This edition: Dead British royalty-free!
‘The pandemic is over.’ There. President Biden said it—last night on 60 Minutes.
■ He added, “We still have a problem with COVID … but … if you notice, no one’s wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape.”
■ Your Local Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina: “This is hard to believe given an average of 400 Americans are dying each day. … This winter will be a true test.”
‘Potentially a crime.’ Popular Information has evidence that migrants from Venezuela were given false information to persuade them to board those flights that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis chartered to send them to Martha’s Vineyard.
■ Boston immigration attorney Rachel Self calls it “a sadistic lie.”
■ Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin: “Governors are taking advantage of these helpless people. … It’s always the kids that end up being the victims.”
■ DeSantis may have been inspired by Fox News xenophobe Tucker Carlson.
■ The Intercept: The Biden administration plans to rev up work on Trump’s border wall.
‘An American nightmare.’ The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch assesses “a terrifying Trump rally in Ohio.”
■ USA Today columnist Jill Lawrence takes a hard line for November: “If you care about the future of America, democracy and your own rights, don’t vote for Republicans.”
■ The Guardian has published a Proud Boys memo that gives “rare insight into the meticulous planning that goes into events staged by the far-right club.”
‘Two weeks after my wife and I were robbed at gunpoint …’ The founder of Chicago’s Pulitzer-winning Invisible Institute, Jamie Kalven, reflects: “The challenge is not to live without fear but to make it a vehicle for widening the lens through which we take in the world.”
■ He says the attack reawakened his wife’s trauma of past violence—which he discussed last year in a Chicago Public Square podcast.
■ Block Club: “Police shutdown of downtown traffic Saturday was ‘unorganized chaos,’ frustrated residents say.”
Free at last. After two years of captivity, an Illinois Navy veteran who’d been doing construction contract work in Afghanistan has been freed in a prisoner swap.
■ Afghanistan gets back a Taliban drug lord in the deal.
‘Catastrophic.’ That’s how Puerto Rico’s governor describes the toll of Hurricane Fiona, which knocked out power across the commonwealth.
■ An earthquake in Taiwan stranded about 400 tourists on a mountainside until they were rescued safely.
Not scientific or industrial enough. The Museum of Science and Industry has shuttered its five-decade-old circus exhibit.
■ The collection will be up for auction Saturday.
■ OK, what about that dollhouse exhibit?
‘The Tribune Co. … had become an avatar for the collapse of the newspaper business.’ Politico takes a deep dive into rising tensions at the formerly Chicago-managed Los Angeles Times.
■ Puck analyzes the latest upheavals at CNN, struggling with “waning relevance in a world of Netflix, HBO and the ever-present second screen.”
Shirts in store. If you’ve ever coveted one of those Square T-shirts but wanted to inspect the merchandise first, good news: They’re now in stock at the Chicago outlet for Raygun, the self-styled “Greatest Store In The Universe,” 5207 N. Clark St.
■ But if you’re not a retail-type person, you should know that any shirt you buy online from Raygun is eternally returnable.