Good morning, Chicago.

Juggling a coffee, a briefcase and his cellphone, Rep. Emanuel “Chris” Welch was making his way through the metal detectors two years ago at the Springfield convention center where the Illinois House was conducting business when he got a call from a phone number he didn’t recognize.

It came from Springfield’s 217 area code. So Welch picked up, figuring it must be some staffer with news about work.

Instead, the voice on the line was that of embattled Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, the longest-serving legislative leader in American history. He was calling to say history may be about to change. Madigan, of Chicago, wanted to know if Welch, of Hillside, was interested in the job.

Facing unyielding opposition from 19 mostly female lawmakers, Madigan matter-of-factly delivered a once-unfathomable message that Welch recounted last week in an interview with the Tribune: “I’ve done this a long time. The votes aren’t there. It’s time to step aside.”

Madigan’s words launched Welch into a furious, 48-hour lobbying campaign of House Democrats that ended with him as the first Black House speaker in Illinois’ two centuries of statehood.

As Welch begins his second term as speaker this week, the Tribune aimed to detail the hectic behind-the-scenes machinations two years ago that resulted in the end of Madigan’s 36-year reign as head of the House, the internal fights among House Democrats to pick his successor and the beginning of Welch’s tenure.

Read the full story by Ray Long.

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By the time Ald. Jeanette Taylor got to the house on 58th Street, workers hired by the railroad were stuffing an Englewood family’s possessions into a truck parked outside.

Hundreds of homes in the South Side neighborhood had already been bought and razed by Norfolk Southern to make room for a proposed expansion. Joyce Edwards was the last holdout, and Norfolk Southern acquired her home — purchased by her father in 1963 — through eminent domain. Edwards had stayed in the house for four years after losing it to Norfolk Southern. On that day, the railroad’s patience had finally run out.

Nearly three years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many office workers still work from home, especially on Mondays and Fridays, depriving restaurants of the healthy lunch crowds they need to stay afloat and damaging prospects for recovery downtown.

But heading into 2023, there’s growing awareness that a new model could be the key to drawing employees downtown again and revitalizing parts of the city’s urban core.

Landmark Development unveiled a video tour Sunday of a “reimagined” Soldier Field, including expanded seating, premium club lounges, food halls and an adjacent concert venue, topped by a dome to attract fair-weather football fans and year-round visitors.

The primary target audience, however, is a certain football team known as “Da Bears,” whose future involves a plan to exit Soldier Field for a new stadium in Arlington Heights.

With the Chicago Bears’ season mercifully ending Sunday in a 29-13 loss to Minnesota, focus turns to the prospects for building a new stadium in Arlington Heights.

Team officials have said they expect to decide whether to buy the former Arlington International Racecourse property in the first quarter of 2023. The Bears also have said they can’t build the project without government help. With the funding decision unlikely to come in the next couple of months, the team probably first will have to decide whether to buy the 326-acre site, then later make the call on whether to develop it.

10 thoughts after the Chicago Bears reached the end of the teardown phase for general manager Ryan Poles, losing to the Minnesota Vikings 29-13 on Sunday at Soldier Field to close the season at 3-14 and on a club-record 10-game losing streak.

“As Tribune critics, we are constantly delving into dining for weekly reviews, though there are only so many weeks in a year, and so many restaurants to cover,” writes Nick Kindelsperger and Louisa Chu. “It’s a good problem to have as we approach the third year beyond that first pandemic shutdown; the Chicagoland food scene continues to finds new, innovative ways to flourish and evolve.”

“So in our traditional catchall catch-up as the new year kicks off, we put together five restaurant mini reviews.”