Make that 11. That’s (at least) how many tornadoes hit the Chicago region Monday night …
■ … leaving a 44-year-old Indiana woman dead after a tree fell on her home.
■ Thousands of trees are gone.
■ Block Club Chicago: The twister that hit the Near West Side and downtown Chicago puts the lie to the myth that these things don’t hit big cities.
■ Even the Chicago-area National Weather Service team had to take cover for a time and pass coverage to teammates in Michigan.
■ The city’s offering up to $25,000 to each of up to 200 West Side homeowners still grappling with damage from last summer’s flooding.
■ Axios: Climate change is shaping Chicago’s new extreme-weather normal.
About that paper … Didn’t get your newspaper yesterday? Blame the weather …
■ … and the fact that almost all of Chicago’s are printed in one weather-stricken place.
‘The most anti-woman ticket in history.’ That’s how Donald Trump niece Mary L. Trump sees her uncle’s pick of J.D. Vance as his running mate.
■ Abortion, Every Day columnist Jessica Valenti: “The New York Times deceptively edited a quote to make it appear … Vance opposes a national abortion ban.”
■ Noting that Vance once compared Trump to Hitler, Late Night host Seth Meyers mused: “If he can … still get picked for vice president, I figure I got a chance at secretary of state at least.”
■ Politico: Vance “hasn’t been anywhere long enough to develop a record that suggests he’s prepared to run the country.”
■ Veteran journalist Eleanor Clift: Vance vs. Kamala Harris is the fight to watch.
‘Biden called for reconciliation and Trump waved the bloody shirt.’ Reader columnist Ben Joravsky contrasts the candidates’ response to the apparent assassination attempt on Trump.
■ Video shows the gunman on that rooftop—just as Trump complained about “dangerous people.”
■ Journalist Ken Klippenstein says assertions that the Secret Service doesn’t have enough funding remind him of what comedian George Carlin said about God: “He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing and all-wise; somehow just can’t handle money!”
Shoot. The Lever: Even after that Pennsylvania attack, Milwaukee can’t ban guns at the Republican National Convention—thanks to the gun lobby.
■ Ohio cops in town for the convention shot and killed a man they said was wielding two knives.
■ NOTUS: Republicans are focusing on crime—and ignoring Trump’s own conviction.
■ Calling the convention “a moment to reintroduce Trump and MAGA Republicans to voters who have not seen them up close since at least 2021,” historian Heather Cox Richardson perceives a tendency to portray “the media as a key enemy.”
■ Seeking truths? They were in short supply during last night’s proceedings, as fact-checks by CNN and PolitiFact detail.
■ MSNBC morning host and Trump critic Joe Scarborough, whose show was yanked Monday for reasons vaguely related to the apparent assassination attempt, is seemingly threatening to quit if it happens again.
■ CNN’s Oliver Darcy: Top execs at MSNBC parent Comcast, who “will potentially have M&A business before the next presidential administration, probably do not wish to find themselves on Trump’s enemies list.”
■ Everyone Is Entitled To My Own Opinion columnist Jeff Tiedrich goes further: “Pure sniveling cowardice.”
■ Arizona senatorial candidate and former TV news anchor Kari Lake menaced journalists during her speech last night.
■ LateNighter rounds up comedic mockery of the RNC.
■ Flashback: Comedy Central’s “Indecision ’92” changed TV and politics forever.
Courts crackdown. President Biden’s reportedly considering major reforms to the U.S. court system—including term limits for Supreme Court justices …
■ … and a constitutional amendment to reverse the court’s assertion of broad presidential immunity from, well, just about anything.
■ It’s another move in what Axios calls the president’s strong lean left since last month’s debate misfire.
■ The Sun-Times: Ahead of the Democratic convention in Chicago, the Johnson administration’s putting homeless people on the street to make room for tent city occupants.
City Hall squalls. A decision to yank a statue of slave owner George Washington from outside Mayor Johnson’s office has been reversed.
■ The city’s inspector general reports an ex-deputy to Johnson was accused of drinking on the job …
■ … but a woman who identifies herself as the accused calls the complaint “ridiculous.”
From Oak Park to the stars. David Loughery, an Oak Park-born screenwriter whose credits included Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Dreamscape, is dead at 71.
■ He also brought the world Fatale, a 2020 film that last year was Netflix’s most-watched movie in the U.S.
■ Poynter’s Kristen Hare: “Obituaries remind us of what we have in common.”
Sorry, Minnesotans. Yesterday’s Chicago Public Square got Sen. Ron Johnson’s state wrong. It’s Wisconsin. (But he was born in Minnesota.)
■ Thanks to the many (many) people who flagged the mistake—which we hate to make, but not as much as we love having readers who take the time to set things straight.
Speaking of those we love … Thanks to those whose support has underwritten the cost of keeping this service coming—including Kathleen O’Brien (again!), Eric Reinert, Mary Gannon Pittman, Lloyd Sachs, Sam Hochberg, Paul Wedeen, Art McNamara, Jeanne Mcinerney, Ken Hooker, Jan Kodner, Barbara Cimaglio, Paul Engman, Charles Kepner, Fritz Mills, Mark Nystuen, Jack Hafferkamp, Marj Halperin, Linda Paul, Christa Velbel, Mike Dessimoz, Sue Omanson, Sandy Kaczmarski, Stephen Schlesinger, Sarah Hoban, Michael Soriano, Tom Pritchett, Clive Topol, John Kowalski, Edie Steiner, Shara Miller, Phil Huckelberry, Catherine Tokarski, Lil Levant, Deb Abrahamson, Logan Aimone, Ian Morrison, Chris Ruys, Beth Kujawski and Ed McDevitt.
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