Lots of goodies in this rundown from Claire Malon, including this:

Toxic traces: What to know about lead in water at Illinois day cares chicagotribune.com/investigations…

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot exits City Hall for the last time, all smiles and shaking hands as bagpipers and hand clappers roar in the lobby.

Per usual Alice Yin is a must follow, tonight for her reporting from Wright College as the migrant crisis escalates on the Northwest Side

Brandon Johnson starts City Council meeting with a joke about “breaking news”: “This City Council meeting is being recorded live from Naperville.”

Chicagoans tend to forget over the winter, but summer brings extreme heat that - to be blunt - kills people. Climate change is increasing those risks. Today we published an investigation on heat disparities that maps the city's danger zones: chicagotribune.com/heat

DuPage County explores cutting water contract with Chicago and building a pipeline to Lake Michigan, a deal which paid the city $113 million in FY 2022. A.D. Quig with an important story Chicago Tribune chicagotribune.com/news/ct-dupage…

This story about rural Illinois' struggles and promise is months in the making. Big thank you to John Chase Rick Pearson Shanna Madison for bringing this story to light. Please read. chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-sm…

City Council votes 34-13 to approve $51 million to help deal with migrant crisis

Dear newsrooms: I worked closely with alexhairysun.bsky.social, our Chicago Tribune Northwestern Medill FOIA intern this year and he is as dogged and meticulous a young reporter as I’ve ever met. If you’ve got a job open, hire him.

NASCAR’s first-ever street race will come to Chicago in July, bringing with it questions and apprehension from community members and city leaders about street closures, traffic, access and safety concerns. Good story by hank sanders chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-na…

Three pedestrians struck, one critically hurt near Sox Park chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/…

"I'd say it's not the safest thing we've ever done."

Tribune Exclusive: James Lewis, sole suspect in 1982 Tylenol murders, has died - by Stacy St. Clair and me. chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/…

NEWS: Federal prosecutors are investigating possible minority-contracting fraud involving a series of Chicago government contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. With bret A.D. Quig Chicago Tribune chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-ch…

Shame on MWRD: “Officials at the Water Reclamation District, a taxpayer-financed agency that operates separately from City Hall and Cook County government, declined to speak with the Chicago Tribune about how the Deep Tunnel performed during the most recent storms.”

@RTMannJr @RTMannJr you’ve always been voice of reason in the increasingly chaotic and nonsensical dialogue that is destroying higher education. When we were fighting for accountability for sexual assault on college campuses across LA, you were one of the few who encouraged our efforts.

///BREAKING/// Former Chicago Ald. Ed Burke found guilty of racketeering conspiracy charge alleging he used the power of his elected office to squeeze developers for private law business. This count carries a maximum of 20 years. They’re still reading the rest of the verdict