CHICAGO — Here's what we're reading today.
Getting schooled: Senior editor Andrew Herrmann is reading a report card by former Sun-Times statehouse bureau chief Dave McKinney on Gov. Bruce Rauner's performance so far. Writing for Chicago magazine, McKinney gives Rauner an A for taking on unions but also several Ds and a C-plus overall. "If Bruce Rauner’s vision of shaking up Springfield meant making a lot of noise, his first six months have been a rousing success. But if the goal was to get something substantive actually, well, done, Illinois’s new governor has yet to impress," he writes.
McKinney resigned from the Sun-Times last October in a fight with the paper over what he said was related to his aggressive reporting on Rauner. Before Rauner was governor, Rauner joined Sun-Times chairman Michael Ferro in buying the paper. Rauner sold his slice of the Sun-Times as he prepared to run for office.
Your Relationship With Books? It's Complicated: According to the Providence Journal, the number of indie booksellers in the U.S. is up 27 percent since 2009. Yea! But even with that growth, their ranks are still roughly half of what they were in the '90s. The compulsion to keep these little guys afloat is causing conscientious consumers stress, a condition reporter Patty Wetli, an avowed hardcover lover, can identify with. "Buying a book and choosing the place to do so involve delicate and complicated considerations. You may fail to do the right thing," Ken Kalfus writes in the New Yorker. "...The survival of literature depends on it." Too. Much. Pressure.
Is It Time to Panic?: A nightmare scenario at O'Hare stemming from a computer malfunction apparently wasn't the only cause for concern this morning. Reporter Darryl Holliday is reading how Gawker's resident conspiracy theorist has strung together a compelling list of similar digital shutdowns the morning of July 8. Coincidence?
ITEM: The New York City subway system suffered an atrocious commute today, with some trains being inexplicably stranded in stations for long periods of time.
ITEM: The website “The Dissolve” folded today.
ITEM: United Airlines was forced to ground all of its flights after its computer system mysteriously stopped working.
ITEM: The New York Stock Exchange suspended trading today after its computerized trading system mysteriously stopped working.
ITEM: Immediately after, the Wall Street Journal’s website mysteriously stopped working.
ITEM: More than 2,500 people in Washington, D.C. mysteriously lost power.
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