‘I did it for Gaza!’ That’s what a witness tells CNN a man who claimed responsibility for killing two staffers at Israel’s Washington embassy said as he was arrested.
■ The victims, who were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum, had planned to marry.
■ The suspect: A 30-year-old Chicago man …
■ … whose 900-word “manifesto” investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein publishes “not to glorify the violence—which I find abhorrent and condemn—but so the public can better understand the truth of what happened.”
■ Columnist Jeff Kamen: “It was a predictable next event in the unfolding nightmare of antisemitism in America in 2025, made worse by the ongoing war in Gaza, which was triggered by the Hamas massacre of more than a thousand Jewish children and adults in Israel.”
■ Law enforcement this morning was investigating an Albany Park address associated with the suspect.
■ Writing “as a Jew who led the building of a museum dedicated to standing up against bigotry and hatred,” Gov. Pritzker, one of whose staffers was at the event, writes, “Make no mistake: This was an attack on the Jewish community.”
■ After protests of the company’s ties to the Israeli government, Microsoft has reportedly banned the words Palestine and Gaza in internal email.
■ Meanwhile, in what The New York Times (gift link) characterizes as “an increasing infusion of overt Christian evangelization in official government events during Mr. Trump’s second term,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth yesterday led a prayer service at the Pentagon.
■ A deadlocked Supreme Court ruling today has doomed plans for a taxpayer-funded Catholic charter school in Oklahoma.
One. Vote. That was the margin of victory as House Republicans sent the Senate a legislative package that fulfills much of the president’s wish list of tax breaks, spending cuts and border security funding …
■ … and that, as historian Heather Cox Richardson notes, also includes a significant restriction on “the authority of federal courts to hold government officials in contempt when they violate court orders.”
■ The anonymously bylined Closer to the Edge newsletter: “We read every word of the bill. All 1,000+ pages of it. What we found … was a sprawling Rorschach test of authoritarian fantasy, fossil fuel worship and trickle-down mythology. Still … there are a few shiny coins buried in the wreckage.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
■ Popular Information outs 11 corporations that supported the legislation and “turned their backs on hungry families.” (Hi, United Airlines!)
■ Speaking of Congress: Ken Klippenstein sees a pattern in the recent deaths of aging representatives: “They’re all Democrats.”
‘Hey, it’s not just a genocide, it’s a white genocide. You know, the bad kind.’ The Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng mocks Trump’s false claims about white farmers in South Africa.
■ A South African writer for The Intercept: Trump’s embrace of Afrikaner “refugees” has become a joke in South Africa.
■ Lisa Needham at Public Notice: The administration’s “lawless deportations” are starting to wear thin with the Supreme Court.
‘The grift plane has landed!’ Wonkette’s Marcie Jones on the U.S. government’s acceptance of a 2012 Qatari Boeing 747-8 luxury jetliner: “Ever have a friend buy a used car as a ‘project,’ and it immediately went into the shop and he eventually had to donate to 1-800-CARS4KIDS because he could never get the damn thing running?”
■ Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth: “This unconstitutional action will not only cost our nation its dignity, but it will force taxpayers to waste over $1 billion.”
■ Trump yesterday told an NBC reporter who asked about the jet: “Get out of here.”
■ A small plane crashed into a San Diego neighborhood early this morning, setting about 15 homes aflame.
‘A monster.’ That’s Mayor Johnson, describing Trump—whose administration is investigating the prospect that City Hall’s been discriminating in its hiring of Black Chicagoans.
■ A plan to give Chicago’s top cop power to declare “snap curfews” to curtail “teen takeovers” has stalled in the City Council.
■ ProPublica, Invisible Institute, WBEZ and the Sun-Times report: “Chicago police dismissed a recruit’s claims that a colleague sexually assaulted her. Then he was accused again and again.”
■ Council members have approved an almost $63 million payout to settle lawsuits against the cops …
■ … and $15.5 million for the private firm running the city’s parking meter system—compensation for taking spaces out of service during the pandemic.
■ A Tribune editorial asks those investors, “How do you sleep at night?”
‘Making salmonella great again.’ Columnist Jennifer Schulze: “In just four months, Donald Trump has gutted labs that tested food for suspected contaminants.”
■ NPR: As diseases spread, the federal government’s not warning the public as it used to.
■ Washington Post alumnus Christine Ledbetter, acknowledging a preponderance of senior citizens in recent protests of Trump’s regime: “They march, shuffle, wheelchair-ride, while waving and singing protest songs. Just don’t stand in the way of their Skechers.”
Lincoln out. The U.S. government says it’ll stop putting new pennies in circulation by early next year—leaving businesses eventually to round cash prices up or down to the nearest nickel.
■ Strapped for cash, Illinois’ Lincoln Presidential Foundation has auctioned off some of its artifacts for close to $8 million …
■ … with most of the high-ticket items—including the president’s blood-stained gloves and a lock of his hair—going to an anonymous bidder.
‘How are they going to solve the issue if they can’t even use the word?’ A coalition of consumer groups condemns the insurance industry for a failure to address—or even mention—climate change.
■ From April: Illinoisans saw the nation’s second-highest jump in home insurance prices over the last three years.
■ Nautilus flags a new kind of global-warming danger: “Thirstwaves,” drying out croplands.
A ‘silver lining.’ Columnist Eric Zorn hopes the fiasco over the Sun-Times’ publication of AI-generated slop will wake readers to newspapers’ “sleazy scam.”
■ Columnist Elaine Soloway: “As a longtime lover of credit cards, I’m finally taking action to tackle my debt.”
■ Columnist Elaine Soloway: “As a longtime lover of credit cards, I’m finally taking action to tackle my debt.”
‘Can’t tell you how often we marvel at your ability to dig up so many interesting links every day.’ That kind note of praise yesterday accompanied a dose of financial support for Chicago Public Square.
■ Your contribution—as little as $1, once, really—not only helps cover the cost of producing this service but also brings you some incredibly modest perks.
■ Mike Braden made this edition better.