Security surge. After a rash of violent incidents on Chicago Transit Authority property—and under fire from President Trump—the CTA and Chicago police say they’re deploying “dozens” of extra officers and canine security teams across the public transit system.
■ A man set himself on fire at the CTA’s Damen Blue Line station early today.
‘Terrifying and infuriating.’ That’s Evanston Mayor and congressional candidate Daniel Biss’ reaction to Trump administration moves to ban gender transition treatment for minors—like that now being undergone by two of his children.
■ Illinois kids returning to school in January may find that support services including mental health programs and food pantries have disappeared—because the Trump administration’s cut off federal aid.
■ On the other hand, some of the government’s still working: The FDA’s on Target, Walmart and Jewel-Osco’s case for failing to remove botulism-contaminated baby formula from their shelves.
Christmas at Broadview. A coalition of clergy is asking Homeland Security to allow ministers access to detainees at the Chicago-area ICE detention facility on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.
■ A Tribune editorial (gift link): Border Patrol chief Bovino is trying “to render the 2025 Christmas season one to remember for all the wrong reasons.”
■ A Berwyn woman shot by agents during a Broadview protest is demanding $1.5 million in damages.
■ Axios: Despite assurances that Homeland Security would end random immigration sweeps on sidewalks and businesses like Home Depot, it’s still happening here.
■ In its first public meeting, the Illinois Accountability Commission heard testimony that ICE agents’ excessive force felt like a “war zone.”
■ Illinois’ senators want a criminal probe of the Chicago-area immigration blitz.
■ Block Club: Members of Chicago’s police district councils want a public hearing into reports cops have been helping the Border Patrol.
■ Protesters gathered outside a Thorntons gas station in Forest Park to protest its sales to ICE agents.
■ In a case that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says “could be legally monumental,” a county judge has been found guilty of obstructing federal agents seeking to make an immigration arrest outside her courtroom.
‘Bullshit doesn’t quite capture Trump’s danger.’ Reviewing the president’s “18-minute prime-time rant,” fact-checker Glenn Kessler is ratcheting up to bullcrap.
■ Columnist Steven Beschloss saw “a desperate and delusional man … digging a hole from which he has no idea how to escape.”
■ Neil Steinberg’s take: “600 percent more bullshit.”
■ Jeff Tiedrich: “Old man yells at country.”
■ The Onion: “Trump Assures Struggling Nation He Has Plenty Of Money.”
■ Updating coverage: Trump’s Justice Department faced a deadline today for release of its files on convicted—and dead—Trump pal and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
■ The Intercept: The New York Times’ David Brooks “said there’s too much focus on Jeffrey Epstein. Here he is hanging with Epstein.”
Score one for Sen. Duckworth. Her threat to withhold support for a promotion of the Coast Guard’s top officer has apparently prompted the Guard to abandon a plan to downgrade the definition of swastikas and nooses from overt hate symbols to “potentially divisive.”
■ Illinois is resisting Justice Department demands it turn over complete, unredacted voter records—including dates of birth and partial Social Security numbers.
Sign of the times. Despite objections that only Congress can make such a change, the Kennedy Center has begun the work of adding Trump’s name to the building.
■ Former ABC News reporter Terry Moran: “Congress has increasingly behaved like a bystander—reacting after the fact, declining confrontation and treating the assertion of its own authority as optional.”
‘He owes the city quite a bit.’ A Chicago City Council member’s sounding an alarm about Barack Obama’s old boss—who the Sun-Times says “owes City Hall more than $40,000 in unpaid water bills … and more than $360,000 in fees and fines” and yet still has business with the city.
■ Obama’s out with his list of favorite books, movies and music of 2025.
Brown shooter dead. Law enforcers say the man responsible for a mass shooting at Brown University and the later slaying of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor killed himself.
■ An anonymous tipster’s getting credit for identifying the killer …
■ … whose entry into the U.S. was allowed by a green card lottery program that Trump’s now suspending.
Qs for yous. Coming next week: A super-sized, two-part year-end news quiz. But here’s 2025’s final regular challenge from past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Fritz Holznagel.
■ Your Chicago Public Square columnist scored a sad 4/8 score this time out.
■ Axios’ Justin Kaufmann has concocted a 2025-in-review Chicago-centric challenge—with a 7/10 score here.
Environmental defection. A new report from the Environmental Integrity Project finds that, adjusted for inflation over the last 15 years, Illinois government has cut its EPA budget by 21%—even more than Republican-controlled Indiana and West Virginia.
■ Lyz Lenz’s Dingus of the Week: A Fox Business host who suggested a Christmas tree farm would be better used as an AI data center.
‘It’s been a hard year. … You literally pulled us out of a hole.’ Jimmy Kimmel teared up as he opened his final show of 2025.
■ Emotions ran high as CBS Evening News anchors John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois closed the show for their last time last night.
■ Poynter columnist Tom Jones’ media person of the year is the person forcing Dickerson and DuBois out, CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss.
■ Dave Barry surveys some of the weird things Americans lower to mark the arrival of a new year.
Y’know those newsletters taking all of Christmas week off? Not Square. Because you—especially those whose financial support (even just $1, just once!) keeps this service coming—deserve it. See ya here Monday.
■ Also it gives us a few more days to nag you to vote before the end of the year for Square in the Reader’s Best of Chicago poll. It’ll take you less than 30 seconds.
Thanks. Chris Koenig and Mike Braden made this edition better.