“The 121 restaurateurs who signed this op-ed have invested in the city of Chicago, financially and emotionally, over many years. We ask for a government that manages with a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer. We ask for nuanced and balanced decision-making. We ask for a proposal that allows operators a chance to cure any honest mistakes without the threat of a lawsuit. We ask for more time and for a true economic study with the new PTO ordinance. We ask for a thoughtful pause from

“The pilot program addresses the crucial reality that more has to be done in Chicago to get migrants to submit applications for work permits, with getting fingerprinted and photographed part of that process.”

The only substantive change to Johnson’s original spending plan approved by the Budget Committee would allow each of the 50 members of the City Council to hire a fourth employee for their ward office – a perennial demand long ignored by Johnson’s predecessor that will help speed the plan’s passage before Thanksgiving.

Illinois and Chicago may be able to make it easier – or more difficult – for migrants to work within their jurisdictions, but any permanent solution will likely rest with the U.S. government.

if all goes right, it could become a new hub of Lake Michigan shoreline living, with expensive rentals for either short-term use or long-time living, a restaurant scene and a train ride to Chicago that makes driving over the Skyway and through Gary a thing of the past. If all goes as planned, “Michigan City is going to be so cool,” says Joe Farina, a restaurateur who has venues in the South Loop and Oak Park and last year opened Cafe Farina on Franklin Street in Michigan City.

Operators say that, eventually, they will raise menu prices to find the additional funds needed to pay staffers more. Restaurant owners are not liking the arithmetic, as they try to retain employees and keep rising menu prices — which rarely come back down — from scaring off customers.

The prospect of having voters weigh in on the city’s flood response instead of its sanctuary city status incensed some City Council members, who want to see the latter put up for a public vote as tensions have boiled over regarding the city’s support of more than 20,000 migrants who have arrived since last year. “We just want to make sure that we get the Bring Chicago Home question on the ballot after all the work that we have done,” Ald. Maria Hadden said.

Ramirez-Rosa will step down from his positions as floor reader and chairman of the City Council’s Zoning Committee following last week’s contentious special council meeting at which, his colleagues say, he tried to physically stop a fellow alderperson from joining a meeting regarding Chicago’s sanctuary city status. Denying the meeting a quorum would end the effort to reverse sanctuary city laws, a proposal Ramirez-Rosa and other progressive alderpeople were against.

“Venezuelans aren’t the only ones seeking asylum here. The French, Caribbeans, French Africans, they’re just ignoring the Black immigrants and I think that matters,” said Attorney Anastasie Senat at a Town Hall meeting Sunday.

Comment: CORE is the ruling faction of the Chicago Teachers Union and advocates for use of pension funds for social purposes.

Last weekend, at least 34 people were shot, three fatally, in gun violence across Chicago, police said.

Police are investigating after antisemitic signs and flyers were found on the Northwest Side and in suburban Elmhurst and La Grange Park over the weekend. The flyers, “while not threatening in nature,” were political and from an antisemitic social media group, La Grange Park police said.