Not so proud. The former leader of the Proud Boys, cheerleaders for Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, and three of his underboys have been convicted of seditious conspiracy for the assault on the U.S. Capitol …
■ … acts classified as criminal under a law enacted after the Civil War to arrest Southerners who might keep fighting the U.S. government.
More reasons for doubting Thomas. The Washington Post: Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo arranged for the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to be paid tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work—but specified that her name be left off billing paperwork.
■ Speaking of doubts: Esquire’s Charlie Pierce: “There are layers to the 2016 election f*ck up that no one has even touched yet.”
‘A slap in the face.’ South Shore residents are angry about plans to house incoming immigrants at the old South Shore High School.
■ One City Council member says Chicago needs to stop “playing whack-a-mole,” scrambling to find small facilities to house migrants, and settle on big, central locations—like McCormick Place or shuttered big-box stores.
■ Block Club: Volunteers are exhausted.
■ And, just sayin’ … the Tribune is abandoning its Freedom Center printing plant over the next several months to make way for a casino.
Dingii of the Week. Columnist Lyz Lenz’s pick is dads holding guns and posing with their daughters ahead of prom night: “I love that a long-standing joke in American society is about daughters being the personal property of their fathers.”
■ Members of the National Association for Gun Rights (which claims to be even more conservative than the National Rifle Association) want the Naperville City Council to drop the city’s ban on the sale of assault rifles …
■ … the state version of which has been resurrected by a federal appeals judge.
AirTag: They were It. Two men have been charged with armed robbery of a Brink’s truck outside a suburban grocery store after an Apple tracking device concealed within the more than $1 million in cash led the cops right to them.
■ One of the suspects had been sought in a similar heist last fall.
■ A guy’s under arrest after trying to rob another man at gunpoint—and firing his gun—last night on the CTA’s Roosevelt L stop.
‘If Illinois decides to forbid gas stoves in future construction, to save children from wheezing agony, well … I’ve already got mine, and isn’t that what America is all about?’ Columnist Neil Steinberg is unmoved by Republican alarms.
■ Politico: The Biden administration next week plans to propose limiting planet-warming pollution via a rule that would accelerate the dwindling of coal as a major power source.
■ Chicago’s Sunday? A high near 90.
Cinco de Mayo weekend dawns. Chicago police are hoping for the best and planning for worse.
■ Saturday’s Free Comic Book Day …
■ … at the end of which the Auditorium Theatre will host “The Batman in Concert.”
Cable TV savings. TechHive’s Jared Newman explains how you can cut your bill even if you’re not ready to cut the cord …
■ … and updates his big list of streaming deals.
If Friday is the day it is,
It’s time for you to take the …
■ Your quizmaster, past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Fritz Holznagel, kicks this edition off with, um, sort of a poem.
■ Your Square columnist got just 6 of 8 questions right.
■ Those who support Square at the Advocate level or better get invited to a special Facebook group that gets Thursday-night notice of each new quiz …
Chicago Public Square mailbag.
■ New subscriber John Evans, “an older suburbanite who grew up here and moved away 25 years ago” and now “moving back to a city that feels very different,” observes that, on “my first trip through customs at O’Hare, Thursday …there are two guys working, and women herding everyone into the queue … a 90-minute experience. … What a terrible way to greet people visiting the city. Plus, O’Hare is kind of a pigsty compared to other big-city airports.”
■ Reader Gil Herman writes: “Two articles in the Trib Thursday—one regarding where to house refugees/migrants and the other about the Bears’ plans to demolish Arlington Park buildings—got me thinking. Why not keep those buildings with numerous bathroom facilities open for housing the people arriving in droves from Texas?”