The Daily Parker

Though we'll probably talk about this week's news out of Mauna Loa for many years to come, other stories got to my inbox today:

• Chicago's budget deficit will hit $740m in 2020, the city's CFO announced less than a week before Lori Lightfoot takes office as our new mayor.
• Both MSNBC and Josh Marshall pin our escalating tensions with Iran right on John Bolton's butt. (Cap may have America's Ass, but Bolton is America's Arse.)
• Physicians believe a boy who died 50 years ago today was the country's first AIDS fatality.
• More evidence has emerged that the National Rifle Association, and its chief executive Wayne LaPierre, may have engaged in massive fraud. (And not just on the meaning of the Second Amendment.)

And finally, the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild has a new Summer Passport program that entitles people to a free membership after getting stamps at 40 brewpubs and taprooms between now and August 10th. Forty breweries in 87 days? Challenge...accepted!