Events

The National Climate Prediction Center has released its outlooks for the next few months, and they look mixed for Chicago: For the summer months of June, July, and August, the outlook for Illinois is [equal chances] for rainfall and an increased chance of being above-normal on temperatures. It is a rare combination in Illinois to have a warmer than normal summer without being drier than normal as well. For September, October, November, southern Illinois has an increased chance of being drier than...

It's crystal-clear and 20°C in Chicago right now, so blogging will lag a bit as I spend all of my free time outside.

YouTube user John Meyer has found two films of boat rides on the Chicago River and into the lake. This one is from 1956: And this one is from 1983:

Too many things to read before lunchtime: Chicago's NPR affiliate, WBEZ, has a new mobile app. There's a new mobile device that functions like a Babel fish. Republicans really don't care about your unborn baby. Serbian authorities colluded with a Dubai-based property developer to illegally destroy an entire neighborhood overnight. A snarky Republican writing for Bloomberg actually makes a good point about why the TSA may be taking much longer to screen you than before. It looks like your brain naturally...

Bullet the Bison takes this folk song literally: The Dallas NBC affiliate has more.

On this day in 1954, the Supreme Court handed down Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, which ended "separate but equal" education after finding that the two concepts are antagonistic. Also on this day in 1954, the City of Chicago announced plans for the Stateway Gardens housing project, which eventually replaced an African-American slum with a high-rise hell-on-earth housing African Americans. As historian John R. Schmidt comments, "Maybe the new public housing projects were an attempt to keep...

The Swiss have built a 57 km tunnel under the Alps, and it opens June 1st: [T]he new Gotthard Base Tunnel burrows deep beneath the mountains to connect Switzerland’s German- and Italian-speaking regions, ultimately linking the Swiss lowlands with the North Italian plain. It exceeds the length of its longest predecessor, Japan’s Seikan Tunnel, by a little over three kilometers (1.9 miles). Running at up to 8,000 feet below mountain peaks at times, it also runs deeper below ground level than any other...

New Republic's Brian Buetler reports that the wing-nuts in the Republican Party (i.e., about half of them) are already laying the psychological groundwork for the increased reporting on Donald Trump's past coming out now that he's the presumptive nominee: The Republican primary campaign revealed (or rather reestablished) that Donald Trump is a bigot and a sexist and a creep. In fairness, this was not entirely a testament to fearless journalism; Trump happily exhibited all of these behaviors in front of...

Yes, I've posted a few things about the killing of Sears lately, because Eddie Lampert's investor call the other day was a train-wreck. Well, Crain's has attempted to tote up the damage, and it turns out Lampert has reduced the value of Sears stock by over 90%—not counting the dead spin-offs: Since he combined Sears Roebuck with Kmart in March 2005, Sears Holdings stock has lost roughly 90 percent of its value, dropping to an all-time low of $11.53 a share yesterday. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index has...

After announcing yesterday that Sears will close its oldest retail store in the U.S. in the wake of a $1.13 bn loss last year, CEO Eddie Lampert told investors that he intends to return the chain to profitability in five years. Apparently their loyalty program is the problem: Shop Your Way members sign up to receive coupons, and free shipping, and earn points that can be converted into dollars. Membership also provides access to a “social commerce” community on shopyourway.com that lets shoppers see...