‘It blew up in our faces.’ City Council members who yesterday endured a marathon hearing on plans for a Chicago casino are comparing the process to the city’s rushed and now-condemned privatization of its parking meters.
■ But Mayor Lightfoot’s pushing for quick approval.
■ Looks like the council has a deal on a new ward map …
■ … locking the public out of a chance to vote in a referendum.
‘We are grateful to the Bangor police officers … who responded to the defacement of public property.’ Maine Sen. Susan Collins went to the cops after a polite appeal that she vote to codify the right to abortion into law appeared on the sidewalk outside her home.
■ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch: “U.S. leaders have walled themselves off from accountability. Their sidewalks are fair game.”
■ The Daily Show: “It’s messed up that protesters showed up at Brett Kavanaugh’s house on a Sunday morning. Do they not realize how hungover he must have been”?
■ Mayor Lightfoot’s pledging half a million dollars to keep Chicago safe for those seeking abortion and other reproductive health care.
■ The Onion: “Louisiana Police Officer Plants Aborted Fetus On Black Suspect.”
Babies are hungry. And the White House is working to address shortages of baby formula.
■ NBC News surveyed retailers to learn their limits on formula purchases.
■ A former Chicago alderman is calling for the city to take over Englewood’s disappearing Whole Foods as a publicly owned grocery store.
■ Consumer Reports offers a meat-lover’s guide to plant-based meats.
‘A huge win.’ A plaintiff in an ACLU lawsuit against facial recognition firm Clearview AI celebrates a proposed settlement under which the company agrees to a permanent ban on the sale of its service to most private companies …
■ … and to stop making its database available to state government and local police for five years in Illinois …
■ … thanks to the state’s pioneering Biometric Information Privacy Act.
■ The deal still requires approval from a Cook County Circuit Court judge.*
‘The most high-profile foes of historic preservation lately have not been greedy real estate developers but rather liberal politicians.’ Newcity publisher Brian Hieggelke sounds an alarm about Sen. Dick Durbin’s push to destroy two historic towers near the Dirksen Federal Building.
■ A preservation champion has a plan to save the buildings and protect security.
‘WORST. SEQUEL. EVER.’ That’s Stephen Colbert’s tweet, accompanying news that he’s “experiencing symptoms consistent with a recurrence of COVID,” canceling his Late Show until further notice.
■ Meanwhile, he’s assembled an all-star cast of comedians to serve on the new Second City advisory board he chairs.
Curdled Wordle. The New York Times scrambled yesterday to abort a long-ago pre-programmed Wordle puzzle.
■ The solution was fetus.
■ Politico’s Jack Shafer reflects on the Times policies that historically kept people in the closet.
A Pulitzer, but no solution. The Tribune and the Better Government Association share a Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, honoring their two-year series on Chicago’s deadly failure to hold landlords to its building- and fire-safety codes.
■ One reporter on the story calls the honor “bittersweet,” citing the “pain and loss … that could have been preventable” …
■ … and the BGA’s president says Chicago has yet to address the problem: “The city is little better off today than it was when dozens of people died in preventable fires.”
■ Poynter’s Tom Jones: “It … was heartening to see outlets not normally recognized by the Pulitzers get their moment in the spotlight.”
■ Here’s the full list of winners.
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* Who happens to be married to your Square columnist.