Daywatch: Apartment project on Far Northwest Side created divisions | State Democratic Party looks to modernize

Good morning, Chicago.

The risk of contracting COVID-19 in suburban Cook County, Lake County and DuPage County has jumped to the “medium” level under the latest national guidelines, officials announced Friday. Chicago’s top public health official said Friday she expects the city also will move to medium risk soon. Cook County’s senior medical officer Dr. Rachel Rubin said in a statement: “As hospitalizations remain low, we want to contain further spread now.”

In business news, local activists said they feel betrayed after Whole Foods announced the Englewood location was slated for closure. Then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel worked with Whole Foods to open the store with much fanfare in 2016, spending more than $10 million in tax dollars to make it happen. The store’s closing is a painful example of how difficult it can be to transform a neighborhood, even with major investments.

And customers in Lakeview on Saturday said goodbye to Dinkel’s Bakery, which made countless cakes to celebrate and grieve over the decades. “I’m emotionally moved by all the customers and all their memories,” Norman Dinkel Jr. said. “All the family events that our little bakery became a part of. It’s just overwhelming.”

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Biking around her Far Northwest Side neighborhood, Monica Dillon’s eyes sometimes linger past a nondescript parking lot east of O’Hare International Airport, squeezed between the Kennedy Expressway, some office buildings and a Marriott hotel.

Plans to build a $91 million apartment complex with some affordable units on the Higgins Road lot west of Cumberland Avenue have stirred controversies stretching throughout Chicago, including City Hall.

For decades, the Democratic Party of Illinois has been an antiquated outlier among state Democratic organizations, focusing on parochial fundraising instead of using its status as a staunchly blue state in a Midwest field of red to influence national politics.

But a year after former House Speaker Michael Madigan relinquished his ironclad control as state Democratic chairman, the state party has entered the 21st century, the Tribune’s Rick Pearson reports.

With the steep shortage of teachers across the U.S. leaving school districts scrambling to staff their classrooms during the lingering COVID-19 pandemic, officials at the nation’s largest teachers union said this week that insufficient pay is fueling the growing crisis.

The recent report comes months after an National Education Association survey found that 55% of educators are ready to leave the profession earlier than planned and that teachers’ job satisfaction is at an all-time low during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles has completed his first draft class — and it’s much bigger than originally planned.

After drafting two defensive backs and a wide receiver in the second round Friday, Poles engineered four trades Saturday to increase his Day 3 picks from three to eight.

The Bears ended the weekend with 11 newly drafted players, including four offensive linemen, an edge rusher, a running back, a safety and a punter.

Tribune food critic Nick Kindelsperger says he has eaten hundreds of burgers over the past six years, but never encountered anything quite like the pamburguesa at Con Todo Cantina y Cocina in Logan Square.

From a few feet away, you’d have no idea it was a burger. Instead, the dish looks like a pambazo, a traditional Mexican sandwich coated in a dark-red chile salsa and toasted in a pan with oil, singeing the salsa to the crust.