‘Because they’re cops.’ That’s No. 1 on columnist Neil Steinberg’s list of five reasons why black motorist Tyre Nichols was killed in Memphis …
■ … a case that has given new life to calls for overhauling the nation’s police culture.
■ Politico’s Shia Kapos compares the Nichols case to that of Chicagoan Laquan McDonald, shot 16 times by a Chicago cop in 2014, and sees “some progress.”
■ Chicago-area activists planned protests in Waukegan this afternoon and downtown Chicago tonight.
■ Police were hunting suspects in more than a dozen Chicago robberies during just two hours over the weekend.
‘Not how Garcia wanted to start.’ Axios Chicago surveys a problematic launch for Rep. Chuy Garcia’s mayoral campaign.
■ Mayoral candidate, City Council member and former chemistry teacher Sophia King is proposing to invest $100 million to make child care affordable for every working parent in the city.
■ Test your knowledge of the candidates’ positions with a Tribune quiz.
■ A WBEZ-Sun-Times quiz aims to match you with a mayoral candidate whose views most closely match yours.
■ Why are Chicago elections nonpartisan? WTTW’s Heather Cherone says you can credit white Chicago political leaders who took a page from Southern states.
■ Ready to (think about casting your) vote? Let Chicago Public Square be your guide.
‘If they said everybody could go to preschool and we’re going to pay for it, I would say I still don’t have space.’A suburban public school principal is among those who tell the Trib that Gov. Pritzker’s call for universal preschool in Illinois is easier said than done.
■ Popular Information goes inside “the audacious new scheme to erase LGBTQ people from Michigan schools.”
Free rides. Add Seattle to the list of local governments offering no-cost mass transit service—in its case, for public housing residents.
■ Chicago’s trying new things to make drivers’ left turns safer for pedestrians.
Caught on camera. Two disaster restoration workers assigned to clean up the Kenwood high-rise wracked by a deadly fire last week face felony burglary charges after a resident’s motion-sensing security cam caught them where they weren’t supposed to be.
■ Illinois tops a list of states that disclose information about utility shutoffs for residents’ failure to pay.
■ ComEd’s parent tops the report’s “Hall of Shame.”
‘Rethink everything we think we know about the Trump-Russia scandal.’ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch: “The New York Times should tell readers whether it helped crooked FBI agents get Trump elected in 2016.”
■ The executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty is warning about the expansion of a far-right group going to the “unholy well of Christian nationalism” in support of Trump’s bid to return to the White House.
■ Chicago-born author (Crossing California) and Forward executive editor Adam Langer*—whose most recent novel, Cyclorama, explores the backstage drama at a high school production of The Diary of Anne Frank—has launched a new podcast about how Diary became a Pulitzer-winning Broadway play and an Oscar-winning movie that changed the lives of those who made it.
‘The digital age is destroying the art of the letter.’ Columnist Laura Washington fears that pen-to-paper’s decline means our stories may be lost “200 years hence.”
■ Hey Chicago surveys tech sector layoffs’ impact in Chicago (middle of today’s edition) …
■ … but columnist Matt Yglesias says those layoffs “don’t spell economic doom. They could even be change for the better!”
■ Wired serves up “everything you need to know” about AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT.
Happy Squareiversary. Today marks six years since Square’s launch as a daily email news briefing …
■ … after a trial balloon or two …
■ … and a public announcement on WGN Radio.
■ You can say “happy birthday” with a vote for Square in the Reader’s Best of Chicago poll …
■ … and then revisit last year’s news quiz drawn from Square’s first five years.
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* And a former WXRT News intern, who generously names your Square columnist in the closing credits.