‘A juvenile delinquent at heart.’ Politico’s Jack Shafer offers an explanation for the “classified document caper” that put Donald Trump before a federal judge yesterday: “He breaks the law for entertainment.”
■ A professor of intelligence studies explains the importance of laws against insecure storage of highly classified documents.
■ The Onion: “Trump Denies Storing Documents In Bathroom: ‘Just Because A Room Has A Toilet Doesn’t Make It A Bathroom.’”
■ Today’s Trump’s birthday …
■ … and he reportedly “winced” at a Happy Birthday serenade yesterday.
‘Notepads, students and a pay phone.’ The judge’s prohibition of electronics in the courthouse—which made Trump’s historic federal arraignment, in the Associated Press’ words, “virtually invisible to the public”—demanded extraordinary measures by news organizations.
■ More from the AP: “In court, Trump faced charges with no cameras present. Outside, he campaigned for all to see.”
■ Veteran TV Chicago and network TV reporter Jim Avila: The trial should be televised gavel to gavel.
■ Picking up, among others, disaffected viewers of CNN, MSNBC has topped CNN and Fox in the ratings for the first time in five years.
More schools cash. Chicago schools are raising property taxes the max—5%—pledging a special focus for the money on special education.
■ The federal government’s sent the city more than $10 million to help incoming migrants.
■ Chicago moved four CTA busloads of migrant families from a North Side YMCA to Daley College on the Southwest Side.
Strange silence. Popular Information: The PGA Tour’s corporate sponsors have remarkably little to say about its merger with the murder-stained Saudi government’s golf thingy.
■ The Nib’s Jen Sorensen welcomes you to the PGA-LIV Bonesaw Classic.
‘It would be irresponsible to let four lanes come all the way up to a hard closure.’ And so Chicago’s emergency management services manager says the impending NASCAR street race will crimp DuSable Lake Shore Drive traffic for a longer stretch than previously suggested.
■ The city’s counsel to anyone planning a visit downtown during the July 1-2 event: Consider everything but driving.
Mosquito menace. Illinois has confirmed the season’s first cases of West Nile virus here.
■ Your Local Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina mourns the slashing of federal funding for public health: “It’s heartbreaking to watch the boulder go down the hill again.”
Colbert bears on. CBS has renewed Stephen Colbert’s Late Show deal for another three years.
■ Maybe he’ll even be able to resume doing the job again someday.
■ Two years ago today in Chicago Public Square: He brought the show back to a studio audience for the first time in more than a year.
■ Dolly Parton’s charity is teaming up with Illinois to send free books to kids from birth to age five—regardless of income.
Spider-Man artist dead. John Romita Sr., who in 1966 took over for the character’s original illustrator, Steve Ditko, was 93.
■ Sharing the news, his son, John Romita Jr., who followed him in the series, calls him “the greatest man I ever met.”
■ This long-uncorrected 1997 Tribune item misidentified Romita Sr. as “Spider-Man’s co-creator.”
Correction. Yesterday’s Chicago Public Square bore a bad link to Trump criticism from The Bulwark’s Charlie Sykes. Here’s the right one.
■ Thanks to reader John Meissen for the catch.
■ Mike Braden made this edition better.
… and those 47 include Chicago Public Square.