Free things.
■ Effective Monday, the feds will resume sending out COVID-19 tests to those who request them on this website …
■ … although you may still have some that haven’t really expired yet.
■ Your Local Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina: Under federal law, no one should be paying for a COVID vaccine.
■ Want to check your credit report? You can now do so free once a week.
■ Now, Consumer Reports wants the big three credit bureaus held to fixing mistakes quickly.
■ Got a big tree you want to donate for free? It could be Chicago’s next official Christmas tree.
A fiery end. After a crash while eluding police, a suspect in the shooting deaths of a Romeoville family—a man, a woman, two sons aged 7 and 9, and their three dogs—was dead in Oklahoma …
■ … along with a woman police identified as “a person of interest.”
■ Romeoville police say the family’s deaths were not a random act.
■ The suspect’s been described as a gun-toting security guard whose step-daughter called him “very dangerous.”
■ Over the course of an hour in Chicago, at least 14 people suffered a robbery spree executed by carloads of criminals.
At-tent-ion, Chicago. The city’s committed to paying close to $30 million dollars to build tent camps for the influx of migrants …
■ … something like this, an image shared by the city as an example:
■ Hmmm: The company involved helped ship migrants out of Florida.
■ In what Politico’s Shia Kapos calls a “game-changer for migrants,” the Biden administration’s offering to speed up work visas for close to 500,000 Venezuelans seeking asylum in the U.S.
■ Gov. Pritzker applauds: “President Biden has listened to my concerns.”
‘A health threat for the city’s residents.’ Chicago’s going to legal war against Monsanto Co., accusing it of poisoning Lake Michigan and the Chicago River with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) outlawed more than 40 years ago.
■ Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik: “Oil companies lied to us about climate change. California should sue them into the ground.”
■ Taking a cue from the New Deal, President Biden’s launched the American Climate Corps, to deploy more than 20,000 young Americans into green jobs—such as building trails, planting trees and installing solar panels.
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson says that move puts “the fight over how we conceive of our federal government … on full display.”
■ Author and columnist Cory Doctorow: “Efficiency” left the Big Three automakers vulnerable to smart union organizers.
‘The gravity of his mounting legal peril is getting to Trump.’ Rolling Stone says the ex-president’s increasingly been wondering aloud what life would be like if he’s convicted.
■ In her forthcoming book, Trump’s ex-aide Cassidy Hutchinson says Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani groped her Jan. 6, 2021.
R.I.P., ‘pro-choice.’ NARAL (previously “National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws” and “National Abortion Rights Action League”) Pro-Choice America is now Reproductive Freedom for All.
■ Politico: Trump is steamrolling anti-abortion groups.
A Fox era ends. Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as chairman of embattled Fox and News Corp. …
■ … handing the reins to his son Lachlan …
■ … who, in the words of Variety TV critic Daniel D’Addario, “may push the family firm … further … into conspiratorial thinking.”
■ Visionary ex-Sun-Times editor Jim Hoge—who oversaw a series of acclaimed and legendary journalistic investigations until Murdoch took over the paper for a few years—is dead at 87.
■ Chicago radio icon Rick O’Dell* is retiring from 87.7 MeTV-FM.
■ A November publication date’s been set for The Loop Files: An Oral History of the Most Outrageous Radio Station Ever, by Chicago media chronicler Rick Kaempfer.**
iPhone upgrades, revisited. For a time, the link in yesterday’s Chicago Public Square for Advisorator’s guide to what you can get based on carrier, plan and phone wasn’t working. It is now.
■ USA Today columnist Bob O’Donnell: Amazon’s latest products make the prospect of a truly connected smart home look more affordable and mainstream.
■ Big-name authors are joining a lawsuit against OpenAI’s hoovering up of intellectual property.
‘Just don’t get them started on Wonder Woman.’ Veteran comics editor Mike Gold*** condemns a Georgia school district that tried to censor a Batman researcher who dared to say gay.
■ Popular Information: Book banners are moving from schools to public libraries.
■ Columnist Eric Zorn sounds a warning about a Chicago City Council member’s proposal to ban those Little Free Library kiosks from Chicago parkways.
* And esteemed former colleague to your Square columnist (2012 link).
*** Who’s supervised Superman, Batman and this guy, too.
A Square public service announcement
The Headline Club is hosting a Movie Night at the Music Box Theatre, Thursday, Sept. 28. The event will feature a screening of the film She Said, based on the book by Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times investigative reporter Megan Twohey, who’ll be on hand for a VIP reception, the screening and a conversation afterward. Tickets and donation information can be found here.
Thanks. Aaron Barnhart made this edition better.