Daywatch: Eight Illinois hospitals are named among best in nation, cable news channel CLTV is shutting down and Mayor Lightfoot wants the city to grow its own pot

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Good morning, Chicago. Here are some of the top stories you need to know to start your day.

Eight Illinois hospitals named among best in nation. You might be surprised who didn’t make the cut.

Eight Illinois hospitals have been named among the best 120 in the nation for safety and quality, but some of Chicago’s most prestigious institutions didn’t make the list.

Of the four prominent Chicago hospitals that aren’t on the list, two of those had made last year’s list. Altogether, seven Illinois hospitals made the cut in 2018.

“It’s not always necessarily the big-name, brand hospitals that are excelling at all these metrics.”

‘A pain that will last forever’: Sister remembers 16-year-old girl fatally shot while walking home from work in Little Village

Angie Monroy, a junior at Benito Juarez Community Academy, was shot in the head on Saturday night as she walked home from her job at a clothing store in Little Village. She died on Sunday.

A witness told police the shooter or shooters were yelling gang slogans before firing at least eight shots and a GoFundMe page set up by the girl’s sister, Joselyn Monroy, said Angie was caught in the crossfire. “Angie’s (loss) has left us in great grief. Losing a sibling and losing a child is unbearable pain. A pain that will last forever,” Joselyn Monroy wrote.

Nexstar shutting down Chicago cable news channel CLTV

Nexstar Media Group, which bought Tribune Media in September, is shutting down Chicago cable news channel CLTV at the end of the month.

The decision, which ends a 26-year run for the pioneering local all-news channel, was announced in an email to staff Monday from Paul Rennie, general manager of WGN-TV and CLTV.

CLTV launched in January 1993, bringing 24/7 local news to Chicago cable viewers before national news channels became cable powerhouses. While CNN launched in 1980, networks such as MSNBC and Fox News didn’t hit the air until 1996.

Lightfoot wants Chicago to open a city-owned marijuana cultivation co-op that would let entrepreneurs invest

Mayor Lori Lightfoot is working to form a city-owned marijuana cultivation co-op that aspiring entrepreneurs could buy into to address some of the inequities in the legal marijuana business, she said Monday.

“I would like to have the opportunity for the city to create a cooperative cultivation center so that we can bring a professional in … then people will buy into the cooperative even with a modest cash investment or sweat equity and eventually, after they learn the business from top to bottom, turn that over to them," Lightfoot said.

Marijuana will be legal in Illinois soon, but many pot users may not be quick to abandon their black-market weed dealers.

Responding to growing concerns over shortages and price gouging involving medical cannabis, Gov. J.B. Pritzker warned that he will crack down on any “bad actors” who may violate laws meant to protect patients.

Where can you buy weed in the Chicago area on January 1?

So far, 32 operational medical marijuana stores around the state have received the needed approvals to sell recreational marijuana when it becomes legal in Illinois on Jan. 1. But if your municipality voted down recreational sales, the state approval is moot and you will need to go elsewhere. No licenses have been awarded yet to stores that weren’t selling medical marijuana. Find out where you can purchase it on our updating map.

Chicago’s Revolution Brewing will celebrate legal weed on Jan. 1 with the release of Legal-Hero beer, a hazy IPA meant to emulate the “sticky, dank and juicy” flavors and aromatics of cannabis.

Lightfoot fires city spokesman over ‘professionalism’ concerns, but won’t say why

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot fired Bill McCaffrey, a longtime city spokesman, on for reasons that aren’t yet clear, saying that she received information “that raised serious questions about his professionalism and his judgment” and that he was “terminated for cause.”

Lightfoot took offense at the suggestion she fired him because he raised ethical concerns and criticized some reporters’ tweets about the firing, saying “obviously Bill McCaffrey was your buddy.”

$141 million redevelopment of a not-so-great section of State Street halted over federal courthouse security concerns

More than two years after a $141 million redevelopment of a not-so-great section of State Street was announced, the plan has been scuttled over security concerns raised by judges in the nearby Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. The city called off its agreement to buy the buildings from a federal agency and flip them to the Chicago-based real estate investment firm, said developer Keith Giles, CA Ventures’ partner in the project. “We had the rug pulled out from under us,” he said.

Check out these four iconic Chicago candy shops and try some old-school sweets

Some Chicago candy shops dating back decades – and one nearly 100 years – are still turning out hand-dipped chocolate-covered creams and nut clusters, mini chocolate Christmas trees and chocolate barks for their customers, many of whom shop owners are on a first-name basis with. To celebrate their lasting role in their communities, we visited four of these iconic candy stores.

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