Discount grocery operator Yellow Banana negotiated a multimillion-dollar deal to refurbish and reopen six Chicago Save A Lot stores within two years in neighborhoods lacking access to affordable and fresh foods. Yellow Banana is in line for more than $20 million in city and federal funding, including $13.5 million from the city of Chicago if it hits its city-set deadline in April.

It is one week into the new school year, and the administration at Chicago High School for the Arts has yet to complete academic schedules for all students. “For the most part, students are watching movies,” said ChiArts parent Jane Dietrich. Teachers said much of it has to do with layoffs.

The crew at Soul and Smoke said they have to pass some of those costs onto the customer, but they said people are understanding.

At the Dirksen Courthouse and Kluczinski federal building, the problem has been known for a year and yet there have been no solutions, angering court officials. Signs around Dirksen drinking fountains say “certain fixtures in this facility have tested outside of the corresponding threshold for copper, lead and Legionella.”

On Monday, the first day of school for CPS students, some SCR paratransit drivers crossed the picket line and arrived at SCR headquarters expecting to receive work — only to hear CPS pulled its contract with the company for the foreseeable future, one employee said. Nearly 8,800 students with disabilities have received transportation this year, but 1,913 still don’t have rides to school, according to CPS.

Former Illinoisan Mish Shedlock: “Johnson was hand picked by the CTU to screw the city, screw the taxpayers, screw the corporations, and screw the kids.”

“Last spring, Northwestern failed to punish student conduct that obviously violated its conduct code. Moving forward, will Northwestern really punish student protesters chanting, ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’? What about students who post the phrase on social media?”

Mayor Brandon Johnson was asked repeatedly whether he would consider raising property taxes or, but he would only say that “all of the options that have been discussed are still on the table” and that he remains “very much committed” to his “overall vision of investing in people and addressing the structural damage” that has been done to long-neglected South and West Side neighborhoods.

At a regularly scheduled bargaining session on Friday, CPS CEO PEdro Martinez plans to offer union members 4 percent raises in 2025 and between 4 percent and 5 percent raises in each of the next three years, depending on inflation, according to a statement from CPS, and will expand healthcare and dental coverage without increasing costs for employees. The district says the current average salary for teachers is $94,300.

David Greising, of the Better Government Association: “Davis Gates concludes that the schools CEO’s job is ‘to stand up for Chicago’s students and deliver the resources they deserve.’ By what means? She offers not a word on where the money should come from or what tradeoffs may be needed in order to realize her overarching vision for Chicago’s schools — a vision that, to date, has largely left out the question of fiscal stability.”

In fiscal year 2023, the city’s total contribution to police and fire pensions totaled roughly $25.5 million, more than twice the amount of a number of neighboring communities, according to benchmarking data drawn up by the city’s financial analyst. Des Plaines was the next highest on the chart at $16.3 million and Oak Park contributed just over $14 million to both funds in 2023.