‘Chicago in January with flip flops.’ Popular Information takes a hard look at Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s wholesale transport of migrants to Illinois.
■ The White House is suing Texas over a law giving cops authority to arrest migrants—a move the Justice Department contends gives the state an illegal immigration system of its own.
■ A growing number of Chicago suburbs are limiting or blocking migrant drop-offs within their borders.
■ A census recount has found another 46,400 Illinoisans—putting the lie to assertions the state’s population has dropped …
■ … and securing a bigger share of the federal pie.
Metra makeover. As of Feb. 1, ticket pricing changes, and $100 super-saver monthly passes and 10-ride passes go away.
■ Metra stiffed New Year’s Eve passengers when a 1:15 a.m. train left Union Station 20 minutes early the morning of Jan. 1.
■ Amtrak wants your ideas on how to overhaul Union Station.
Picture this. A Sun-Times editorial on a call to delay posting of a portrait of indicted-but-not-convicted ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan at the Capitol: Better to push for removal of two paintings of convicted ex-Gov. George Ryan.
■ Read the resolution: “We request that no official portrait … be hung … until such time as Mr. Madigan is acquitted.”
‘I make an ideal canvas for projecting every anxiety about the … changes unfolding on American campuses.’ Exiting Harvard President Claudine Gay, the school’s first Black leader, writes in a guest essay for The New York Times (gift link courtesy of Chicago Public Square supporters): “Trusted institutions of all types—from public health agencies to news organizations—will continue to fall victim to coordinated attempts to undermine their legitimacy and ruin their leaders’ credibility.”
■ Handbasket columnist Marisa Kabas: “Chris Rufo … wants the glory for bringing down Harvard’s president. So let’s give it to him.”
■ Public Notice: “Moneyed Harvard donors like conservative hedge fund billionaire and Kyle Rittenhouse superfan Bill Ackman believed Gay was an unqualified affirmative action pick and wanted her gone.”
■ A Chicago connection: Politico reports Ackman wants Penny Pritzker to step down from Harvard’s governing board.
■ Puck’s Julia Ioffe offers a cautionary note to “my fellow Jews who are happy with Gay’s ouster …: We have been deftly used as a political football by people very happy to ally with American fascists who are, most often, antisemites themselves. Give them a few spins of the Earth, and we’ll find ourselves thrown under the train once again by people who defended chants of ‘Jews will not replace us.’”
A meet recall. Illinois-based Valley Meats is urging restaurants and distributors to toss almost 7,000 pounds of ground beef that may be contaminated by E. coli.
■ Here’s how to tell which packages are affected.
Media on the bubble. The Messenger is reportedly nearing a shutdown.
■ Audacy, the terribly misnamed (homophones suck on the radio) behemoth parent of several Chicago stations—including WXRT, WBBM and The Score—is at bankruptcy’s door.
■ Chicago novelist Eden Robins celebrates: “After many years holding down a corporate job to get health insurance, I’ve finally found a better way to make ends meet and do my art: I’m a crossing guard.”
‘Fascinating real-life story’ botched. Critic Richard Roeper gives a movie about a serial killer’s kidnapping of an Evanston native and his ice-skating chimp just one two stars.
■ You might better spend your time reading the fascinating Sun-Times account of what really happened.
■ Support the rising cost of producing and delivering this service with a contribution in any amount.
■ … as columnist Eric Zorn kindly does each week in his Picayune Sentinel newsletter.
■ Mike Braden and Jim Parks made this edition better.