed after almost six months in Myanmar prison.