Boot up. Brace for another round of heavy rain and thunderstorms in the Chicago area today.
■ Maybe a tornado, too.
■ Gov. Pritzker’s declared eight counties—including Cook—disaster areas after the run of crappy weather over the last couple of weeks.
■ Block Club: People on Chicago’s West Side say that, even as floodwaters have receded, they’ve left a public health crisis, because the water destroyed possessions, water heaters and air conditioning.
■ Hard-hit Cicero residents turned out in force yesterday, some demanding the town president’s ouster.
■ New England communities are shoveling out tons of mud and debris after a storm that dumped two months of rain in two days.
A new epoch. Escalating homo sapiens’ impact on the Earth almost into the same league with the meteorite that killed off the dinosaurs, an international team of scientists proposes that we’ve entered a new chapter in planetary history: The Anthropocene—from Greek for human and new.
■ Exhibit A: A Canadian lake whose sediment contains plutonium dating to the 1950s.
■ A joint Associated Press/Missouri Independent/MuckRock investigation: America’s push for the atomic bomb spawned enduring radioactive waste problems in St. Louis. (Missing link added.)
■ A climate negotiator and veteran UN diplomat: Fossil fuel firms’ profits over the past year “have shown their unwillingness to adapt. It’s now D-Day for them.”
■ The discovery of pendants made of giant sloths’ bones pushes humans’ arrival in South America back by thousands of years.
‘We should be hysterical.’ Columnist Lyz Lenz, diving deep into that word’s sexist roots, sounds a call to action for women around the world—including her state of Iowa …
■ … whose legislature late last night sent their willing governor a bill that would ban most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy.
The white thing. Popular Information runs down the corporations supporting Alabama Sen.—and former Auburn football coach—Tommy Tuberville, who’s been tieing tying himself in knots to defend white nationalists.
■ Poynter’s Tom Jones hails CNN’s Kaitlan Collins for nailing Tuberville during a Monday night interview.
■ Speaking of college football … The most-tapped link, by far, in yesterday’s Chicago Public Square was this: WebMD explains “dry humping.”
‘If they just establish the basic standards of every other branch of government …’ Responding to an AP investigation of questionable behavior at the Supreme Court, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, says it’s time for justices to play by the same ethics rules governing other branches of government.
■ But—surprise—the court’s standing by its loophole-ridden guidelines.
Landmark on the line. Sun-Times architecture critic Lee Bey flags the potential demolition of Oak Park’s National Register-listed village hall.
■ A Wednesday Journal editorial: “The village will need to build a mighty case … that this is not disrespect for a mid-century architectural classic.”
‘Threads is just better.’ The Daily Beast’s random sampling of Twitter employees found nearly a quarter of them using Instagram’s Twitter challenger.
■ Chicago Public Square’s there, too …
■ … although columnist Eric Zorn’s not sold.
■ The Nib’s Jen Sorensen mockingly surveys the burgeoning field of would-be Twitter killers, beginning with these three:
‘They rely on you forgetting.’ Zorn takes issue with counsel in yesterday’s Square on avoiding paywalls, maybe by paying a cheap introductory rate: “They have your credit card and will force you to cancel—not always easy!—or endure a sharp rate increase.”
■ That’s not the case with Square, which you can support on your own terms—one-time or recurring (and easily cancelable)—as has a small percentage of this service’s readers …
■ … including Deborah Barragan-White, Louise Donahue, James Madigan, two—count ’em, two—Debbie Beckers, Paula Weinbaum, Sherry Kent, Jill Chukerman, Anton Till, Daniel Forden, Marc Magliari, Logan Aimone, Jon Hilkevitch, Jan Kodner, Alan Hommerding, Jennifer Fardy, Sue Omanson, Pavlo Berko, Donna Barrows, Carol Morency, Rosemary Caruk, Shel Lustig, Paul M. Moretta, John Culver, Jennifer Packheiser, Owen Youngman, Frederick Nachman, Patrick Olsen, Steve Winner, Tom Marker, Timothy Mennel, Sarah Hoban, Stephen Brenner, Bennett Hart, Donna Peel, Andrew Mitran, Bernard Schoenburg and Ed McDevitt—who made this edition better.
■ Join ’em here.
Thanks. Beth Kujawski also made this edition better.
‘A Celebration of Lin Brehmer.’ WXRT’s announced an August benefit concert honoring the station’s late DJ.
■ Tickets go on sale to the public Friday.