Every Saturday morning, Daily Chicagoan gives you a quick rundown of the WTTW News coverage you need to know. Here are five essential stories that will inform you a bit more about our city.
Jupiter outshining Saturn during a spectacular meeting in 2020. (m-gucci / Stock)
Not even Chicago’s light pollution can dim the glow of Jupiter. On Saturday, the giant planet will shine its brightest of the year and will be visible all night as it travels the sky from sunset to sunrise. According to NASA, look for Jupiter to begin its rise in the east-northeast. Aside from the moon and Venus, it will be the brightest object in the sky. Saturday’s brilliant show is due to a phenomenon known as “opposition,” which means the sun and Jupiter are directly opposite each other, with Earth smack in between the two.
A whiff of raw cannabis is enough for a police officer to search a vehicle, the Illinois Supreme Court decided in an opinion filed Thursday, even though marijuana is legal in the state It’s the opposite of the conclusion justices reached in a September ruling in a case involving the smell of burnt cannabis. The disparity — that the smell of unsmoked marijuana is justification for a warrantless search, while the smell of smoked pot is not — “defies logic,” Justice Mary K. O’Brien wrote in her dissent.
Chicago is on pace to see its fewest number of shootings, shooting victims and homicides in any year since 2019 as violence levels continue their return to pre-pandemic levels, according to new figures from the Chicago Police Department. The 533 homicides recorded across the city through the end of November mark a nearly 9% decline compared to the same time last year, according to CPD data. That total is also nearly 19% below 2022’s pace and 29% below 2021’s pace.
Mayor Brandon Johnson celebrated on Tuesday his pick to lead an expanded effort to help those returning to Chicago from jail or prison to rebuild their lives, even as efforts to nail down a budget deal remained fraught. Chicago’s expanded Office of Re-Entry, which is part of the mayor’s office, has been led since September by Joseph “JoJo” Mapp, records show. Mapp served more than 26 years in prison after being convicted of murder and armed robbery as a teen before being released in 2020.
Construction is finally set to begin on the long-awaited $1.15 billion Brandon Road Interbasin Project — better known as the Great Lakes invasive carp barrier. On Wednesday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced it had awarded a $15.5 million contract to Miami Marine Services for site preparation and riverbed rock removal.
