Chicago Public Square will take a few days off for a quality control upgrade. Back Monday.
A ‘people-hunting video.’ Missouri Republican Senate candidate and disgraced ex-Gov. Eric Greitens is under fire for a YouTube ad showing him fantasizing about murdering his opponents—“RINOs” (“Republicans in Name Only”).
■ Key Illinois Republicans have been markedly quiet about a death threat against their colleague, Jan. 6 committee member and Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger—and his wife and 5-month-old child.
Take a seat. Noon today brings the next round of House hearings on the Jan. 6 insurrection.
■ See it here.
Pepsi botheration. Popular Information puts PepsiCo on the spot for its apparent sponsorship of the Texas Republican Party [Update and clarification from PI on June 28: Republicans chose to honor Pepsi for a 2020 donation] …
■ … which Esquire’s Charlie Pierce says “celebrated Juneteenth by trying to drag us all back to 1857.”
■ Speaking yesterday in Chicago, ex-Vice President Pence laid the nation’s economic problems at the feet of Joe Biden and made no direct reference to his former boss.
■ An ex-Tribune editor airs regrets: “A superior ordered me to never say in the newspaper that Trump was lying … and the consequences are now obvious.”
‘Blast furnace.’ The National Weather Service said that’s the effect Chicago could expect today with high winds and temperatures near 100 degrees …
■ … and maybe another round of storms as things cool off later …
■ … wrapping up this, the year’s longest day.
Drink warily. Axios Chicago: Water in more than a third of the homes tested by Chicago shows high lead levels.
■ Critic Chris Jones reviews cullud wattah, Victory Gardens’ new play about the lead contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan.
■ Poynter’s Al Tompkins: The U.S. drought map is ugly, but not hopeless.
‘Voters have no idea where the tens of thousands of dollars he’s loaned his campaign come from.’ Democratic House candidate Jonathan Jackson—son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson—is under fire from rivals for failure to make the required campaign finance disclosures.
■ The AP rounds up what to watch in today’s Alabama and Washington, D.C., elections.
■ Ready to cast your ballot in the Illinois primary? The Square election guide’s here to help.
What was that guy’s name again? Mayor Lightfoot’s news release announcing her selection of 24th Ward Ald. Michael Scott Jr.’s sister to replace him tied itself in knots not to mention Scott himself.
■ The City Council gets final say tomorrow.
■ Council members today were weighing a rollback in the city’s speed camera program—pushing the ticket threshold from 6 mph over the limit back to 10 mph.
Zoom gloom. A widespread outage was crippling video conferencing around the world.
■ Downdetector had collected more than 14,000 problem reports in the hour before Square’s email deadline.
Kellogg’s flakes. The company’s splitting into three parts—focusing on cereals, snacks and plant-based foods …
■ … and shifting its HQ from Battle Creek, Michigan, to Chicago.
‘Drawing any equivalence between rioters storming our Capitol … and a cigar-chomping toy dog is a shameful and grotesque insult to the memory of everyone who died.’ Stephen Colbert responds to his staff’s arrest while filming comedy bits last week.
■ See his monologue: “Puppetry in the first degree.”
■ Critic Aaron Barnhart rounds up “The 10 Biggest Fails in Late-Night TV History.”