Daywatch: Florida governor visits Elmhurst

Good morning, Chicago.

Elected officials gathered with residents from Near South Side communities Monday to call for a new South Loop high school to be built at an alternative location.

The demonstrators criticized Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Housing Authority for planning to build the school on CHA land that they say should be used for public housing.

“We cannot privatize and push for more sites that take away from public housing in a time when there is dire need,” Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, said.

CPS currently plans to build the school on land leased from the CHA at the site where the former Harold Ickes Homes public housing complex once stood. The school is set to be built near State and 24th streets to the east of Chinatown. The demonstrators called on CPS to instead build the school on a city-owned parcel northwest of Chinatown in East Pilsen at Canal and 17th streets.

Read the full story by Jake Sheridan.

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis visits Elmhurst as part of visit aimed at showing he’s pro-police

DeSantis, exploring a 2024 bid for the White House, came to west suburban Elmhurst on Monday as part of a tour attacking Democrats for enacting “woke” policies that encourage crime and weaken law enforcement as he recruited police officers to move to the Sunshine State.

“As they are defunding police and attacking police in these other jurisdictions, the state of Florida has shown them that we got your back and we support what you’re doing,” DeSantis told about 200 people in a half-hour speech promoted by the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police at a Knights of Columbus hall.

New law gives additional hope to youngest felons facing life in prison

Prison sentences that give inmates convicted at a young age no hope of ever getting out will soon be a thing of the past in Illinois. In the latest effort to ease the harshest sentences handed down to younger offenders, lawmakers last month voted to abolish life sentences without parole for most convicts under 21.

When Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the bill into law on Feb. 7, Illinois also became the 26th state to prohibit such sentences from being imposed on anyone under 18.

Lunch in the Loop: How restaurants are finding their footing downtown as office occupancy still lags

Nicole Nassif didn’t care her restaurant would have only six seats. She didn’t mind that offices in the Loop remain, like the rest of the country, far below pre-pandemic occupancy.

She felt sure Imee’s Kitchen could find its footing as a petite, lunch-focused Mediterranean restaurant that would appeal to office workers looking for a quick bite during their lunch break. In her first six months of business, that plan seems to be working.

Column: Patrick Kane’s trade saga is like a game of musical chairs — with the Chicago Blackhawks possibly left standing

“It can’t be easy to trade a legend,” writes Phil Thompson. “It’s even more difficult if you walk to the negotiating table with one hand tied behind your back.”

By most indications, Patrick Kane wants a trade and the Chicago Blackhawks want to trade him, but there appears to be a disconnect between the parties on how to get that done.

Review: There’s no place like home for Soulé, bringing its Creole soul food back to North Lawndale

The Tribune’s Louisa Chu writes that Soulé chef and owner Bridgette Flagg didn’t just move her Creole-inspired soul food restaurant from a small storefront in Ukrainian Village, where diners lined up out the door for hours. She built a whole new custom home for the business, with a full bar, no less, back in North Lawndale, where it all started with fried catfish plates on Polk Street.

“I don’t like calling myself a chef,” Flagg said. “I’m not formally trained. Chefs have some pretty big shoes to fill.”