No Chicago Public Square Thursday. Be here Friday for a fresh news quiz—and also news.
■ Until then, follow Square on Bluesky for breaking developments and perspective.
■ Forthwith, the news for now:
One Nazi down. President Trump’s pick to head the Office of Special Counsel has withdrawn after revelation that he’d described himself as having “a Nazi streak” …
■ … although he still has his White House job as liaison to Homeland Security.
■ A Democrat running for the Senate from Maine says he’ll have a tattoo that resembles a Nazi symbol removed.
■ A Jan. 6, 2021, rioter pardoned by Trump has been arrested for threatening to kill the Democrats’ House leader, Hakeem Jeffries.
‘Two months of ICE terror.’ The American Prospect’s Emma Janssen reviews the impact on Chicago since the launch of what the Trump administration calls “Operation Midway Blitz.”
■ Block Club Chicago: The feds are turning resistance into a crime.
■ Borderless assesses the lingering impact of a fatal ICE shooting in Franklin Park.
■ The mother of a young woman whose death the Trump administration’s used to justify its “blitz” writes for the Tribune (gift link): “She would not have wanted to be associated with a campaign that targets Chicago. … and I am reclaiming her legacy.”
■ Rich Cahan at the Evanston Roundtable shares an anatomy of a Tuesday ICE raid.
■ Chicago Public Schools says a worker was taken into custody yesterday afternoon as kids were in class—prompting a decision to move physical education classes indoors.
■ A Chicago City Council member is suing the feds for $100,000 over her arrest by ICE agents at a Chicago hospital.
■ The cases against those arrested in protests at the Broadview detention center are beginning to make their way through the courts.
‘If they can pull a gun on an elected official and try to bash in my window, there’s no end to the terror they will continue reigning.’ A Chicago state lawmaker and current congressional candidate, Rep. Hoan Huynh—a Yale grad and Vietnamese refugee who came to America as a child after his family was granted asylum for collaborating with U.S. troops during the Vietnam War—says Border Patrol agents surrounded his vehicle and confronted him at gunpoint yesterday on the Northwest Side.
■ He’s shared video to back up his account.
■ Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias is reminding ICE against “flipping and modifying state-issued license plates on vehicles to carry out their military-style deportation efforts.”
‘The great sleeping giant of America is awakening.’ Author and former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich finds reasons to be cheerful in the face of “the sociopathic occupant of the Oval Office.”
■ The Religion News Service: Religious pushback to ICE is on the rise in Chicago.
■ Columnist and former U.S. Rep. Marie Newman’s answer to the question “What’s next?” is “Stop the money flow. … A nationwide general strike.”
■ Trump niece Mary L. Trump: “Are we shocked when somebody who has never created anything in his life would destroy the people’s house?”
■ Columnist Mary Geddry quotes Trump as the demolition progressed: “You hear that sound? That’s money! … I love it. Reminds me of wealth.”
■ Contrarian Jen Rubin: “A White House teardown ordered by a reckless child is the perfect metaphor.”
■ The company handling the demolition is getting blasted in Google Maps reviews.
‘This. Is. Insane.’ That’s NPR Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal’s reaction to news that Trump’s demanding the Justice Department—which he controls—pay him $230 million in compensation for federal investigations into him.
■ Will Bunch at The Philadelphia Inquirer (gift link): Trump “might have gotten away with bribery to the point where he’s almost bragging about it in public.”
■ A former lobbyist who championed pesticide use now oversees federal pesticide rules.
■ Trump’s now proudly referring to his budget director, Russ Vought, as “Darth Vader.”
AI rising. OpenAI has launched its own artificial intelligence-powered web browser, Atlas.
■ The AP: Even though AI uses vast amounts of energy, it can help the environment in at least five ways.
■ Chicago Public Square and Northwestern University’s Local News Accelerator are teaming up to offer you interactive online coaching in the world of AI tools. Sign up free here.
‘The U.S. economy is in worse shape than it looks.’ Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman says “the no-hiring economy … is definitely not OK once you look under the hood.”
■ The Washington Post (gift link): As the federal budget shutdown drags on, health insurance sticker shock’s making itself felt.
■ Zillow finds Chicago rents have skyrocketed since the pandemic.
■ Count Gov. Pritzker among those opposing the mayor’s plan to tax big Chicago businesses $21 a year per employee.
■ The New York Times (another gift link; thank Square readers whose support makes these possible): “Amazon plans to replace more than half a million jobs with robots.”
Local news, reinvented. A new web documentary series from the nonprofit Press Forward explores a revolution in community journalism …
■ … spotlighting, among others, Block Club.
■ Northwestern’s latest annual “State of Local News” report paints a mixed picture: “News deserts are widening. Newspaper closures continue unabated. Independent publishers are calling it quits at an alarming rate. Yet local digital-only news sites are multiplying.”
■ The Sun-Times: Mayor Johnson’s proposed tax on social media companies faces a likely First Amendment challenge.
Thanks. Chris Koenig made this edition better.