* ICYMI: Ethnicity, experience take center stage in first faceoff of Illinois Supreme Court candidates. Tribune…

- Illinois Supreme Court Justice Joy Cunningham on Thursday said “race has been injected” into the Democratic primary contest for a seat on the high court by her opponent, state Appellate Judge Jesse Reyes.

- Reyes argued that ethnicity is important in the race because no Latino has ever sat on the state’s highest court.

- Both candidates spoke repeatedly of the role Illinois government has played in protecting access to abortion and other reproductive health services

* Isabel’s top picks…

* Sun-Times | Mayor Brandon Johnson’s job performance rated fair to poor by majority of Chicago voters, new poll finds: After eight months in office, only 21% of registered Chicago voters approve of Brandon Johnson’s performance as mayor, according to a recent poll conducted for an education reform group that advocates for school choice. … Only 7% of those surveyed rated Johnson’s performance as mayor as “excellent” with another 14% rating it as “good.” The remaining 69% either rated Johnson’s performance “only fair” (27%) or “poor” (43%) or said they “didn’t know” (10%). Among Black men, 14% rated Johnson’s performance as “excellent or good,” with 67% branding the work he’s done as mayor as “fair or poor.” Johnson got a “fair or poor” job rating from 75% of white registered voters surveyed and 69% of Latinos questioned.

* AP | What you should know if you’re about to fly on a Boeing 737 Max 9: Alaska Airlines plans to resume flights with its Max 9s on Friday, and United aims to follow suit on Sunday. Those are the only two U.S. airlines that operate this particular model of the Boeing 737.

* 21st Show | Illinois Senate President talks about migrants, education, and economic priorities in 2024: President of the Illinois Senate, Don Harmon speaks to us about the work being done in the General Assembly this year. Issues for lawmakers range from how to balance the state budget, to how to respond to the influx of migrants.

* Campaign news…

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* Here’s the rest of your morning roundup…

* News-Sun | Despite likely presidential election rematch, Lake County political leaders focused on local races; ‘We’re excited to take on the challenge’
: In addition to working to elect more Democrats, the Lake County Democratic Party wants to retain positions currently held by party members, according to Lauren Beth Gash, chair of the local party chapter. Gash said the local party has been slowly changing the political makeup of local elected bodies and individuals, moving the county from mostly red to purple, or even solid blue in some regions of the county.

* News-Gazette | Faraci and Marron to discuss working across the aisle: Faraci and Marron, who is now president/CEO of Vermilion Advantage, will discuss how they were able to work across the aisle, how qualified local citizens might be encouraged to run for office and how individuals and organizations can support these efforts. The LWVCC hopes to reach people who are frustrated by trends of increased polarization and perceived decline in political candidate quality.

* Tribune | Aldermen sign letter urging Johnson to scrap 60-day migrant shelter policy: Their protest comes on the heels of a bloc of 27 aldermen signing on to co-sponsor legislation from Ald. Bill Conway, 34th, to add more City Council oversight to how federal stimulus dollars are used in the wake of the Johnson administration allocating $95 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding to cover the costs of the migrant mission.

* Sun-Times | CPS renews contracts for charter schools — with shorter terms: After long discussions and public comments, the board voted to approve all the schools for terms between one and four years. Most received three or four years with conditions like pledging not to suspend students, shoring up their offerings for students who are learning English or rectifying problems with services to students in special education.

* Sun-Times | In crooked Bridgeport bank failure case, City Hall insider under 3 mayors faces a reckoning: Mahon was in his early 30s when, according to court testimony and the findings of a City Hall investigation, he helped rig test scores so politically connected job candidates could land city jobs or promotions — a violation of a federal court order known as the Shakman decree. A federal investigation of city hiring and promotions ended up rocking City Hall, with Daley’s patronage chief going to prison. Mahon wasn’t charged. He ended up facing disciplinary action, though the punishment for his role in the scandal didn’t come until years later.

* Tribune | After suburban pushback, Cook County leaders propose exempting parks, school districts from paid leave requirements: Shortly before the holidays, the Cook County Board passed its own expanded version of the state’s paid leave law. That new state law, which took effect Jan. 1 across Illinois for employees of businesses of any size, gave workers the right to accrue an hour of time off per 40 hours worked and use it for any reason, not just illness. The county’s rules went slightly beyond the state’s law to make it apply to airlines and government bodies. The county ordinance also allowed workers to sue their employers for violations.

* WJOL | Will County Emergency Management Agency Issues Update on Flash Flooding in Wilmington: Evacuations Begin: Will County EMA issued a mass notification message to residents, advising them of the rising water levels and the need to evacuate. Water rescue teams were deployed, and 14 individuals were successfully evacuated to a temporary shelter opened by Wilmington ESDA.

* WTTW | 211 Helpline Connects Cook County Residents to Health and Social Services: ‘It’s Those Everyday Emergencies’: 211 Metro Chicago is a free 24-hour helpline that serves Chicago and the suburban Cook County area. It’s essentially a referral service with an extensive database of organizations and businesses. “Housing is the biggest one, according to our data; others are access to food,” Garcia said. “When someone calls, we right away ask for their ZIP code, where you are located. From there we can say, ‘I don’t know if you have a car, or a bus card, but there is a food pantry two blocks from your home.’”

* Sun-Times | Young brains at risk under poorly funded effort to remove dangerous lead water pipes from child care centers: That city program aims to replace more than 100 lead pipes from day cares a year, putting the completion at well over a decade. Considering the vulnerability of the children — most of them living on the South Side and West Side — the timeline to replace the lead fixtures is unacceptably long, advocates for children say.

* Crainn’s | Boeing’s woes put the squeeze on United: “We are not canceling the order,” Kirby told analysts this week when United reported earnings. “We are taking it out of our internal plans. And — so we’re taking it out of our internal plans, and we’ll be working on what that means exactly with Boeing. But Boeing is not going to be able to meet their contractual deliveries on at least many of those airplanes. And I’ll just leave it at that.”

* Crain’s | Chief of powerful union group throws support behind Sox stadium plan: Bob Reiter, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, says the “project is very exciting for the city.” “Not just for White Sox fans like me,” he told Crain’s on Jan. 25. “It means a lot of jobs, it means a great asset for the city to market to visitors. Not just the stadium, but also the other amenities that will be built out in the neighborhood and the way it would provide connectivity from the Near South Side by Chinatown up into the Loop.”

* WSJ | Inside the $800,000 Experiment to Turn a Frank Lloyd Wright Into a Net-Zero Energy Home: “I was not planning to buy a Frank Lloyd Wright house,” says Samantha Lotti, who grew up in a Manhattan apartment, studied at the University of Chicago, and then spent five postcollege years running her family’s farm in Tuscany. So in 2016, when she heard that the Oscar B. Balch House, one of more than two dozen Wright buildings in Oak Park, Ill., was for sale, she was only vaguely interested. But she did go look. And when she entered the main living space of the 1911 prairie-style house, which is named for its first owner, she says, “I fell in love.” Among the things that moved her were the size of the windows and the proportions of the rooms. The ceilings are low, “almost compressive,” she says, “which is intended to force you to engage with what’s outside the house. And, thanks to the windows, you feel like you’re outside when you’re inside.”

* 21st Show | Building a better democracy: A new book looks at the effects of a 1990 Illinois Primary: Patrick Wohl explains how an Illinois Statehouse campaign from 1990, which pit two Republican women against each other became the harbinger of future divisions within the GOP.