‘Hunt them down like a rabbit.’ Politico’s Shia Kapos dissects what she considers “the most startling line” in last night’s Chicago mayoral debate: Candidate Willie Wilson’s explanation of how he’d have Chicago cops deal with fleeing suspects.
■ Here’s what all the candidates had to say about crime in the city.
■ See the debate here.
■ In an interview with the Sun-Times, one of Mayor Lightfoot’s challengers accused another of “abandoning the progressive movement” by “copying and pasting” Lightfoot’s anti-crime strategies.
‘We won!’ Injustice Watch celebrates a court victory granting it access to a decade’s worth of city ordinance violations.
■ Block Club Chicago: A City Council candidate’s been slapped with a cease-and-desist order—and his campaign headquarters shut down—after hosting live entertainment with bring-your-own-beer service without having the proper permits.
■ Lightfoot’s offering financial relief to Chicagoans trapped in a backlog of fines over violations for things such as loud radio playing and motorcycle noise.
‘Pritzker is now officially a Davos Person.’ And, the Better Government Association’s David Greising writes in the Tribune, that’s not a bad thing for Illinois’ governor.
■ Here’s some video of Pritzker on the stage in Switzerland.
Google cuts. The parent company’s search for savings has led to 12,000 layoffs.
■ Your Local Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina: “Twelve people are responsible for 65% of disinformation about COVID-19 vaccines on social media”—primarily on Facebook.
■ A new report tracking climate change misinformation on the internet slams Twitter: Search there for the word climate and the first recommendation is ClimateScam.
Dingus of the Week. Lyz Lenz bestows that dubious honor on Rep. George Santos (R-Cloud Cuckoo Land).
■ Politico’s Jack Shafer: “You might think that Congress is no place for a confessed liar under criminal investigation … but you’d be wrong.”
■ Columnist Lauren Martinchek: “Republicans … don’t care about how this looks in the long term. George Santos is another useful idiot, and that’s all they need.”
‘There’s no there there.’ President Biden dismisses concerns about those classified documents found at his home and former office.
■ Fred Kaplan at Slate: “Why are some documents more classified than others? And are there too damn many of them? The last question can be answered most easily: Absolutely, yes.”
‘You cannot have a brand in news and act this way.’ The National Press Club is condemning WGN-TV and NewsNation parent Nexstar for cutting a broadcast deal with the LIV Golf league—funded by the Saudi Arabian government responsible for “the state-ordered gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018.”
■ As Netflix founder Reed Hastings leaves the CEO job, Bloomberg’s Brad Stone hails him for—among other things—early strategy that “pinned his bet on a strange ally: the U.S. Postal Service.”
‘The drink no restaurant dares serve.’ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg ponders the reasons why [link added] Chicago joints don’t offer nonalcoholic wine.
■ Insider: It’s not your imagination; “Starbucks cup lids are falling off.”
■ Happy Chicago Restaurant Week.
■ The Tribune’s Louisa Chu serves up “a Chicago food critic’s perfect day in Chinatown.”
■ Axios Chicago’s Justin Kaufmann checks out Portillo’s new no-cash policy for drive-thru orders: “A policy designed to speed things along actually did the opposite.”
He could change the world. Singer-songwriter David Crosby is dead at 81.
■ Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young debuted as a quartet at Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre on August 16, 1969—with Joni Mitchell as their opening act.
■ Two years later, they gave the world Chicago.
■ In one of his final tweets, he said of heaven: “I heard the place is overrated….cloudy.”
■ Go: See if you can beat Square’s 7 out of 8 on the quiz.
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■ Thanks. Pam Spiegel and Molly Coleman made this edition better.