… aaaaaand Chicago Public Square is back:
‘Rev up the arrests.’ A Sun-Times editorial says the plague of daredevil car stunts across Chicago signals that “impounding the cars and fining those involved in unsanctioned events isn’t enough.”
■ The city’s top cop: “We need to do more of that.”
■ A Naples, Florida, woman was struck and killed by one of two speeding Corvettes near Midway Airport early Sunday—the day before her 41st birthday.
■ Columnist Eric Zorn: “‘Drifting’ would be lame entertainment indeed if it weren’t also … a form of protest in which both drivers and observers claim the streets as their own and in the process expose the police as hapless.”
Another one bites the (retirement) dust. Chicago’s first openly gay City Council member, Tom Tunney*, is calling it quits.
■ That makes at least a fifth of the council’s seats up for grabs next spring.
Whoops. CWBChicago reports that the state license of a company subcontracted in a deal to provide security guards and security dogs for the CTA is “inoperative.”
■ Mayor Lightfoot’s named seven interim members of Chicago’s first civilian police oversight board.
Trump redux? The Atlantic’s Jonathan Rauch says the ex-president and his pals have “quite clearly” explained what a second term would bring.
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “As Trump has lost the power to command attention, his demands have gotten more and more outrageous.”
■ President Biden plans an address Thursday night to warn that, in the words of a White House official, Americans’ “rights and freedoms are still under attack.”
‘The quiet part out loud.’ The Lever notes that “conservative war hawks” are complaining that Biden’s plan to cancel some student debt will “undercut the military’s ability to prey on desperate young Americans.”
■ A big hole in the forgiveness program: Black and Latino men, penalized for crack cocaine and marijuana offenses in the ’90s. (Illustration from Tom Tomorrow’s longer cartoon satire of the program’s critics.)
‘Why people hate politics.’ That’s one of several experts consulted by the Better Government Association in an investigation of Gov. Pritzker’s disclosed investments in his not-so-blind trust …
Last call. A lack of new funding means an end Friday to free at-home COVID tests from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
■ Here’s where to order yours—if you haven’t already …
■ … and you may have other ways to get tested free after Friday.
■ Axios Chicago: Chicago Public Schools reported three times as many COVID-19 cases during the first week of this school year as it did last year.
Blame ‘zombie ice.’ A new scientific assessment concludes that Greenland’s melting ice sheet will eventually raise the global sea level by close to 11 inches—more than double earlier forecasts.
■ A glaciology professor calls the increase “irreversible”—and evidence that “fossil fuels and emissions must be curtailed now, because time is short.”
‘This is potentially a big deal.’ The leader of a privacy advocacy group hails the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit against a data broker it accuses of selling mobile devices’ geolocation data—including people’s movements to reproductive health clinics.
■ Protocol says the suit suggests consequences for companies misusing sensitive health data “could come sooner than people think.”
■ The Conversation: “Your phone reveals more about you than you think.”
■ Popular Information: Even as Google has assured employees that it supports their reproductive rights, it’s donated extensively to anti-abortion political committees.
■ The Onion: “New Google Privacy Settings Allows Users To Choose If [Google CEO] Sundar Pichai Can Sleep Under Bed.”
Movies, cheap. Saturday is “National Cinema Day,” when the majority of U.S. movie theaters will offer tickets all day for no more than $3.
■ The Onion again: “MLB Teams Trying To Attract Younger Audience With Free Prostate Exam Day.”
Thanks … to new members of the Legion of Chicago Public Squarians, including Joan Pederson and Gregory Dudzienski.
■ You can join them for virtually any amount—as little as $1—here.
■ Coming soon: New Square T-shirts—the price for which Squarians get $5 off.
* And, back in the day, a go-to source for your Square columnist covering City Hall (sample radio report from March 2012).