‘War on vaccines.’ The Bulwark says Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s just getting started …
■ … with his removal of healthy children and pregnant women from the list of those who should get COVID vaccines …
■ … maybe triggering an end to insurance companies’ coverage of those shots.
■ Politico: RFK’s threatening to forbid government scientists from publishing their research in leading medical journals.
■ Adam Serwer at The Atlantic sees a “new Dark Age” in the Trump administration’s attack on knowledge itself …
■ … but David Dayen at The American Prospect says Senate Democrats now have a tool to stop President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.
Hot times ahead. Weather forecasters see years of killer heat ahead as the globe gets warmer.
■ The U.S. nuclear energy industry’s surge is taking hold along Lake Michigan.
Traffic death surge. The Tribune reports Chicago’s fatal car crash totals remain stubbornly high in the years since the onset of the pandemic.
■ The driver of a Hummer that struck and killed a bicyclist downtown on Memorial Day—in the city’s first biking fatality of the year—says he thought at first he’d been hit by another car.
■ Chicago police report the least violent Memorial Day weekend since 2019.
■ A Chicago cop who pleaded guilty to shooting and killing her husband—and fellow officer—will serve a week in prison.
■ Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein shares “messages from a private group chat where [the accused Chicago killer of two Israeli embassy aides] was a prolific poster (right up to the day before the shooting).”
Curious timing. Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV’s planning a video address to young Chicagoans in a White Sox park event June 14 …
■ … which just happens to be the day of Donald Trump’s birthday—and Trump’s massive military parade.
■ A Republican Illinois state representative is proposing a state-funded statue of the new pope at the statehouse.
Illinois’ TrumPain. Politico’s Shia Kapos: “Federal funding cuts and looming tariffs pushed by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are trickling down to state budget negotiations in Springfield.”
■ Urban planner Micheál Podgers, writing for Streetsblog Chicago, calls on the state to act now to keep the region’s transit network from getting “a lot worse.”
■ Mayor Johnson calls for an overhaul of transit governance and new cash.
■ As Chicago faces an affordable housing crisis, the Illinois Answers Project reports political gridlock is keeping “granny flats”—coach houses and unused basement or attic spaces that are converted into apartments—illegal in most of the city …
■ … and the Trib says the Chicago Housing Authority is selling off more public land for private development.
‘Pretty soon Trump will start selling pardons through Ticketmaster.’ That’s Stop the Presses columnist Mark Jacob on a New York Times report (gift link) that the president pardoned a tax cheat after the guy’s mom last month attended a $1-million-per-person Trump fundraiser.
■ Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me! host Peter Sagal: “Trump is, as per SCOTUS, immune from criminal prosecution for bribery, correct?”
■ Bill Kristol at The Bulwark calls Trump’s pardon of a Virginia sheriff “a fire bell in the night.”
■ The AP reports he’s set to pardon a couple of reality TV stars convicted of fraud.
SpaceXcruciating. Another Elon Musk-funded Starship launch went bad yesterday …
■ … evoking this recurring cartoon bit from the very early Sesame Street.
Hoosier knees bent. “To ensure the university is fully compliant with state and federal laws and guidance regarding diversity, equity and inclusion,” Indiana University has shut down its DEI offices.
■ Lyz Dye at Public Notice: Trump's attack on Harvard is getting “hampered by his inability to STFU.”
■ Foreign students hoping to study in America will have to wait—while the State Department suspends interviews for new visas as it also ratchets up scrutiny of applicants’ social media.
‘Goon squads who hide behind ski masks.’ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch scrutinizes the “gaggles of federal agents—most wearing masks, in casual attire and without badges—in the corridors of U.S. immigration courts in large cities.”
■ As Big Tech embraces the Trump administration, Wired surveys options for moving your digital life abroad with privacy-friendly replacements for U.S.-based email, browser and search tools.
‘It was AI.’ Chicago journalist Dan Sinker found himself discouraged as he read “hundreds of applications for something” clearly written by a chatbot—until he found “delight and joy and sadness” in one “written entirely by a person.”
■ Then again: Mother Prompter columnist (and, ahem, your Chicago Public Square columnist’s daughter-in-law) Nicole Willis Meyerson offers two AI-powered cooking hacks to save parents time and mental energy.
A Square public service announcement
Help bring a kiln to Logan Square Elementary. Your support will let students take their clay-making skills to the next level. All donations matched up to $1,000.