‘Leave the kids out.’ A Tribune editorial condemns a Chicago Teachers Union plan to recruit high school seniors eligible to vote—busing them Friday to union headquarters to hear a pep talk about the “Bring Chicago Home” referendum.
■ Politico: An Illinois Senate race has split U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Illinois Senate President Don Harmon.
■ You know the primary’s Tuesday, right? Cast your ballot smartly with help from the Chicago Public Square Voter Guide Guide.
‘What’s missing from railroad safety data? Dead workers and severed limbs.’ ProPublica: Regulatory loopholes mean rail companies have escaped federal scrutiny in scores of cases involving worker injuries and at least two deaths …
■ … one of them an Illinois man who died on the job in 2019.
‘All data was sold.’ NBC 5 says Lurie Children’s Hospital’s investigating a claim that records reportedly stolen during a long-running cyberattack has have been sold by a known ransomware-for-hire group.
■ CBS News: A ransomware attack on a major health-tech company owned by UnitedHealth Group continues to cost providers $100 million a day.
Free rent. That’s what the Sun-Times says the Catholic Archdiocese has been offering Chicago, to house migrants in dozens of shuttered churches, schools and other buildings—but the city’s failed to take the deal, for reasons it’s refused to discuss.
■ WBEZ: Thousands of immigrants stand to lose Illinois health care coverage beginning next month.
Dollar sore. Dollar Tree says it’s going to close almost 1,000 stores over the next few years.
■ The whole staff at a Dollar General store in Wisconsin quit simultaneously last week, citing “lack of appreciation, being overworked and being underpaid.”
‘Cold water on … over-the-top characterization of Biden’s mental fitness.’ That’s how CNN’s Oliver Darcy characterizes new revelations about Special Counsel Robert Hur’s nothingburger report on the president’s intellectual capacity.
■ Sen. Rep. Adam Schiff accuses Hur of knowingly igniting “a political firestorm.”
■ It’s (more or less) official: For the first time since 1956, the U.S. is in for a presidential election rematch.
■ Someone blasted Trump Tower Chicago with anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian graffiti.
■ Want to ask Google’s AI chatbot Gemini about this year’s elections? Go fish.
‘Please let Donald Trump pick Katie Britt as his VP.’ USA Today’s Rex Huppke says it’d be “just the laugh America needs right now.”
■ Community activist and former WGN-TV political analyst* Marj Halperin: The “patently cruel lie” at the heart of Britt’s State of the Union response “warped another woman’s tragedy for her own political gain.”
■ Aiming to frustrate other states threatening to prosecute women who travel here for abortions, Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Iris Martinez is championing a first-of-its-kind proposal to shield from the public reproductive health information contained in county court documents.
‘Steer the Bears away from the lakefront.’ A Sun-Times editorial dumps water on the team’s plan for a new domed stadium: “The answer to whether it should be built there, based on what we’ve seen so far, should be a resounding no.”
■ Friends of the Parks: Hang on a sec here.
■ A Chicago City Council member says a move to take Bally’s private casts a big shadow over the company’s plans for a casino where the Chicago Tribune printing plant now stands.
‘Say gay, Florida.’ Popular Information details “a resounding victory for the parents and LGBTQ advocacy groups” who filed a suit challenging a law that prohibited “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity.”
■ The law remains, but—among other things—books removed from school libraries because they featured LGBTQ+ characters must now be returned.
‘The day the Earth stood still.’ Four years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, journalist Rick Perlstein talks to sociologist Eric Klinenberg, whose new book is 2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed.
■ The Trib explains how this summer will, for the first time in 221 years, make Illinois “cicada central” with the emergence of two broods in such proximity.
■ This remarkably warm winter’s triggered a “disorienting” early start to the Midwest’s maple syrup season.
Radio woes. The Verge documents the ad-revenue disruption creeping up the digital bandwidth scale, from text-based newspapers to broadcast audio— and specifically to public radio stations: “Sponsorship dollars won’t return to previous levels.”
■ Tedium’s Ernie Smith goes sleuthing to figure out just what Deadspin’s new owners are up to—and it’s not reassuring.
■ Charlie Pajor and Jim Parks made this edition better.
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* And cherished former WXRT News colleague to your Chicago Public Square publisher.