Shi… The Illinois Public Health Department’s reporting an above-average caseload of cyclosporiasis—an intestinal illness linked to “explosive diarrhea.”
■ The state’s official guidance: Avoid “food or water that may have been contaminated with feces”—and scrub that produce.
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■ Handbasket reporter Marisa Kabas: “We didn’t need a rape accusation to know Graham Platner was unfit.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
Will he / Won’t he? Even though scandal-scarred Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner has yet to resign from the race, the party’s already fighting over how to replace him.
■ Fresh revelation from The Washington Post: Platner’s ex-girlfriend says he removed condoms without consent during sex.
■ Men Yell at Me proprietor Lyz Lenz saw it coming: “You don’t accidentally get a Nazi tattoo; you don’t accidentally threaten your girlfriends or accidentally sext other women when you are married.”
■ The Atlantic’s Jonathan Chait (gift link): “Democrats Got Drunk on the Beer Test.”
■ Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein’s not retreating from his defense of Platner’s campaign: “Giving people a chance means that sometimes they won’t live up to it. No one should apologize for that.”
Hypocrisy in Texas. ProPublica and The Texas Tribune report that the state’s attorney general, Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton, who vowed to crack down on “illegal voting,” may have … um … voted illegally.
■ The Senate’s two top Republicans claim to have spoken separately yesterday with Sen. Mitch McConnell, whose aliveness has been widely questioned.
■ Gary Legum at Wonkette: “There was a time when a normal politician would have at least released a proof-of-life photo by now.”
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “Republicans are going full Weekend at Mitch’s.”
Buckets ready? With more rain in the forecast tomorrow and Friday, the southern part of the Chicago area in particular is at risk of flooding as the Deep Tunnel network approaches overflow.
■ A pilot project is adding flood capacity on Chicago’s West Side.
Update your scorecards. Add cardiologist and Hines VA Hospital whistleblower Dr. Lisa Nee to the roster of Chicago’s mayoral candidates.
■ The Tribune editorial board’s queasy about Police Supt. Larry Snelling’s decision to resign with two weeks’ notice in the middle of summer—but recommends holding off on a permanent replacement: “A search now is highly unlikely to produce the best possible applicants given the fact that Chicago will elect a new mayor in less than a year.”
■ One of Mayor Johnson’s most persistent City Council critics, Marty Quinn, says he won’t run for re-election.
What’s in the report? Now that Illinois State Rep. Harry Benton has quit in the face of rumored sexual harassment charges, count Gov. Pritzker among those calling for release of the ethics report that led to his resignation.
■ Benton still holds a $72,000-a-year job as a suburban highway commissioner.
■ The Illinoize: Democratic State Rep. Carol Ammons of Urbana and her husband, the Champaign County clerk, have been federally indicted—accused of using state grants to secure kickbacks and using campaign funds for personal use.
‘ICE is now investigating U.S. citizens who speak out against them.’ Columnist Heather Delaney Reese on a wave of intimidation against citizens who’ve been critical of the agency: “Authoritarian movements … begin by making examples of a few people and waiting to see whether fear spreads faster than outrage.”
■ The Bulwark: “ICE is shooting people again.”
■ The criminal justice and voting rights newsletter Bolts: Illinois is among the states that now let people file civil lawsuits against federal agents who violate their constitutional rights.
■ Sharing an immigration case on the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket,” Law Dork Chris Geidner sees “yet another example of … cruelty the Trump administration is putting people through in service of its anti-immigrant extremism.”
‘As proof of concept, it’s a rousing success.’ Public Notice reviews D.C.’s Great American State Fair: “Trump was able to snatch congressionally allocated funds, commingle them with cash from corporations seeking favor from his administration, enrich his buddies, and throw himself two spectacular birthday parties.”
‘Our major news outlets apparently aren’t up to the job.’ Press Watch columnist Dan Froomkin says that, rather than debunk Donald Trump’s “Big Lie … that Democrats are godless communists who want to destroy the country,” mainstream news orgs “have responded largely with mild stenography—effectively amplifying his lies.”
■ Ex-New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan calls on the Times to fix its milquetoast Trump headlines: “Less polite deference; more plainspoken directness.”
■ Poynter’s Tom Jones: Stepping up its fight against the Federal Communications Commission, ABC reminds the commission it already ruled that The View is a news show.
■ Media Institute senior fellow Stuart Brotman: “The country’s experience of watching the same thing at the same time has fragmented into something else that’s still being named.”
Chicago.com rising. Sun-Times and WBEZ owner Chicago Public Media is reviving a long-coveted but long-dormant web address …
■ … which now looks like this …
■ … but which the Internet Archive recalls looked like this in 1998.
Taste this, Chicago. Taste of Chicago is back, baby …
■ … and with it, some of the city’s most noteworthy outdoor concerts.
■ At Chicago Public Square’s 10 a.m. email deadline, a new batch of tickets to the Obama Presidential Center was set for release on the web.
‘The work you do every day, distilling so much into something so readable and so badly needed, is a treasure beyond measure. Sprinkled with your wit, bad news actually becomes palatable.’ Those kind words yesterday accompanied a generous round of support that keeps Square free for all.
■ Join that reader—along with Susan Berkes, Clive Topol, Steve Ignots, Ken Hildreth, Deb Humiston, Elizabeth Denius, Sarah Hoban, Mickey Callahan, L ShoulterKarall, Margaret Meyer, Carole Barrett, Jeff Weissglass, Mary Kay O’Grady, Peter Kuttner, Bruce Buursma, David Painter, Maria Bomba, Larry Perlman, Fritz Holznagel, Melissa Leeb, Lynne Stiefel, Charlene Thomas, Mary-Carol Riehs, David Green, Timothy Atkins, Lee Rusch, Richard Osa, Peggy Swanson, Deirdre Walton, Liz Strause, Sue Omanson, Rollin Dix, Rhona Taylor, Carol Morency, Kathy Manofsky, Donna Peel, Justin Schroeder, Sonya Booth, Ruth Hroncich, Jon Randolph, Thomas Gradel and Diane Scott—for as little as $1, just once, and see your name lead off tomorrow’s roll call.