Ghosts be gone. Illinois is now the first Midwest state to ban “ghost guns” …
■ … unregistered, privately-made firearms that Gov. Pritzker called in his signing ceremony “deadly weapons with horrifying implications.”
■ Now, a Sun-Times editorial says, the nation needs a law requiring the registration of—but not a ban on—assault weapons.
■ The mom of an 8-year-old Chicago kid who brought a gun to school, where it injured a 7-year-old, got a scolding from the judge as she was charged with child endangerment.
■ A series of racist incidents triggered a walkout by students at a Chicago high school.
■ Columnist Eric Zorn on Chicago’s run of mass youth mayhem: “I don’t see a great alternative to … the arrest (but not prosecution) of those who violate the law.”
‘I meant that she would get a lawyer.’ Republican candidate for governor and Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin is playing down a police report quoting him as saying when his then-girlfriend was accused of hitting a guard at a marijuana store that the “charges would be taken care of.”
■ As Irvin condemns Pritzker for going soft on violent crime, WBEZ reports that the financial empire of Irvin’s sugar daddy, Ken Griffin, has expanded its holdings of gun and ammo companies.
■ A grand jury has charged the Buffalo supermarket massacre suspect with first-degree murder.
No worms for early birds. Early voting in Chicago was to have begun today, but now it’ll be next Thursday—and June 1 for suburban Cook County.
■ Sun-Times Washington bureau chief Lynn Sweet: If you’re confused, you’re not alone—and here’s why.
Oops. Ex-President George W. Bush accidentally condemned “a … brutal invasion of Iraq”—a thing that happened under his administration—before correcting himself to say “Ukraine” …
■ … and then adding under his breath: “Iraq, too.” (Chicago Public Square screengrab from Bush Presidential Center video.)
■ Video smuggled out of Mariupol by a medic now in Russian custody shows firsthand the death and devastation dealt by Russian invaders.
■ A Russian soldier facing the first Ukraine war crime trial pleaded today for his victim’s widow to forgive him.
Dissed. Biden administration plans for a “Disinformation Governance Board” at the Department of Homeland Security are on pause …
■ … after the resignation under fire of the woman hired to run it.
■ BuzzFeed News’ Joe Bernstein on Twitter: “Two things can be true: Something can be subject to a loathsome bad-faith right-wing messaging operation and still be a horribly misconceived and underthought fiasco.”
Mask ask. Especially for the roughly a third of the U.S.—primarily in the Midwest and Northeast—now considered at higher risk of COVID-19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says people should be considering wearing masks indoors.
■ Your Local Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina says we may or may not be in a public health emergency: “Transmission is not stable or predictable, the virus is changing quickly, and we have no idea what it will do next.”
■ And now … monkeypox.
Got formula? The head of the FDA gets grilled by Congress today over the national shortage of baby formula.
■ President Biden’s pulling rank to speed baby food production and distribution.
■ City Cast Chicago: Where to find and donate formula.
■ A professor of global supply chain management says that, long before a key plant’s closure, the formula industry was primed for disaster.
■ Quartz blames America’s monopoly addiction.
■ The creators of Netflix’s Stranger Things series reportedly had a “total meltdown” about a Stranger Things version of the board game Monopoly that gives away the new season’s plot points.
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