Events

I live only a short walk from the space formerly occupied by 42 Grams, one of the best restaurants I've ever experienced. The food at 42 Grams was so good that they earned two Michelin stars just a few months after opening. But when the owners' marriage fell apart, so did the restaurant, closing suddenly one weekend in May 2017. A new restaurant opened in the space at the end of September, and...well, it might be worth trying, but maybe not yet. Brass Heart opened last summer. Chicago Eater was...

From the usual sources: James Stern, African-American, successfully infiltrated and legally destroyed a neo-Nazi group. Blair Braverman (no relation) prepares for her first Iditarod (warning: adorable dog photos). Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) may have laid the legal groundwork for getting President Trump's tax returns. The Perfection Building in Chicago is kind of cool. So is the world's first skyscraper, also in Chicago. Here comes the cold...again... Time to walk the dog.

...and it has always been due to human error. Today, I don't mean the HAL-9000. Amtrak: Amtrak said “human error” is to blame for the disrupted service yesterday at Union Station. A worker fell on a circuit board, which turned off computers and led to the service interruption, according to U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin. The delay lasted more than 12 hours and caused significant overcrowding at Union Station. The error affected more than 60,000 Amtrak and Metra passengers taking trains from Union to the suburbs...

Chicago produces a...technically non-toxic liquid called Jeppson's Malört. If you don't know what this is, The Ringer explains: The first thing you should know about Malört is that, well, it’s bad. A Google search for it will direct you to the term “Malört face,” a query that will lead to a close-up montage of poor souls reacting to their first taste of the amber liquor: eyes closed, noses scrunched, jaws clenched, veins swelling out of foreheads, perhaps a tear trickling down a cheek in horror or...

Today actually had a lot of news, not all of which I've read yet: About 60,000 commuters couldn't get home tonight after Amtrak signaling at Union Station, Chicago, broke down. Writing for New Republic, Matt Ford calls Michael Cohen's testimony to Congress today "the art of the deal you can't refuse."  David Frum (among others) points out that for all the GOP's impugning of Cohen's character, no one actually refuted the facts of his testimony. The Economist's Gulliver column speculates that US carriers...

The veteran Chicago Public Media reporter says "Black Chicago has to stop chasing the ghost of Harold Washington:" The spirit of Harold Washington won’t save Chicago. Washington’s legacy as the city’s first black mayor and Democratic machine breaker is legendary. A remarkable 82 percent of registered voters cast ballots in the 1983 race in which he first won. Compare that to the dismal 34 percent earlier this week. Unfathomable numbers when you pair them side by side. Voter turnout in mayoral races has...

The UK Met has kept temperature records since 1910, and in all that time, London has never experienced a warmer day in winter than yesterday: Temperatures in Kew Gardens, south-west London, reached 21.2°C, breaking the record for the warmest February day. The Met Office defines winter from the beginning of December to the end of February, so Tuesday’s sunny spell is also a winter record. The record had already been broken on Monday, when temperatures exceeded 20°C during winter for the very first time....

I told you the Chicago mayoral election would be difficult. I had no idea that my preferred candidate would come out in first place, setting up an April 2nd election that will elect Chicago's first African-American woman mayor: It’s only the second time Chicago has had a runoff campaign for mayor, which occurs when no candidate collects more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round. Unofficial results showed Lightfoot with 17.5 percent of the vote, Preckwinkle with 16 percent and Bill Daley with...

Former Speaker of the House of Commons the Betty Boothroyd gave a fiery speech to the House of Lords on January 14th. At 89, she's still brilliant:

In her speech to the House of Commons this afternoon, PM Theresa May promised a vote on March 13th to avoid a calamitous withdrawal from the European Union less than two weeks later: Here's the relevant bit from Hansard: As the Government committed to the House last week, we are today publishing the paper assessing our readiness for no deal. I believe that if we have to, we will ultimately make a success of a no deal. But this paper provides an honest assessment of the very serious challenges it would...