‘Did someone really steal my car?’ With no snow in sight, the City of Chicago nevertheless surprised 242 drivers Thursday by towing their cars at the start of the annual winter parking ban.
■ Axios Chicago: November carjackings were way down compared to a year ago.
SAFE-T overhaul. Illinois lawmakers have sent Gov. Pritzker clarifications to the controversial Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today Act.
■ NBC 5 explains the changes and what they mean.
■ Five months after the Highland Park Independence Day parade massacre, a 16-page report by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions recommends no guns for those under 21.
■ A Sun-Times editorial cheers on a legislative push to ban the sale of assault weapons but insists also on a requirement that assault weapons already in the state be registered.
Some wall. A federal inspection report that the government tried to keep secret for more than a year concludes a privately built wall along Texas’ Rio Grande border could collapse during extreme flooding.
■ Donald Trump says the muttonheads who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, “have been treated unconstitutionally.”
■ Chicago City Hall was to remain closed until 1 today for a scheduled drill to prepare for the prospect of an active shooter.
Dollar stories. A suburban Dollar Tree store faces $364,000 in federal fines for putting its employees in jeopardy.
■ The Labor Department says this is just the latest in the chain’s “lengthy history of failed workplace safety inspections.” (Illustration: Dall-E.)
■ Block Club Chicago: “Fake DoorDash accounts are scamming local eateries and customers.”
■ If you bought Procter & Gamble-brand aerosol products—including Secret, Old Spice, Pantene, Waterl<ss, Aussie, Herbal Essences or Hair Food—between Nov. 4, 2015, and Dec. 31 of last year, you may be entitled to $3.50 per purchase under settlement of a complaint the company failed to disclose they contained benzene.
‘Four days of recent profits.’ That’s all The Lever says granting 125,000 rail workers a handful of sick days would have cost railroad industry donors to U.S. senators …
■ … who have sent President Biden legislation outlawing a rail strike that he says could have triggered a recession.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is a Square advertiser.
Journalism’s ‘grim day.’ Media writer Tom Jones surveys the wreckage as major cuts descended on the news biz Thursday …
■ … including Chicago TV news veteran Robin Meade, out at CNN’s sibling HLN …
■ … CNN correspondent and central Illinois TV veteran Martin Savidge …
■ … and hundreds at the Gannett newspaper chain, including USA Today.
‘I see good things in Hitler.’ That’s Chicago-bred Ye—the erstwhile Kanye West—Thursday, talking to airbag Alex Jones …
■ … who’s filed for personal bankruptcy to weasel out of the nearly $1.5 billion in court judgments he faces for lying about the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre.
An easy challenge.
Can you beat Square’s lousy 25% score on this week’s news quiz? Sure you can!
Have you voted yet? Don’t forget to nominate Square as best newsletter and best blog in the Reader’s Best of Chicago poll.
■ Thanks to Phil Huckleberry for kind words about Square in his Meta-Spiel newsletter’s roundup of magazines, local papers and email services worth paying for.
■ You can join him in the Legion of Chicago Public Squarians for as little as $1, once—really, just a buck—here.