Steve Warmbir

McCormick Place is called the nation’s largest convention center, but reputed Outfit guys, ex-cons and criminals have another name for it: A haven. The kind of guys who populate a prison yard have been getting work at McCormick Place for decades, especially through the small but politically powerful riggers union that sets up some of Chicago’s biggest trade shows, including the Chicago Auto Show.

As top Democrats campaigned across Illinois in recent months, they vowed that the state would remain an island of abortion access in a sea of states that restrict the procedure. But the end of Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to abortion has raised a question state lawmakers have yet to address: Can abortion’s opponents in other states sue or prosecute people in Illinois?

Chicago aldermen have been clamoring for nearly a year to put CTA President Dorval Carter on the hot seat to answer for a rash of spotty service, transit crime and “ghost trains” as the beleaguered transit agency tries to claw out of a pandemic-driven crisis. Now, Carter is set to appear before a meeting of the City Council Transportation Committee Thursday to “speak…about our challenges and what we’re doing to address them,” according to a letter he wrote to the council last week.