CHICAGO — With highs in the 70s and Mario's Italian Ice opening this weekend, we'll keep it brief. Here's what you may have missed in the news this week.
• Transgender advocates said this week that Chicago Public Schools guidelines regarding transgender students are a great first step, but not nearly enough.
CPS's document advises staff how to handle sensitive matters like which bathroom a transgender student should use and how to protect the students' ability to "openly discuss and express" their gender identity at school, reported Ariel Cheung.
Jessica Sage Celimene-Rowell (above), the trans liaison at Center on Halsted said, "A lot of it is left up to the principal, and then it goes to the law department. There's never any space in here for the child to say who they would like to have [on the team]."
• Your Uber app just got more useful. People working in the Loop and River North have another option for lunch now that car service Uber has announced it will deliver select meals to workers from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. every weekday.
Meal options include XOCO's Pepito Torta, Cemitas Puebla's Carne Asada Cemida and DMK Burger Bar's No. 1 Burger.
• Speaking of delicious Chicago food options, a plan to give landmark status to the Fulton Market/Randolph Street area is facing significant opposition, reported Stephanie Lulay. More than half the property owners who would be affected by the landmark status indicated that they opposed the plan, and only five supported it.
Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. (27th) has previously said he is "leaning toward landmarking" to preserve the culture in the area, which has become a fine dining destination in recent years. But some property owners say the status will limit future development opportunities at their sites.
• Here's something you definitely don't want to see near food establishments: city rats. You can learn more about them on the City of Chicago's informational webpage — if you dare.
Kyla Gardner walks us through the City's official page, which she calls "the stuff of nightmares." Rats can "crawl through holes the size of a quarter, tread water for three days and land unharmed after a five-story fall," according to the page.
The city warns that "they have very hard teeth and can chew through wood and plaster." Read on for more horror film fodder.
• Here's something that will restore your sense of safety: The Chicago Fire Department is looking to hire a new class of firefighters. Tex Cox reported this week that almost 18,000 people passed the firefighter exam and are awaiting word on when they might be selected as new recruits.
Of the pool of candidates, 24 percent were Hispanic and 22 percent were African-American, which could help boost diversity numbers for the Fire Department, which has admitted to not having enough minority employees in the past.
• Your Chicago history for the weekend: Decades ago, Chicago scientists embarked on the "largest biogengineering experiment in the history of the Great Lakes," reported Sam Cholke.
The goal was to reduce the number of alewives, a herring-like silvery fish, that was plaguing Chicago at the time. Long-time Chicagoans remember the Alewife Plague of 1967, when one billion pounds of dead fish were pulled from the lake. "The beaches were choked with clouds of flies over six-foot tall mounds of dead fish," Cholke wrote.
Well, the experiment worked, perhaps too well: Now, the lake's Chinook salmon, which prey almost exclusively on the alewives, are dying off as well. Scientists are trying to protect alewives so populations can rebound — but their future is uncertain.
• Mark Konkol asks our readers to think long and hard about how much they love their mothers: "If you're one of those people who makes a last-minute stop at the drugstore to get your mom a mass-produced greeting card for Mother's Day, do you really love her?"
He recommends, instead, these cards made by local artist Mollie Green, whose wares are available at cute boutiques across the city. Her business, La Familia Green, has been "a way to combine my printmaking skills with my sense of humor," she said.
• A suburban woman caused $50,000 worth of damage to a Northwest Side cemetery earlier this week after she drove over 13 headstones, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Lorraina Medrano, 23, was allegedly in a fight at Mount Olive Cemetery and had been drinking alcohol before she went on her destructive ride, reported Erica Demarest. The judge told Medrano, "You have no business being in that cemetery," before banning her from the area and holding her on $7,500 bail.
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