“We want Woodlawn to have all the services and amenities you would expect in a healthy neighborhood,” said Department of Planning and Development Commissioner Maurice Cox, a panelist. “Culture, recreation, health care, public transit, retailers, restaurants… We’re excited to be able to ride the [OPC’s] coattails.” He described a “charm bracelet” approach by city planners to draw tourists from the OPC westward, deeper into the Woodlawn community.

Evelyn Figueroa, director of the Pilsen Food Pantry, said that facility has had to triple its food budget compared with a year ago. At the same time, demand began to rise at the food pantry in February and has remained elevated since then, she said.

“Through the campaign, we are illustrating the emotional and transformative impact our city can have on visitors,” said Lynn Osmond, president and CEO of Choose Chicago. “We also want people to experience Chicago as it should be experienced and the campaign helps change people’s perspectives of what they may think Chicago has to offer.”

Nearly 80,000 students have left Chicago Public Schools and student proficiency rates have declined nearly 80% in math and 70% in reading since the current leaders took over the Chicago Teachers Union in 2010. All that, and 55% higher costs.

Estimates for what Bring Chicago Home’s proposal would add to the costs of million-dollar-plus properties ranges from $158 million to $163 million … the burden of which would fall on buyers. While sellers would see no change, the RETT revision would roughly triple the buyer’s tax to $26,500 per $1 million spent. In Los Angeles, real estate groups are currently fighting similar legislation.

“The implication here is that without deep instructional interventions at the middle school level that have been very difficult to achieve under the best of conditions, the likelihood of learning recovery for kids now entering the middle school years is pretty low,” said Paul Zavitkovsky, an assessment specialist at the Center for Urban Education Leadership at the University of Illinois Chicago.

Trequan Jackson Young, 18, was arrested Tuesday at the Jackson Red Line station after he took his girlfriend’s phone and refused to give it back, prompting her to pull out a knife and demand its return, according to a CPD report.

“In the face of troubling CPD staff shortages, we as a community must must do all we can to support, appreciate and respect the profession if we expect people to seek the job. In the meantime, we must also explore other opportunities to promote public safety in our community,” Ald. Matt O’Shea wrote to neighbors.

Ald. Susan Sadlowski-Garza acknowledged the pandemic has turned driving on Chicago streets and expressways “into the Wild, Wild West.” She said: “I have one camera that generated over a million dollars in a six-month period. It’s not making people go slower. We don’t have any traffic crashes around where the cameras are at. I have more traffic crashes on 130th, where there’s no cameras at all.”

“They defiantly need better internet security if they gonna keep the zoom,” Johnell Pikes said. His family believed they were messaging with someone from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office and sent money via Zelle for just over $6,000 for Keith Pikes release – which never happened.

The money, which was a major factor in making Bally’s the frontrunner among three finalists, will support the city’s pension costs. Bally’s also has pledged to pay the city $4 million annually to that end, and generate $200 million in yearly tax revenue.

The CDC on Thursday showed 26 Illinois counties at high level, including De Kalb, Kendall, Will and Kankakee, and 39 at medium level, including Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, Grundy and La Salle.

In a number of recent high-profile investigations, including probes of the Anjanette Young wrong-raid and the Hilco smokestack demolition in Little Village, the public has seen only short synopses of the inspector general’s work in the agency’s quarterly summary reports. Detailed reports can only be released at the discretion of corporation counsel, the city’s top lawyer, and only in limited circumstances.

GiveDirectly, a nonprofit that originally focused on giving cash to impoverished people in Africa will soon be delivering money to poor residents of Chicago, in one of the largest tests of a guaranteed basic income program in the US. Givewell, which recommends GiveDirectly as a top-rated charity, notes that evidence about the long-term impact of direct cash transfers is limited.