Lolla longer? The creator of the Lollapalooza festival, Perry Farrell, says Mayor Lightfoot’s given the event a 10-year extension on its use of Grant Park.
■ Update, 10:46 a.m.: Yeah, but “sources with knowledge of the negotiations” tell the Tribune: Not so fast.
■ Protesters are condemning as racist the so-called “Lollapalooza loophole” in Chicago’s 10 p.m. curfew for teenagers—an exemption for kids with event tickets, like Lolla’s mostly white crowd.
■ The mayor and the city’s top doc are getting needled for sending mixed messages about drug use at the fest.
■ Downtown hotels have reason to cheer Lollapalooza and its continuance.
■ Outdoor concerts begin Tuesday at the new Salt Shed venue near Goose Island.
‘I may be coming down with a case of The Hope.’ Vox’s Ian Millhiser says this has been a good week for the U.S.
■ The Associated Press recounts the weeklong negotiations that brought Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin around to a historic legislative compromise …
■ … that, among other things, may jumpstart electric vehicle sales.
■ The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah sees a lesson for those who were “so mad at Joe Manchin—calling him names, letting their anger take over, writing him off as a villain … and it worked! Nice job, everyone!”
■ Author, documentarian and Chicago native Jonathan Alter: “Forget the Red Wave. Why ’22 Could Go Blue.”
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “The demonstration that Republican leadership wants power to kill popular legislation creates an opening for … Republicans eager to break away from the party’s current extremism” …
■ … but Slate’s Christina Cauterucci warns Democrats to protect their slim Senate margin from COVID-19: “These people need to act like their favorite child is getting married next weekend.”
■ By mayoral executive order, Chicago is now a legal safe haven for those seeking abortion and other reproductive health care.
‘An ongoing disaster.’ Record flooding in Kentucky has killed at least 15 people and, in the AP’s words, “wiped out entire communities in some of the poorest places in America.”
■ Kentucky’s governor: Houses were “completely swept away in the middle of the night.”
■ The Conversation explains why climate change is making flooding worse around the world.
■ Spain’s prime minister says businesses can aid the war on global warming by ditching neckties at the office, easing the need for air conditioning.
■ Spain’s prime minister says businesses can aid the war on global warming by ditching neckties at the office, easing the need for air conditioning.
‘Trigger warning, editorial sidebar, something?’Chicago Public Square reader Deborah Wess is flummoxed that The New York Times print edition on Sunday included a story with this (now) tone-deaf passage: “‘I jokingly told some folks … we’d solve every problem in this country if on the Fourth of July every conservative went and shot one liberal,’ a local Tea Party activist and county commissioner named Bob Cavanaugh told the crowd.”
■ The mom of an 8-year-old boy paralyzed in the Highland Park 4th of July massacre says he has been asking his mom if he’ll walk again.
■ The Sun-Times: “Nearly 20,000 Cook County residents are walking around with revoked firearm owner’s identification cards”—presumably with illegal guns at their homes.
‘Ideally, we’ll still be able to get a sandwich, if not a driver’s license, in that gloriously weird atrium.’ A Tribune editorial sounds a small reservation about Google’s purchase of the State of Illinois’ Thompson Center.
■ John Greenfield at Streetsblog Chicago: “If they can keep the … public restrooms, so much the better.”
■ A tweet from Gov. Pritzker suggests the iconic Jean Dubuffet sculpture in front of the building could get a new home.
■ Big Technology’s Alex Kantrowitz: “Sentient or not, Google’s LaMDA chatbot is some seriously powerful tech.”
A Trader Joe’s first. Employees at one of the chain’s Massachusetts stores have become its first to approve a labor union.
■ Block Club: Inflation is driving rising demand at food pantries, but rising costs make it harder for pantries to help.
■ A Johns Hopkins professor: The risk of catching monkeypox at the grocery store is nearly zero “unless you tend to kiss or cuddle other shoppers.”
Atomic spy’s tale. Filmmaker Steve James’ new documentary—about a Manhattan Project physicist, Soviet agent and University of Chicago alumnus Theodore Hall—is set to debut at the Venice Film Festival …
■ … which brings to mind James’ 2018 turn in the Square podcast spotlight.
■ Better Late Than Never Dept.: Will Smith has finally apologized for slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars.
Thanks. Mike Braden made this edition better.
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