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the faa held an intervention for o'hare. united and american did not take it well. airlines scheduled 3,080 daily operations this summer at o'hare. the faa's hard ceiling is 2,800, which is apparently the kind of information airlines needed someone to write down and hand them in person. last summer peaked at 2,680. staffing is short, construction is ongoing, and depaul transportation professor joe schwieterman called the meeting "somewhat unprecedented," which is professor for "what were they thinking." united and american both want more gates. the runway is not interested in their feelings.

twenty-eight new homes are going up in back of the yards. on lots that were just sitting there. saturday was the ribbon cutting for the first two, built by the resurrection project and united power for action and justice. affordable homeownership on the southwest side, on land that spent years being a problem nobody solved. small number of houses, but the opposite direction from demolition, which is more than most neighborhoods get.

chicago fire fc broke ground on a $750 million stadium. the neighbors have questions. the developers have not been returning calls. the site is the 78, a south loop megadevelopment on the river between chinatown and the loop, privately funded by joe mansueto, who is very proud of this. 22,000 seats, opens 2028. chinatown residents and bridgeport organizers say they were completely shut out of development talks, which the developers are describing as "community engagement" with a straight face. they're asking for a community benefits agreement covering affordable housing and small business protections. 10,000 construction jobs and 1,000 affordable units are promised. the neighbors want that in writing, in a legally binding document, because they have been to chicago before.

naperville approved a rowhouse development that its own master plan appears to not want. residents are composing strongly worded letters. the benton + main rowhouse development was approved over neighborhood objections, with residents arguing it violates the master plan the city spent money creating. the council voted anyway. naperville is now writing letters to the tribune. the situation has fully matured.

cook county erased $1.5 billion in medical debt. if you have old bills in collections, check your mail before you throw it away. pritzker and preckwinkle announced it tuesday — more medical debt relief than any other county in the country, which is either inspiring or a sign that we had a lot of medical debt. the program continues into 2027 even after federal funds run out. if the collection calls have gone quiet recently, this might be why.

suburban police departments are, once again, asking parents to explain senior assassin to their children before someone calls 911. palos heights and villa park both issued warnings this week about high school seniors chasing each other with water guns and nerf guns through residential neighborhoods, in the dark. a gurnee concealed carry holder once mistook a toy gun for a real threat. the warnings note that fake weapons can lead to real charges. this happens every spring, the press releases get more tired every year, and so does everyone writing them.

clocks spring forward sunday, march 8. you will lose the hour whether you prepare or not. 2 a.m. becomes 3 a.m. the hour is gone. there is no negotiating with this.

shift bedtime 15 minutes earlier starting tonight. accept that monday morning will feel exactly as bad as you think it will. no amount of preparation changes monday morning.

eat: gale street inn is back. jefferson park. 63 years old. closed last june. new ownership. the ribs survived the transition, which is the only thing that mattered. 4914 n. milwaukee ave. go before you convince yourself you'll go next weekend.

do: matisse's jazz: rhythms in color opens at the art institute saturday, march 7. tickets are $5 on top of general admission — members get in free. worth every penny. bold cut-paper work from late in his career. the kind of thing that makes you briefly forget it's 30 degrees. pair it with cindy's rooftop. pretend it's april.

avoid: the maggie daley ice skating ribbon on saturday. it closes after this weekend and everyone realized that at the exact same time. show up friday or accept 400 families in line ahead of you who also waited until the last minute.

hey — if you’d like to put your business in front of the readers of this very email, reply with a little about what you do. small, weird, or local: we like all three.

once upon a symphony: the bremen town musicians. symphony center. saturday, march 7. 45 minutes. genuinely worth it. live musicians, costumes, a set built for the 3-to-5 crowd. your child will talk about it for weeks. possibly at dinner. possibly at 6 a.m. you have been warned in the most affectionate way possible. buy tickets.

a guide to building an at-home speakeasy. suburban basement edition. actual prohibition-era historical details. real design thinking. the kind of article that makes you believe, for one full afternoon, that you are the type of person who does home improvement projects. you're not. but the article is great.

the lincoln park restaurant that invented the chicago celebrity chef, before anyone knew that was a thing. before trotter. before bayless. before achatz. there was a round hungarian man with a flowing mustache serving beef wellington and pork snout pâté to 600 people a night out of a restaurant that looked like your grandmother's house if your grandmother had opinions. mismatched silverware. chairs designed to become uncomfortable after 90 minutes. open from 1963 to 1989. adapted from a new book called the chicago way. built from oral histories. read it in one sitting. tell at least one person about it immediately. you won't be able to help yourself.

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the faa is putting o'hare on a flight diet. cook county just vaporized $1.5 billion in medical debt. and the clocks are about to pickpocket an hour on sunday.

tips, sightings, your suburb spiraling?

reply with your neighborhood and one thing that made you pause, squint, or text someone “???”

talk tuesday.

-sam