‘Wrong, Mr. Mayor.’ Sun-Times architecture critic Lee Bey on Mayor Johnson’s tumescence for a new Bears stadium at the shore: “Chicago’s crown jewel is its lakefront. And you’re helping to tarnish it.” (Image: Bears rendering.)
■ A Tribune editorial: “Mr. Mayor, you’re supposed to be … principal guardian of this city’s most precious physical resource—its lakefront. That’s not what you looked like up on that stage.”
■ Other top Illinois Democrats aren’t so hot …
■ … and the same from Friends of the Parks: “The powerful and wealthy are demanding that our entire city stop and fast track their plans to expand operations on the people’s lakefront.”
■ Trib sports columnist Paul Sullivan: “As Burnham said: Make no little plans when you can have a translucent roof instead.”
■ Columnist Eric Zorn: Just say no to public funding for the plan …
■ … a reported $325 million to begin—and at least $1.5 billion by the end.
‘You should buy the story.’ Live updates: That’s ex-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker quoting Donald Trump in Trump’s New York criminal trial today—as Trump allegedly told Pecker to acquire and suppress a former Playboy model’s claims of an extramarital affair with Trump.
■ More live updates: The U.S. Supreme Court was hearing arguments over whether Trump’s immune from prosecution for plots to overturn the 2020 election.
Trump’s an unindicted co-conspirator. Arizona’s indicted Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani for their 2020 efforts.
■ Arizona’s House has sent the Senate a bill to repeal the state’s near-total ban on abortion.
‘The largest for-profit hospital chain is putting pregnant women at risk.’ But Popular Information says shareholders of HCA Healthcare—which claims to be one of the world’s “most ethical companies”—are fighting back.
■ Change Healthcare—parent subsidiary of UnitedHealth—admits it paid a ransom to hackers who crippled the company and its patients in February.
Spoken like a guy unfamiliar with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s Ohio. Stinging from shouts of “Mike, you suck” during a speech at New York’s Columbia University, House Speaker Mike Johnson wants the National Guard deployed on the Mideast war protest-riven campus.
■ Columbia journalism professor Margaret Sullivan: “University officials … shut down the campus radio station temporarily over the weekend, and locked out some students from a building where they were making a documentary about the protests.”
■ Northwestern University students have set up a pro-Palestine tent encampment.
■ Eric Zorn again: “Protest for peace and for the rights of the persecuted and the oppressed. … But don’t tell us that Hamas are the lovable good guys.”
■ The Intercept: The feds are investigating the University of Massachusetts Amherst for anti-Palestinian bias—including slow action against a student who yelled at protesters, “Kill all Arabs.”
‘Is peace the one with the tanks?’ Count Daily Show host Jordan Klepper among those skeptical of President Biden’s declaration that his signature on a $95 billion bill that includes military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan made yesterday “a good day for world peace.”
Flight delayed or canceled? Get cash. New federal rules require automatic compensation for inconvenienced travelers …
■ … stripping airlines of their ability to decide what constitutes a “significant” delay—instead setting a three-hour limit for domestic flights and six hours for international trips.
‘Rat hole’ relocated. Chicago’s removed and replaced the section of Roscoe Village sidewalk celebrated for its imprint of an animal …
■ … but city officials say it’ll be preserved—for at least a while.
How Google enshittified search. Tech skeptic Cory Doctorow: “Worker power has been smashed” as “competition has receded from tech bosses’ worries, thanks to lax antitrust enforcement that saw most credible competitors merged into behemoths.”
■ Law prof Joyce Vance says the Federal Trade Commission’s “sea change” decision to end the use of noncompete agreements could bring major economic benefits.
■ The Onion satirizes the public response: “Great! Now all I need is a job I can quit for a better job.”
Radio silence. Broadcasting giant Audacy’s corporate-wide layoffs include at least some digital staffers at Chicago’s all-news WBBM.
■ The abrupt shutdown of Foxtrot and Dom’s Kitchen grocery stores has triggered a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the hundreds of workers terminated “without any prior notice.”
■ The Conversation: “Large retailers don’t have smokestacks, but they generate a lot of pollution.”
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■ Thanks. Howie Anderson made this edition better.