‘A complete meltdown with Trump leading the charge.’ Longtime Chicago journalist Jennifer Schulze: “Forget important questions like whether Iran was actually weeks away from building a nuclear weapon. … No, the biggest issue, per Trump … is whether or not the entire press corps is falling in line behind the president’s yet-unverified claims that three Iranian nuclear sites weren’t just damaged but ‘obliterated.’”
■ Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s getting slammed after a heated news conference yesterday.
■ Poynter’s Tom Jones: After Hegseth targeted a Fox reporter, the journalism community—including her competitors—came to her defense.
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “Hegseth seemed to be performing for an audience of one.”
‘Big, beautiful’ … but not all that healthy. Republicans’ draconian budget cuts are in trouble following a Senate parliamentarian ruling that a Medicaid provider tax overhaul doesn’t follow the rules.
■ The American Prospect: The declaration “kicked out a key provision that would have generated hundreds of billions of dollars in service of tax cuts for the wealthy” …
■ … but Politico says Trump could still get his way by July 4.
‘This is bullshit.’ Doctor and Inside Medicine columnist Jeremy Faust “watched large portions of this week’s CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices so that you didn’t have to.”
■ The Prospect again: A pandemic of fear is gripping the nation’s “safety net” hospitals and their patients.
‘A meteor that hasn’t quite hit.’ The Washington Post: As the Trump administration works to claw back billions of dollars in federal funding, cities are “prepping for the worst.”
■ Yet, WTTW News reports: Sued by Chicago, the Trump administration’s unfrozen more than $1 million in anti-terrorism funding for the city.
■ Planning for its next five years, the Chicago Public Library is asking Chicagoans to take a survey.
‘Attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion are attacks on us.’ In a full-page newspaper ad today, a coalition of civil rights groups issues a call to action for working women fed up with “manufactured hysteria” fed by “extremist politicians and corporate billionaires.”
■ They’re aiming for 75 million signatures.
Tech fears come true. 404 Media reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is using a new mobile phone app that can identify someone based on fingerprints or face—simply by pointing a phone camera at them.
■ The Supreme Court today handed Trump a big win—ending district court judges’ power to issue nationwide injunctions blocking federal policies …
■ … although it also leaves unclear the fate of Trump’s effort to deny citizenship to U.S.-born kids of people in the country illegally.
■ Christianity Today: “Migrants pushed Chicago to the brink. They also brought a revival.”
Nasty, brutish and short. The Illinois Answers Project and the Sun-Times report that a Chicago cop who shot and killed his partner—the first Chicago officer to be killed by “friendly fire” in almost 40 years—has acquired a long disciplinary record over a brief career.
■ Public policy columnist Richard Day: The CTA needs to start enforcing its own rules with “a more visible police presence.”
Haunting developments.
■ In the works for a vacant building at 700 W. Chicago Ave.—not far from the old Tribune Freedom Center printing facility: A Universal Studios “immersive horror experience.”
■ The upper stories of Chicago’s emaciated Water Tower Place are for sale.
Streets beat. Chicago’s heat dome casualties include buckling pavement, forcing the city to close streets for repair ahead of next week’s NASCAR race.
■ Chicago, the U.S. city with the most lead service lines, doesn’t expect to finish replacing them until 2076.
■ Windy City Times offers a guide to Sunday’s Chicago Pride Parade.
‘Go 9 for 9 and win a golden summer tan.’ That’s the challenge past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Fritz Holznagel lays down with his latest weekly news quiz for The Conversation.
■ Go at least 8 for 9 and you get to brag you beat your Chicago Public Square columnist (✔✔X✔✔✔✔✔X).
■ Got some extra quiz energy? Try City Cast’s Chicago-centric quiz, on which your columnist scored a middling 3/5.
■ Lyz Lenz’s Dingus of the Week: Everyone who is mad about the Democratic primary victory for New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
Weekend hardware tip. Once upon a time, Master Lock required anyone hoping to retrieve a long-lost combination for a lock to submit a notarized request. You now can get that combo just by uploading a photo of the lock, clearly showing it unattached to anything.
■ Here’s the submission form.
Did that tip save you the price of a new lock? Kick a buck or two back to Chicago Public Square.