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* Crain’s | Brandon Johnson faces tough choice as the search for the next Chicago police chief moves forward: Johnson won an historic election campaigning on a vision for a new approach to public safety that de-emphasizes hiring more police officers to solve Chicago’s crime issues and instead reorganizing the department to focus on solving violent crime while investing in public programs that tackle the so-called root causes of crime. That approach will face scrutiny when Johnson takes office May 15 as Chicago heads into the summer months, when violent crime typically spikes, giving a new superintendent little runway to form a strategy to combat violence in both the immediate and long term.

* Tribune | Commission aiding in police superintendent search will weigh candidate plans for controlling youth gatherings: “There’s a number of issues that we face in our city and, (with) each of them, we plan on asking superintendent candidates how they would handle the situation,” Driver said. And that includes, he said, the type of chaos seen in the Loop last weekend, which police struggled to handle.

* Tribune | Chicago police investigating officers’ response to mob attack in Loop after witness says police declined to help: As the attack unfolded, police failed to respond to calls for help and even drove past, said Lenora Dennis, who witnessed the beating and helped the couple get to safety. “It makes me feel scared. It terrifies me that people are either asleep at the wheel or that they’re willfully blind,” Dennis told the Tribune on Wednesday.

* CBS Chicago | Chicago pastors to lead hundreds downtown in response to last weekend’s Loop chaos: Some of the pastors said they feel responsible for what happened over the weekend because the teens in those videos are from their communities. “I was disappointed, hurt by it. because that is not the character of our young people.” Bishop Dr. Horace Smith of Apostolic Faith Church said he felt accountable after watching teens jump on a CTA bus and learning two boys were shot during the Loop take over.

* Daily Southtown | Studies said to build airport near Peotone. So why is state considering alternate uses for land?: Businesses are clamoring to ship medicine, produce, high-tech machine parts and other freight by air into the Chicago area. The pie is growing, and if the state doesn’t build the South Suburban Airport Illinois will likely lose business the Gary/Chicago International Airport in Indiana.

* Jim Dey | Union chapter president’s thefts cost far more than money: Byron Clemons Sr. of Alton should have remembered that. If he had, he wouldn’t be in quite as much legal trouble. He pleaded guilty April 11 to “transportation of stolen money.” That’s fed speak for embezzling more than $202,100 from the AFSCME union chapter in Alton and spending much of it at casinos across the river in Missouri.

* WTVO | Empower Illinois wants to give more kids the chance to go to private school: mpower Illinois has a mission to provide kids from low-income and working-class families the chance to have a quality education by giving them private school scholarships. Anthony Holter, President of Empower Illinois shares how great it is to partner with a school like Kikifers Entrepreneurial Academy to match kids with the best education for them.

* SJ-R | Crime victims call for expanded protections, rights at Capitol rally: While the focus on the rally centered on the victims, Thomas said CSSJ was also working with lawmakers on a bill regarding rehabilitation of the incarcerated. House Bill 3026 from state Rep. Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago, would amend the Earned Discretionary Sentence Credit — where incarcerated individuals can reduce their sentence if permitted by the Illinois Department of Corrections — to allow for time served in county jail to be included in the 60-day minimum before a credit can be awarded

* Sun-Times | City went too far in worker crackdown over COVID vaccines, judge rules: The decision in a case before the Illinois Labor Relations Board applies to city workers represented by trade unions or by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The unions banded together to challenge regulations Mayor Lori Lightfoot imposed starting in 2021.

* WAND | Survivors advocate for bereavement expansion, rehabilitation access for returning citizens: Hundreds of survivors of gun violence, domestic abuse, and sexual assault rallied at the Illinois Capitol Thursday afternoon to demand stronger public safety reforms. “We cannot leave crime victims behind. We also must make sure that communities have the resources that they need,” said Aswad Thomas, a gun violence survivor and the national director of Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice. “So here in the state of Illinois, we’ve expanded the trauma recovery center model.”

* Chicago Reader | ‘Why you talking to a bum?’: When the very presence of unhoused people on the CTA is considered a public safety concern, who is the public, and what are we keeping them safe from?

* The Marshall Project | The War On Gun Violence Has Failed. And Black Men Are Paying The Price: A Marshall Project analysis found that from 2010 to 2022, the police made more than 38,000 arrests for illegal gun possession. These arrests — almost always a felony — doubled during this timeframe. While illegal possession is the most serious offense in most of the cases we analyzed, the charges often bear misleading names that imply violence, like “aggravated unlawful use of a weapon.”

* Block Club Chicago | Chicago Solidarity Collective Wins $2.25 Million To Hire Formerly Incarcerated Black Chicagoans Into Workers’ Co-Ops: The Chicago Solidarity Collective — a joint effort by Urban Growers Collective, ChiFresh Kitchen, the Women’s Justice Institute, Grow Greater Englewood and Upside Down Consulting — won $2.25 million from JPMorgan Chase’s Annual Challenge competition.

* Tribune | Illinois spring housing market started early, with monthly sale and price increases expected as season continues: Illinois Realtors found that as of March, the median price of a home in the city of Chicago was $334,000, up from $312,500 in February. It was $310,000 for the Chicago metro area and $259,000 statewide in March, and $290,000 and $240,000, respectively, in February.

* Sun-Times | James Eisenberg, who ran Vienna Beef, loved his hot dogs, dead at 92: He knew how to do every job there before he and Jim Bodman bought the Chicago company in 1982. To celebrate, they had steaks — not hot dogs — at Gene & Georgetti.

* My Radio Link | First Lady MK Pritzker Opens Her Door to Illinois’ Cultural Community, Honors Artist Richard Hunt: Illinois First Lady MK Pritzker will host a cocktail reception at the Governor’s Mansion the evening of Monday, April 24, 2023, to welcome Illinois’ cultural leaders attending the “One State Conference and Capital Day” in Springfield. Inside, the First Lady will deliver a proclamation honoring world-renowned sculptor Richard Hunt and will declare April 24, 2023, Richard Hunt Day in Illinois.

* USA Today | North Carolina man in custody in connection with shooting of 6-year-old, parents: Robert Louis Singletary allegedly shot a 6-year-old girl and her parents after their basketball rolled into his yard and the family went to retrieve it, according to local WBTV and WSOC-TV. Singletary turned himself in to police in Tampa, Florida, on Thursday afternoon after a search, the Gaston County Police Department in North Carolina said.