‘It’s dangerous as hell.’ Journalist Audarshia Townsend: “Someone is literally being murdered or maimed on the CTA almost every day, yet city officials insist on saying that ‘it’s safe.’”
■ After the second time in three days that a Red Line rider used a knife to fend off a group of assailants, a CTA union president says “members are afraid to come to work.” (2021 photo: Harry Carmichael in the Chicago Public Square Flickr group.)
■ One person was found dead on the CTA tracks near the Roosevelt Station this morning.
‘She was robbed of her life.’ A former Chicago high school basketball player, Dyanla Rainey, was shot and killed while she parked in the driveway of her Maywood home—as her mother pulled up behind her.
■ A 13-year-old Evanston girl was in critical condition after being shot in a backyard.
■ The Chicago School Board’s close to a vote on a $10 million contract to keep cops in schools that want them.
‘I can’t sleep very well.’ The only citizen to speak at Highland Park’s first City Council meeting since the 4th of July parade massacre there said he’s moving out of his apartment along the parade route.
■ Mayor Nancy Rotering called again for a federal ban on assault weapons.
Dome drive. Hoping to put a lid on talk of the Bears leaving town for Arlington Heights, Mayor Lightfoot’s dangling the prospect of a roof over Soldier Field.
■ It’s part of the mayor’s larger plan for “a reimagined museum campus.”
■ Axios Chicago: “No dome will create the number of seats a new stadium can.” (Rendering: Landmark Development.)
■ The mayor’s point man on the project has deep experience building NFL stadiums.
Pritzker unleashed. The governor says he’s over COVID-19 and “looking forward to getting back to work in person.”
■ Bloomberg: “Monkeypox is a threat to all of us.”
■ A Chicago journalist who had it says it was “not pleasant.”
■ Trevor Noah on The Daily Show: “Another global health emergency? No! We just got done with ignoring this pandemic!”
Space split. Russia says it’s cutting out of the International Space Station after 2024—to build its own orbital outpost …
■ … but, as of Square’s email deadline, The Verge reports Russia had yet to send formal word to NASA.
‘As much as I might vehemently … despise his politics, Adam Kinzinger is one of if not the most effective communicator on the committee.’ Medium columnist Lauren Martinchek offers reluctant praise for an Illinois Republican investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.
■ A Trumpy group of Illinois Republican lawmakers wants the party to censure Kinzinger, but state party leadership is ignoring ’em.
■ Politico’s Jack Shafer: Reports of Fox News patriarch Rupert Murdoch’s divorce from Donald Trump have been greatly exaggerated.
Don’t Do As He Did Dept. Three days after voting against a federal bill to protect same-sex marriage, a Republican Pennsylvania representative attended his son’s same-sex wedding.
■ The Onion surveys the usual crew of fake readers about claims Walgreens has been denying customers birth control products: “I always consult a cashier for family planning decisions anyway.”
‘We have relentlessly followed the money, exposing corporate donors to the politicians behind abortion bans, anti-LGBTQ laws, and voter suppression.’ Muckraking newsletter Popular Information is marking its fourth anniversary.
■ It’s the end of the line for Samantha Bee’s Full Frontal on TBS.
■ Five years ago, Poynter noted the dawn of Chicago Public Square.
■ If you tuned in for that live-on-Twitter Square / Rivet360 podcast yesterday only to encounter a series of technical glitches, our apologies. Watch for the finished production soon.