‘Authenticating all humans.’ Now that spacefaring, Tesla-birthing rich guy Elon Musk apparently will own Twitter, GQ—yeah, GQ—explores what his commitment to “defeating the spam bots” might mean.
■ Flashback to 2018, when Musk touted his plan to build an underground railroad connecting downtown Chicago and O’Hare …
■ … a memory that the Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg says “is laughable to recall.”
■ Musk tweeted yesterday: “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.”
■ The Associated Press explains that Twitter’s been there, done that.
■ Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, who stands to make close to $1 billion in the deal, calls Musk “the singular solution I trust.”
■ Recode’s question for Musk: “How are you going to run Twitter, which is a for-profit business that isn’t very good at making a profit?”
■ The Washington Post: The deal’s triggered emotional breakdowns among some Twitter workers.
■ Popular Information’s Judd Legum: “Musk will have tremendous power to make decisions about the future of the platform and few obligations to make those decisions public.”
■ The Conversation: He won’t have a board to watch him.
■ The Hollywood Reporter: “Expect Grand Plans (and Chaos).”
■ A snark-tweet from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, alluding to Musk’s Tesla business in China: “Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage over the town square?” …
■ … but then Bezos backed off.
■ A U.S.-based intel company says it’s discovered more than 600 fake Twitter accounts spreading Chinese propaganda.
Contemptible Trump. A New York state judge has held Donald Trump in contempt of court, ordering him to pay $10,000 a day until he turns over papers demanded by the state’s attorney general.
■ The ex-president planned a fundraiser at his Mar-a-Lago compound for Illinois Republican Rep. Mary Miller tomorrow—with Illinois gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey hanging out, too.
■ Vanity Fair: Musk’s purchase of Twitter means Trump’s Truth Social “appears officially f__ked.”
‘I never thought that I’d be a criminal defendant.’ And yet, ex-Crestwood Mayor Lou Presta has been sentenced to prison for taking a $5,000 bribe from a red-light camera company executive.
■ The company, SafeSpeed, says it’s shocked, shocked that “one of its former colleagues was engaged in criminal conduct.”
■ A Tribune editorial asks, “How many more indictments before Illinois finally reforms red-light cameras?”
■ Route Fifty: For roadway work zones in a handful of states, orange is the new yellow.
A Chicago pardon. President Biden has granted forgiveness to Abraham Bolden, a Chicagoan who was the first Black Secret Service agent to serve on a White House detail—and who’s long maintained his innocence in a bribery case that he says was cooked up to retaliate for his exposure of misbehavior by his fellow agents under President Kennedy.
■ Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell championed the pardon back in January.
Hep alert. Three rare suspected cases of severe hepatitis in otherwise healthy Illinois kids—following a cluster of nine in Alabama—have prompted the state to ask doctors to keep an eye out for symptoms.
■ That followed a national advisory from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
■ Your Local Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina says it’s “quite the mystery for disease detectives,” but calls COVID-19 “an unlikely culprit … worth exploring.”
■ What is hepatitis? Encyclopaedia Britannica explains.
■ Poynter’s Al Tompkins: How Beijing’s new COVID-19 outbreak could affect you.
■ Chicago Public Health Department numbers show Chicagoans’ life expectancy dropped by almost two years during the first year of the pandemic.
‘A song about hell for Putin.’ Ex-Trib Moscow correspondent Charlie Madigan shares “How Deep Can You Bury That Man,” a song that he and some friends wrote for another purpose but that he says now applies just as well to the Russian president.
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‘Their final tour ever of planet Earth.’ After 45 years, the B-52s plan to bring “one last blow-out”—with KC & The Sunshine Band and The Tubes—to Chicago in October.
■ WXRT-FM and radio veteran John Records Landecker are among those to be inducted into the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum Hall of Fame in June (middle of Robert Feder’s column).
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