Chicago Public Square will take a break Friday.
‘Anti-abortion activists aren’t idiots.’ New York reports that, in the wake of Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked draft Supreme Court opinion that would overturn the Roe v. Wade decision’s right to abortion, Republicans are aiming to stop patients from leaving one state for an abortion in another.
■ The Intercept: Alito’s “regressive read of the law places other rights firmly in the crosshairs—including the right to contraception and to marriage equality.”
■ Columnist Eric Zorn: The court has “become just another grubby, agenda-driven political body—only one with suffocating power populated by members who never have to answer to the electorate.”
Reporters ‘helped create this mess.’ Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan: “When journalists agreed to accept terms such as pro-life to describe those who oppose abortion, they implicitly agreed to … stigmatize those who support it.”
■ Your Local Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina: “Banning abortions will not stop abortions.”
■ The Associated Press: Abortion pills are the battle’s next front.
■ Columnist Steve Chapman: “Abortion rights supporters who see the looming demise of Roe as the ultimate nightmare will soon realize that the worst is yet to come.”
We’re No. 2. New York and Illinois reported the nation’s highest abortion rates in 2019.
■ Ex-Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar: “Abortion is going to suffocate every other issue” in the June 28 primary.
■ Popular Information: Corporate America has been mostly silent, hoping to avoid controversy.
■ Meanwhile, in this week’s Ohio primary results, Politico sees Donald Trump reasserting his control of the Republican Party.
News for people with money to waste. Mayor Lightfoot has granted her blessing to plans for a Chicago casino at the site known until now as the Tribune Publishing Center.
■ A Sun-Times editorial calls on the City Council to ensure the mayor doesn’t take a sucker’s bet.
■ Reader columnist Ben Joravsky sighs: “We’ve brainwashed ourselves into thinking if we give billions to billionaires, it’s economic development. But if we give pennies to the poor, it’s a waste.”
■ More than 4 million low-income Americans are due refunds of up to $90 from the maker of TurboTax—a settlement of charges the company charged them for software they were eligible to get for free.
One million dead. NBC News says the COVID-19 pandemic has now claimed more than one million lives in the U.S.—“a once-unthinkable … loss even for the country with the world's highest recorded toll from the virus.”
■ A newly revised—and, the U.N. hopes, shocking—global pandemic total: Near 15 million deaths.
■ Bloomberg: “People with traumatic brain injuries and long COVID have something in common.”
Corrupt cop ‘crews.’ The Sun-Times says Northwestern University researchers studying 50 years of Chicago Police Department data conclude that “When it comes to police misconduct, the ‘bad apples’ come in bunches.”
■ Police want the public’s help identifying—from video—those responsible for a Sunday shooting that wounded two innocent bystanders and canceled a performance of Moulin Rouge!
■ Cops were hunting the driver responsible for the hit-and-run death of a bicyclist last night along North Milwaukee Avenue.
‘It’s embarrassing.’ The Better Government Association reports that, despite a public outcry following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Illinois lawmakers have yet to yank state investments out of Russian assets.
■ Ex-Tribune Moscow correspondent Charles Madigan praises The New Yorker for filing “a crucial Ukraine story.”
■ Read it here: “The Wound-Dressers.”
Journalists in jeopardy. A new survey of local news leaders finds American reporters increasingly under attack while doing their job.
■ Read the report: The bigger the market, the greater the danger.
Do you like Chicago Public Square? Your support encourages the compulsive behavior that brings it your way.
.png)
Chicago Public Square is a Community Media Awards sponsor.