Why hostages? An expert on international security offers an explanation of Hamas’ taking of hostages in its attack on Israel—and why that leaves Israel with no good options.
Thanks. Ellen Mrazek made this edition better.
■ The family of an Evanston woman and her daughter presumed among the hostages recounts a text from a bunker, then silence.
■ The Bulwark’s Charlie Sykes: “The terror in Israel is … something new. … This is what a world without rules looks like.”
■ The dead include at least seven journalists.
■ The war’s exposed tension in Chicago between a mayoral ally and the City Council’s only Jewish member.
■ Columnist Neil Steinberg: “How does this end? That’s a silly question. This never ends. … Each side talks past each other, kills each other, then mourns their own and buries their own and starts it all over again.”
‘Sheer evil.’ Confirming that Americans are among the hostages, President Biden minced no words in condemning an organization that he says uses “Palestinian civilians as human shields.”
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “The president’s speech was not without notice to Israel’s prime minister.”
■ The Onion: “Netanyahu: ‘I Don’t Know About You, But The Timing Of This Tragic Attack On Israelis Could Not Have Come At A Better Time For Me’” …
Shhhhh. In what the Tribune calls “an extraordinary departure from usual practices,” Chicago’s settlement with whistleblowers fired by Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin forbids them from discussing crap in her office.
■ A Trib editorial demands departing Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx come clean on “a head-spinning tale of mismanagement and questionable prosecutorial behavior.”
Chicago’s bird carnage. WTTW reports that the city’s high-rise avian casualty count is on the rise.
■ A full-page ad in the Trib demands the city take action.
‘I don’t know why they shot.’ Gunmen wounded two migrants outside a Chicago police station—one of them a woman holding a young son at the time.
■ The refugee population crunch is easing at O’Hare’s bus center.
■ A thing to watch today: How will Mayor Johnson’s budget address the $200 million hole in the city’s budget attributable to spending on refugee aid?
Social (media) climber. Video posted to Twitter X from inside the 16th floor of Chicago’s Accenture building shows a guy scaling the tower from the outside …
■ … in a stunt allegedly to raise money for anti-abortion causes—sponsored by a reactionary beer brand.
‘That’s about as much as the city gets annually from my family for red light camera tickets.’ Trib columnist Paul Sullivan is unimpressed with the municipal take in the washed-out NASCAR event over the July 4th weekend.
■ A Trib editorial: “Taylor Swift … blew NASCAR out of the water in terms of hotel rooms booked and other economic benefits. … She’s the one we most need back.”
Plutocrats in the news.
■ ProPublica: “How Leonard Leo built a machine that remade the American legal system—and what he plans to do next.”
■ Popular Information spotlights Charles Koch’s “audacious new $5 billion political scheme.”
■ U.S. Rep. George Santos (R-Bunco) has been indicted, accused of using his campaign donors’ credit cards to rack up tens of thousands of dollars in unauthorized charges.
News in the news.
■ NewsNation—the Chicago-based channel formerly known as WGN America—has been mum about settlement of a sexual assault lawsuit brought against its news chief, Michael Corn, for behavior while he was Good Morning America’s executive producer.
■ A former 60 Minutes employee is suing CBS, complaining of gender discrimination.
■ The Washington Post is cutting close to a tenth of its workforce.
■ Northwestern University’s Local News Initiative takes a critical look at newspaper newsrooms transformed and shrunken by layoffs, tech changes and a pandemic.
■ Editor & Publisher columnist Andrew Ramsammy offers cautionary words for news organizations seeking shelter as charities: “Nonprofit media isn’t a business model; it’s a tax status.”
■ Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer: “Trump’s violent rhetoric and extremist positions are a big story … and the press needs to start treating it that way.”