Super-duper . . .
Health report update: The son of Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson, who has been awaiting a kidney transplant, is his father’s potential number one donor and has been racing to get in shape for surgery tentatively scheduled for June. Our top cop is telling pals he should be back to work in July; a six-week recovery is anticipated.
Two other potential donors are also on the list.
OPINION
Manchester mayhem . . .
It’s called crisis management, Chicago style.
Shortly after the Monday night bombing in Manchester, England, which resulted in the death of 22 people outside an arena where an Ariana Grande concert was being held — it was a Chicago PR firm the stadium turned to to handle the aftershock.
• To wit: The crisis firm handling communications for the SMG stadium and convention center management company, which runs the Manchester building — as well as McCormick Place and Soldier Field — is Res Publica Group, a Chicago entity owned by Guy Chipparoni.
• The upshot: It was Res Publica that authored the international SMG website message of condolence to the “victims and their loved ones affected by this senseless tragedy.”
• The sad shot: Although Chipparoni was tight-lipped about their role and would only say it is “an incredibly heart-wrenching situation,” his website statement did emphasize “the suicide bomber set off his device in a public area outside of one of the arena’s exits.”
Veil hell . . .
Ivanka and Melania Trump meet Pope Francis at the Vatican. AFP
Good grief.
Sneedless to say, two of the nation’s most beautiful women, first lady Melania Trump and her stepdaughter, Ivanka Trump, chose to wear two of the goofiest-looking veils to the Vatican to visit the pontiff.
Melania’s topper looked like a bad hair day; Ivanka’s looked like an overactive waterfall.
Yikes!
Vatican vroom . . .
President Donald Trump arrived in a motorcade in the courtyard of the Apostolic Palace to visit the Pope.
Pope Francis’motorcade was comprised of one car: a blue Ford Focus.
Who knew?
We knew President Trump was a recently revived Presbyterian Protestant who doted on the Evangelicals when running for president.
We knew daughter Ivanka was a convert to her husband, Jared Kushner’s, Orthodox Jewish faith.
But who knew Melania, a native of Slovenia, was a Catholic? She certainly didn’t trumpet that in public when her husband was running for president — even when he was wooing the Catholic vote.
We presume Trump’s first wife, Ivana, mother of Ivanka, who hails from Czechoslovakia, had also been raised Catholic?
Is a Lutheran lurking somewhere in the mix?
Pray tell.
Do tell.
Pew news . . .
President Trump’s decision to nix his press secretary Sean Spicer, a devout Catholic, from the papal visit pecking order was real as well as reel.
• Translation: Sneed is told Spicer being parodied by comedian Melissa McCarthy on “Saturday Night Live” is giving the nation’s number one Trumpster a big case of agita, and whispers in the White House suggest Trump is hoping to make Spicer miserable enough via criticism and neglect to shift into another role.
S’mores anyone?
Fluff & puff: Now comes word one of the wedding favors passed out at the wedding breakfast following the lavish nuptials of Pippa Middleton, the sister of Kate, the future Queen of England, was a bit too too.
• The yummy: personalized marshmallows embossed with the initials of the bride and groom.
Now isn’t that special.
I’m just sayin’.
Sneedlings . . .
Today’s birthdays: Ben Zobrist, 36; Lauryn Hill, 42; and Lenny Kravitz, 53.
