A Daley downed. The tax-crimes conviction of Chicago Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson—grandson of Mayor Richard J. Daley and nephew of Mayor Richard M. Daley—signals what Politico Illinois Playbook’s Shia Kapos calls “the end of an era” for the “Irish ward political system that has controlled City Hall for generations.”
■ Ald. Nick Sposato says Thompson “got the royal screw job because of what his name is” …
■ … and Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza concurs …
■ … but Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown says that, “being a Daley … Thompson also should have known he shouldn’t be playing in certain sandboxes.”
■ The clock’s ticking on Mayor Lightfoot’s choice of Thompson’s City Council successor.
Palin’s pain. A federal judge says he’ll toss ex-VP candidate Sarah Palin’s libel lawsuit against The New York Times.
■ In a rare act, he made the call while the jury was—and, at Square’s email deadline time still is—deliberating.
■ Washington Post columnist Erik Wemple: “Palin needed a smoking gun. She had boring emails.”
■ CNN’s Brian Stelter: “The Times’ lawyers know this is just the beginning.”
‘Misinformation panic.’ Columnist Matthew Yglesias takes a contrary view on the assertion that people are more stupid than ever.
■ He also contends that “American politics has been shifting leftward for years.”
Speaking of misinformation …
■ Donald Trump’s accountants are quitting, conceding they can’t vouch for a decade’s worth of financial statements they helped assemble.
■ Bloomberg columnist Timothy O’Brien: “What took you so long?”
Mask wars. Two Chicago Public Schools parents are going to court because their kids were told to wear masks or leave school.
■ Illinois COVID metrics have plunged to levels not seen since late November …
■ … but, the Chicago Reader reports, public school nurses are exhausted.
■ Mayor Lightfoot’s not guaranteeing to lift Chicago’s mask mandate as soon as Gov. Pritzker does for the rest of the state.
■ The Onion lists “Warning Signs A COVID Testing Site Might Be A Scam.”
Landmarks and segregation. A potentially game-changing lawsuit contends that Chicago’s creation of historic districts has functionally limited housing for “minorities, single persons, the elderly, persons with disabilities, renters, single parents, and other vulnerable groups.”
■ Block Club Chicago: “UChicago Students, Nearby Residents Demand University Give $1 Billion In Reparations To South Side Neighborhoods.”
■ Texas university researchers in 2021: “Are Historic Districts A Backdoor for Segregation? Yes and No.”
Not so forbidden. Even though the word “Guns” appears on the Illinois Secretary of State’s list of forbidden vanity license plates, Axios Chicago reports it somehow made its name onto a red Jeep spotted in Lakeview.
■ Also from Axios: A new accounting of the time Chicagoans spend in traffic shows rush-hour wastage is down but overall time on the roads is up.
‘Zero credibility.’ You know all those companies that have taken a public “climate pledge” to reach “net zero” carbon emissions—companies like Amazon and Nestlé? Popular Information says, yeah, not so much.
■ Two years after dumping cyanide and ammonia into a Lake Michigan tributary, killing thousands of fish, closing beaches and shutting down a municipal water plant, a steel mill owner has agreed to pay $3 million, donate land for conservation and clean up its act.
■ A “megadrought” has left the American West drier than it’s been in 1,200 years.
‘We need a peace pact.’ Ex-Sun-Times and Tribune editor Mark Jacob offers free advice on how to avert the Reader’s existential crisis.
■ Journalist Dan Sinker tweets sarcastically, “It’s weird because I’d really have expected this owner to be top-notch.”
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