Not so fast. Ketanji Brown Jackson’s historic confirmation to serve on the Supreme Court puts her in what The New York Times calls “an unusual twilight space”—leaving her a “justice in waiting” until Justice Stephen Breyer retires at the start of the court’s summer recess.
■ Mayor Lightfoot was set to attend a White House ceremony celebrating Jackson’s confirmation today around 11:15 Chicago time. (Photo: The White House.)
■ PolitiFact gives its special “Pants on Fire!” rating to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s “beyond preposterous” criticism of Brown’s Jackson’s Republican supporters.
Pelosi has COVID-19. The House speaker tested positive a day after joining President Biden, unmasked, at the White House.
■ The Atlantic: “The virus seems to be stalking the president.”
■ Spouses and co-stars in Broadway’s Plaza Suite Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick have it, killing the show for now.
■ A Tribune editorial celebrates the Illinois Senate’s passage of a bill that guarantees patients at least one visitor, pandemic declarations or not.
■ If you’re dealing with “long COVID,” University of Illinois at Chicago researchers would like to hear from you.
Hungry for peace. The U.N. blames Russia’s war on Ukraine for food commodities hitting record highs around the world.
■ A strike on a Ukraine rail station crowded with refugees killed at least 50 people.
Raining money. You know it’s an election year when an Illinois budget taking shape includes stimulus checks, a grocery tax suspension, a gas-tax freeze, property tax rebates and an August-only tax break on school supplies.
■ The independent Civic Federation says the gas-tax freeze in particular is a bad idea.
Scoot on, Chicago. Following a couple of pilot programs, the city’s moving ahead with a full two-year program that will put up to 3,000 scooters from three companies—plus another 1,000 through the Divvy bike-sharing network—on the streets…
‘Perplexed/flummoxed/distraught.’ Mayor Lightfoot said she “fully expects” to bring that controversial statue of Christopher Columbus back to Grant Park—but memos obtained by the Trib show that her own monuments committee is not so wild about the idea.
■ Hundreds turned out last night to express concern about the prospect of a Chicago casino along the south branch of the Chicago River.
‘Powerful, important, serious work.’ Sun-Times critic Richard Roeper gives AMC’s Chicago-set series 61st Street, premiering Sunday, three stars …
■ … but The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Fienberg sees “one narrative trope after another that feels lifted from one prestige TV show after another.”
■ Take this, Toronto: The show was shot exclusively on the South Side.
■ The Simpsons makes history Sunday with its first use of deaf voice actors and American Sign Language—an episode written by a staffer whose brother was born deaf.
11 out from behind the 8-ball. WTTW has settled the first strike in its history, and 23 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers members will be back on the job for Chicago Tonight tonight.
■ An eighth Chicago-area Starbucks is the subject of a unionization effort.
■ The Onion helpfully suggests “What To Say If Your Boss Asks You To Work On The Weekend.”
‘Tweet less.’ The New York Times’ top editor, Dean Baquet, wants his reporters to back off Twitter: “If your role is to find out important facts and tell them to the world, is that the way you want to spend your day?”
■ The publisher of Chicago Public Square, which would be much the poorer without Twitter, is unconvinced.
■ New York’s Choire Sicha: Most of the people who work for Baquet “are very bad at being on Twitter, and their tweets truly are just not good.”
■ Men Yell at Me proprietor Lyz Lenz: “We are a United States of Shit Posters.”
■ Twitter’s new big guy, Elon Musk, plans a question-and-answer session with alarmed employees next week.
■ Los Angeles Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik: “Musk’s stake in Twitter is not good news for Twitter—or its users.”
Know an aspiring journalist? Spread this word from the Chicago Headline Club. Monday’s the deadline to apply for the Les Brownlee Memorial Scholarship. A worthy undergrad attending a Chicago-area or Illinois institution can land $5,000. Apply here.
We’ve collared the market. But we’re happy to open the Chicago Public Square T-shirt vault to you.
