‘They’re out of control.’ That’s former Chicago top cop Garry McCarthy commenting on a WBEZ/Sun-Times analysis that finds federal immigration agents have been involved in eight car chases and used force in at least 76 Chicago-area incidents since Sept. 8.
■ Block Club: Chicago’s police district councils want a public airing of how cops have helped or otherwise interacted with federal immigration enforcers.
■ Sun-Times analysis finds Border Patrol poster boy Greg Bovino and his agents have favored Donald Trump and Republicans in their campaign giving.
■ 404 Media: Google’s chosen a side in Trump’s mass deportation effort—“hosting a Customs and Border Protection app that uses facial recognition to identify immigrants, and tells local cops whether to contact ICE about the person.”
Back to school. A Chicago daycare teacher abducted by the feds last week—in the presence of children—has been released.
■ CNN: Trump’s administration has arrested thousands of parents and guardians of migrant kids.
■ Chicago magazine: Trump’s immigration atrocities have united Chicago and its suburbs as never before.
■ Author and columnist Dan Sinker: “Everyone I know is exhausted … from being witness to neighbors, friends and family going missing. … Everyone I know is exhausted. Everyone I know is ready to go another round.”
Ready to act? In a letter to the Tribune (gift link), a who’s who of retired Chicago broadcast news veterans appeals to the public to step up against “a brutal and illegal campaign against fellow Chicagoans, mainly Latinos. … Support groups fighting for due process or who help immigrants during this siege.”
■ Axios points out five ways to report agent violations.
■ PolitiFact explains: “The Epstein files, Trump and Congress: What happens next?” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
5/8 is the new 6/8. Past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner and The Conversation’s quizmaster Fritz Holznagel refuses to take it easy on your Chicago Public Square columnist. Can you get more than five right this week?
■ Today at noon, the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois holds a virtual town hall meeting to answer your questions about immigration policy changes affecting the region’s everyday life.
‘It’s raining documents from the Jeffrey Epstein files and … Trump is flailing.’ USA Today’s Chicago-based columnist Rex Huppke sees “a mad MAGA movement facing a reckoning: Is Trump really worth all this? Or is it time for a breakup?”
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “We are watching the ideology of the far-right MAGAs smash against reality, with … Trump and his cronies madly trying to convince voters to believe in their false world rather than the real one.”
■ Lyz Lenz’s Dingus of the Week: The Epstein Files.
■ From the Square mailbag: Reader Barry Koehler takes issue with columnist Charlie Madigan’s contention that those files are useless. “The Epstein case isn’t just about Trump. … There are many, many more rich and powerful people that … need to be exposed and prosecuted if warranted. This must be brought to the brightest sunlight possible for all of America to see. If it isn’t, then rapists, child molesters and groomers will continue on to harm more innocent victims.”
■ Below the Belt(way) has created a searchable database of 20,000 files from Epstein’s estate.
■ Sifting through some of them, The Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel comes away feeling like he’s witnessing an episode of HBO’s satire Veep.
■ Media writer Tom Jones: Editors are treading carefully on the Epstein story—because “one careless line could spark a lawsuit.”
■ The Onion: “Trump Says Epstein Emails Only Prove He One Of The Most Emailed-About Men In History.”
Guns and pregnancy. New state-by-state research finds that homicide rates among pregnant women rise with the rate of gun ownership.
■ One man convicted of randomly punching women in downtown Chicago has been sentenced to seven years in prison—and another’s facing felony charges in two similar incidents.
■ Texas A&M University’s banning advocacy of “race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity” without approval from a campus president.
■ How about topping 3/5 on City Cast’s Chicago news quiz?
■ You’ll no doubt do better than 5/10 on Justin Kaufmann’s Chicago movie quote quiz.
Journalism’s bad news. Jim Avila, a Glenbard East High School graduate who went on to an award-winning career as a Chicago TV and ABC TV network reporter, is dead at 69.
■ George Knue, a pioneering Trib editor who—among other groundbreaking moves in 43 years with the paper, founded ChicagoSports.com—is gone at 74.
■ Sun-Times, Crain’s, Chicago Daily Law Bulletin and Tribune veteran—she launched the Trib’s Blue Sky Innovation tech section—Andrea Hanis is dead at 56.
■ Longtime Reader theater critic Tony Adler was 71.
■ Charlie Madigan mourns the newspaper business’ collapse: “Every good, honest reporter is on a mission. But it wasn’t the same mission as media owners … all about fat profits.”
Chicago’s own New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. ABC says we don’t have to stop celebrating the arrival of 2026 when New York’s broadcast is over: It’s going to air a Central Time version, from here to the rest of the nation.
■ Former Chicago TV news anchor Deborah Norville has a new game show.
■ R.I.P., “MSNBC”—as of tomorrow.
Thank you. Chicago Public Square keeps coming because readers like (maybe even including) you keep supporting it financially—for as little as $1, just once.