‘Ban assault rifles now.’ Survivors and families of victims of gun violence in Highland Park and elsewhere marched on the U.S. Capitol yesterday.
■ The Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet, who was at the Highland Park 4th of July parade, filed video of the march …
■ … and a column: “Enough said. But not enough done. Not yet.”
■ Close to 500 turned out for a vigil outside Highland Park’s city hall.
■ Weeks after attending a Chicago protest over gun violence, a 7-year-old boy was shot and killed in the family’s van.
■ The Illinois attorney general’s office is warning people to beware scams related to the Highland Park attack.
■ The Buffalo supermarket devastated by a mass shooting two months ago was set to reopen Friday.
‘I’m truly wondering what it will take for … news outlets to stop parroting what police officers tell them.’ Columnist Parker Molloy says the heartbreaking video from inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, shows just how wrong early coverage of the attack was.
■ A Chicago cop who knocked out a female teenage protester’s tooth has quit before he could be fired.
■ The Onion: “Things To Never Say To A Police Officer At A Protest.”
‘Visit Chicago early and often and fear not.’ Ex-political reporter Abdon Pallasch sends greetings from “the funnest city in the world.”
■ Organizers have sounded an all-clear for September’s North Coast Music Festival after the arrest of a man in connection with threats to the event.
■ The city’s first big reggaeton festival opens tomorrow.
■ Chicago now has its first public playground for adults.
■ Sweet news: Candy giant Ferrero North America has chosen the historic Marshall Field’s building—occupied at ground level by Macy’s (clarifying) above Macy’s on State—for a new “innovation center.”
So it did happen. Further confirming a story widely dissed by reactionary commentators, The Columbus Dispatch reports a man’s been charged with impregnating a 10-year-old Ohio girl.
■ Popular Information dissects “the right-wing smear campaign” to undermine the original report.
■ CNN’s Reliable Sources: Confirmation of the story highlights “the inhumanity of some partisan punditry.”
■ A Dispatch reporter on the scene tweeted: “I was the ONLY reporter in the courtroom.”
■ NiemanLab: “Unimaginable abortion stories will become more common. Is American journalism ready?”
■ More than 500 U.S. women are suing Uber, contending they were assaulted by its drivers.
‘America captured in a prison of theocracy.’ Men Yell at Me columnist Lyz Lenz, “homeschooled until high school,” sounds an alarm about the homeschooling movement …
■ … and “the right-wing children’s entertainment complex” (April link).
New shot on the block. The FDA has approved Novovax’s COVID-19 vaccination for adults …
■ … offering a new choice for people allergic to other vaccines’ ingredients.
■ Gov. Pritzker’s ending COVID vax requirements for the state’s colleges and relaxing rules for hospitals.
■ New research: Coronaviruses can survive a month on frozen meat.
■ A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alert flags a life-threatening virus that triggers fever, delirium, seizures and sepsis in infants.
Webb of controversy. Even as the first images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope wow Chicago-area astronomers …
■ University of Arizona professors explain how it will boost the search for life elsewhere in the universe.
■ Columnist Eric Zorn is distraught his Monty Python-inspired telescope joke didn’t get more applause on social media.
‘The city needs watchdogs to keep tabs on who’s keeping us informed.’ Axios Chicago mourns media columnist Robert Feder’s step away from the local media beat.
■ Ex-Tribune columnist John Kass is gone from Chicago.
■ Author and Loop North News publisher Steven Dahlman’s first-person account: “I spent four years fighting my landlord’s retaliation for being a journalist.”
You make it happen. Your support of Chicago Public Square—as little as $1, one-time—keeps this thing coming.