Body count. Updating coverage: The Potomac River had yielded at least 40 bodies of the dozens of victims in the crash of an Army helicopter and an American Airlines flight.
■ Gov. Pritzker says President Trump’s response shows he’s “unfit to lead during moments of crisis like this.”
■ Mother Jones: Trump used the tragedy “to deliver a bigoted and self-promoting tirade about DEI.”
■ Columnist and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich: “Shame on Trump … for blaming it on people of color.”
■ The Daily Show’s Michael Kosta on Trump’s scapegoating citation of dwarfism in the crash: “I can’t believe it’s only Day 10 and Trump’s already this far down his list. … He’s blown past race and gender and now he’s hitting … dwarves?”
■ Columnist Evan Hurst: “Only cowards and losers and pigs yell ‘DEI.’”
■ Surveying media coverage of Trump’s verbal diarrhea, critic Dan Froomkin concludes that “reporters are actively covering up Trump’s racism.”
■ Trump’s White House website, Jan. 22: “FACT SHEET: PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP ENDS DEI MADNESS AND RESTORES EXCELLENCE AND SAFETY WITHIN THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
■ Trump’s new transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, voted to defund the FAA in 2019.
■ Get busy, Illinois: Duffy also wants federal transportation funding preference for “communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average.”
‘We watched these hearings, so you didn’t have to.’ Your Local Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina sums up Health and Human Services Secretary-designate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Capitol Hill testimony.
■ The AP: Kennedy “kept asking to see the science that vaccines were safe. After he saw it, he dismissed it.”
■ Humorist Andy Borowitz—with cartoonist Ann Telnaes: “Trump Urges RFK Jr. to Go Medieval on Health.”
■ Stat: The National Science Foundation has suspended salary payments, leaving researchers unable to pay their bills.
■ KFF Health News: Trump’s halt of the government’s weekly scientific report has stalled bird flu studies.
‘Patel struggled with the truth.’ Law professor Joyce Vance reviews Trump FBI chief pick Kash Patel’s Senate testimony, reminding readers, “This is an excellent moment to make sure your elected representatives hear your voice.”
■ CNN: Senior FBI leaders have orders to retire or quit by Monday—or be fired.
■ The New Yorker’s Susan B. Glasser surveys Trump’s “Cabinet of Revenge.”
‘Unsettling.’ That’s HuffPost’s take on White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s answer to a question about Trump administration plans for Black History Month.
■ After three decades, the Justice Department’s LGBTQ group, “DOJ Pride,” has “ceased to operate effective immediately … for the protection of all members.”
■ Block Club: White men are suing Bally’s Casino and Chicago over an investment offer aimed at women and minorities.
‘We do not intend to be cowed.’ American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois public policy director Ed Yohnka: “I intend to fight the MAGA agenda whenever and wherever they advance division and cruelty. And I will not be alone.”
■ Columnist Paul Krugman: “Oppose, oppose, oppose—and do it loudly.”
‘Were the mayor handling the gifts properly, why did he do everything he could to keep eyes off the supposed trove?’ Columnist Neil Steinberg lays into Mayor Johnson—or, as Steinberg calls him, “Mayor Unforced Error”—for “his pathetic take of luxury goods.”
■ Police reform advocates are concerned that one of the Chicago cops under investigation in last year’s “96 shots” killing of Dexter Reed has just upped and taken a job in Ohio.
‘Don’t open the door.’ In These Times details how Chicago’s “frustrating ICE’s campaign of fear.”
■ Evanston RoundTable: An Afghan refugee family has found hope here.
‘The Art of the Kneel.’ Status reports that CBS News journalists “are livid” at the prospect that Paramount Global boss Shari Redstone is looking to buy her way out of a Trump lawsuit: “If a settlement deal is inked … Redstone will be remembered as the mogul who sold out 60 Minutes.”
■ NPR and PBS are under pressure from Trump’s new FCC chief on grounds that they “could be violating federal law by airing commercials.”
■ The Onion mocks timid mainstream media: “We will censor ourselves. And we will do it now. … Can any of our fellow award-winning publications make this same commitment … or are these fact-obsessed cowards too afraid of crossing the Society of Professional Journalists?”
‘Churros, cheesesteaks, DeepSeek and the deep state.’ That’s some of what awaits you in past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Fritz Holznagel’s latest news quiz.
■ Columnist Lyz Lenz’s Dingus of the Week: January.
Passages. Hey Chicago columnist Sidney Madden’s signing off from that email newsletter …
■ … but not before serving up another Chicago news trivia quiz—on which your Square columnist got 4/5 correct.
■ WXRT DJ Frank E. Lee, who officially signed off from the station in 2015 but who’s continued as a frequent guest host, says he’s decided to retire for real this time.
■ NBC political reporter Chuck Todd is leaving the network—and taking his podcast with him.
■ Critic Ted Goia warns that Hollywood’s movie and music industries are at the threshold of collapse: “We’ve … reached the point where stage plays have more upside than a Hollywood movie.”
Who’s best, Chicago? The Reader’s announced the winners of its annual “Best of Chicago” poll.
■ Square finished first runner-up for Independent Website, second runner-up for Best Email Newsletter.
■ Congratulations to the winners—in those categories and all the rest…
■ … and thanks to all who voted for Square—and those who didn’t, for that matter.
Last call. As the month marking Square’s eighth anniversary comes to a close, today’s your final chance to collect on a special deal: Contribute $80 to underwrite this service and get a free Square T-shirt; make it $100 and get a free Square hoodie.
■ Flashback: Square, Jan. 31, 2017.
■ Mike Braden made this edition better.