Welcome back. If you used Chicago Public Square’s long weekend as an excuse to tune out the news, catch up by scrolling back through the Square Bluesky account.
Nice while it lasted. A day after broad optimism that Donald Trump’s war on Iran was “over,” Trump said Iran and Israel have both violated the ceasefire.
■ Video shows his unrestrained condemnation of “two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.”
■ The cynical and un-bylined newsletter Closer to the Edge: Trump “accidentally sums up his entire presidency.”
■ Compare and contrast: Trump yesterday afternoon posted, “I would like to congratulate both Countries … on having the Stamina, Courage, and Intelligence to end, what should be called, ‘THE 12 DAY WAR.’”
■ Popular Information’s Judd Legum pronounces it Trump’s “Mission Accomplished” moment.
■ Press Watch proprietor Dan Froomkin: The news media are glossing over three “huge truths” about the conflict: “It’s all about Trump’s ego, it’s illegal, and it’s war.”
■ Illinois Democrats are questioning Trump’s power to have authorized the U.S.’ strikes.
■ Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, too.
■ USA Today’s Chicago-based columnist Rex Huppke: Trump “should pay attention to the fact that Americans, it’s safe to say, would like fewer bombs and more burgers.”
■ Seth Meyers last night: “Vice President J.D. Vance defended President Trump’s decision to launch air strikes against Iranian nuclear sites and said, ‘We do not want war with Iran. We actually want peace.’ I don’t know, man, I think what you might actually want is a dictionary.”
■ Jimmy Fallon: “Remember when we were scared he was going to invade Canada? I miss that.”
■ Stop the Presses critic Mark Jacob pleads with journalists not to turn the war into entertainment: “War is ugly. The coverage should be too.”
‘If you’re a lawyer … share this.’ Law professor Joyce Vance hails the New York City Bar Association’s conclusion that “the administration cannot justify concealing its [immigration] officers’ identity.”
■ Law Dork Chris Geidner: The Supreme Court’s cleared Trump “to deport people to random countries with no notice.”
■ Here’s the order.
■ Fellow lawyer Robert Hubbell calls it “barbaric”: The court “sanctioned the kidnapping of immigrants by deporting them to third countries torn by ethnic violence, and ruled by warlords.”
■ The American Prospect: Capitalizing on immigration agents’ masked exploits, criminals are finding that dressing the same way makes commission of crimes “disturbingly easy.”
■ Police have arrested a 30-year-old woman accused of driving through a crowd of anti-ICE protesters in Chicago two weeks ago.
■ She reportedly had three kids in the car at the time.
■ Axios Chicago: Illinois farmers who employ undocumented workers remain flummoxed after Trump’s flip-flop on that practice.
■ Andor star Diego Luna, substituting for Jimmy Kimmel: “I’ve never hosted a talk show before, but I will try my best. English is not my first language. So I hope you guys will help me if I get— What’s the word? Deported.”
Heat’s still on. The Chicago area may cool off a bit this week, but temperatures will remain “extreme.”
■ A new report finds that Illinois is short about 142,000 housing units—and, to meet demand over the next five years, will need 85,000 more than that.
Grokblock. Elon Musk calls his multibillion-dollar artificial intelligence chatbot Grok “embarrassing” and “very dumb.”
■ Last Week Tonight host John Oliver warns that the rise of AI crap is “worryingly corrosive to the general concept of objective reality.”
Chicago’s Marvel turn. Disney+ today premieres Ironheart, a Chicago-filmed series about a Chicago-based superhero shaped by Chicagoan Eve Ewing.
■ The Sun-Times: A forthcoming memoir from a retired healthcare executive who lived in Winnetka’s Home Alone house says it was a “dystopian dream” without end.
Before he was pope … Robert F. Prevost emailed then-Gov. Pat Quinn* in 2011 thanking him for his “courageous decision in signing into law the elimination of the death penalty.”
■ A Tribune editorial gets excited about a presidential primary pitting present Gov. JB Pritzker against ex-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
■ Recounting a Saturday night celebration of Sun-Times reporter Fran Spielman’s 50 years in Chicago journalism, her former colleague Scott Fornek says “Emanuel, one of 10 Chicago mayors Fran covered on the City Hall beat, told the room how Fran … made Chicago a better place—and made his life miserable for eight years.”
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■ Tickets here.
* More recently, a Chicago Public Square supporter.