Northwestern lockdown. The Evanston campus was on alert for more than an hour last night after a shooting on the Lake Michigan beach nearby left one teenager dead and two wounded.
■ Schools in Chicago and 20 other Illinois cities yesterday experienced false reports of active shooters.
■ An artist volunteering at Highland Park High School describes what it was like in a community terrorized by that Fourth of July massacre when students faced another threat of gun violence.
■ A Sun-Times editorial: “The tragic litany of legally purchased guns used to kill is beginning to feel as though it has no end.”
■ Politico: A new survey concludes that one in five American adults has lost a family member to a gun …
■ … and among Blacks, it’s one in three.
■ The Onion: “Gun Safety Course Stresses To Always Make Sure Firearm Completely Unloaded Into Victim Before Storing.”
Justin case. The second of two Black Democrats expelled from the Tennessee House after a peaceful antigun protest—Justin Pearson—is headed back to the legislature.
■ U.S. senators want the Justice Department to investigate the whole thing.
‘If at first you don’t succeed, defund the public library.’ Popular Information: Because banning books “is tricky,” right-wing politicians are considering defunding public libraries completely.
■ Columnist John Stoehr at The Editorial Board: Republicans have changed their mind on “big government,” and now embrace “socialism for white people.”
■ Or, as USA Today’s Rex Huppke puts it sarcastically: “If there’s one thing we know about conservatives it’s that they hate states’ rights.”
Abortion pill compromise. A federal appeals court is giving mifepristone a reprieve—but for a reduced period of pregnancy—and not for dispensation by mail.
■ Ultimately, the case seems headed for the Supreme Court.
■ Illinois clinics are making backup plans.
‘Moment of crisis.’ Concerned about the Senate’s ability to confirm “judges who will uphold reproductive rights,” House Democrats are calling on decrepit California Sen. Dianne Feinstein—at 89, the oldest U.S. senator—to quit.
■ Instead, she’s offered to step down from the Judiciary Committee.
‘Historic implications far beyond one Supreme Court justice.’ A government ethics group is demanding the Justice Department investigate Justice Clarence Thomas’ luxury trips with a Republican billionaire megadonor.
■ Read the letter: “Refer this matter to the U.S. Attorney General or state publicly why … this matter does not warrant further action.”
■ Speaking of Thomas’ friend, The Onion has concocted a feature in which “Collectors Explain Why They Acquire Nazi Memorabilia.”
‘The most important virus you’ve never heard of.’ The Conversation wants you to know about human metapneumovirus—a thing that wasn’t ID’d until 2001 and whose symptoms won’t even trigger tests by most doctors.
■ Visiting a doc or a hospital? The Arm and a Leg podcast wants to see the forms you get when “you ‘agree’ to pay whatever your insurance doesn’t” (bottom of today’s newsletter).
■ Noted in Chicago Public Square three years ago today: The Atlantic’s Amanda Mull, suggesting that “after the pandemic, the office dress code should never come back.”
‘Indiana man claims dibs on The Chicago Way.’ Columnist Eric Zorn notes that his ex-Tribune colleague John Kass—who used to live in Chicago, he did but not anymore—has filed for a trademark on that phrase.
■ Here’s that song.
■ Folks who still work in Chicago might be happy to see the just-released 2023 Millennium Park summer season schedule.
■ The Onion again: “Midwest Battered By Beautiful Weather.”
Square mailbag. A link in Wednesday’s edition to a Tribune editorial that waxed enthusiastically about the prospect of electric vehicles that “would be able to recharge via some kind of wireless device even as they travel” raised reader concern:
■ Ed Gilliland: “Wow! Electric coils three inches below the surface of the roadway. Nice, but for one fact you are overlooking: The pothole! [DuSable Lake Shore Drive] potholes are twice—no, three times that deep! Plan B is …?”
■ Jen Packheiser: “While I am really excited about EVs and the increased push to get people to buy them, I am wondering about our charging infrastructure. … We ran into trouble on a trip to Michigan last fall because there are no fast chargers between Saugatuck and downtown Chicago.”
■ This 2021 New York Times piece sheds light on the technology …
■ … and today’s Sun-Times brings cheer to those wondering where they’d charge EVs.
■ A University of California transportation researcher: “Automakers can meet EPA’s tough new standards.”
■ Separately, this note from Joan Pederson: “I’d forgotten how long an evening it was when Harold [Washington] beat Bernie [Epton], but not my euphoria when Harold pulled ahead for good. Although I was watching the networks earlier in the evening, I was in bed with ’XRT for the last couple of hours. Thanks for the link allowing us Square readers the chance to relive … the first time I voted wholeheartedly for someone who then won.”
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