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Palestinians, whether in blockaded Gaza, the occupied West Bank, annexed east Jerusalem or Israel itself made a striking show of unity after decades of forced separation. And the porous frontiers between Israel and the lands it occupied in 1967 — so central to decades of failed peace efforts — seemed to disappear.

JERUSALEM — Over the past weeks, as stun grenades echoed off Jerusalem’s walls, rockets streaked out of Gaza, West Bank protesters burned tires and Israeli cities erupted in violence, the frail boundaries separating Israel and the Palestinians seemed to vanish in smoke and flames.

Israelis saw the chaos ripple out of Jerusalem, not only igniting another Gaza war, but days of ethnic violence in mixed cities they had long held up as models of coexistence, bringing the conflict home in ways unseen since the 2000 Palestinian uprising.

But Palestinians, whether in blockaded Gaza, the occupied West Bank, annexed east Jerusalem or Israel itself made a striking show of unity after decades of forced separation. And the porous frontiers between Israel and the lands it occupied in 1967 — so central to decades of failed peace efforts — seemed to disappear.

On Tuesday, Palestinians from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River observed a general strike, not only against the Gaza war but other aspects of Israeli rule. Protesters from Lebanon and Jordan, both home to large numbers of Palestinian refugees, stormed border fences.

“It highlighted the common destiny,” said Nijmeh Ali, a Palestinian academic and activist who is a citizen of Israel. “Palestinians are leading their struggle against one regime. It’s using different policies of control, but it’s the same apartheid system.”

There’s always been a certain degree of solidarity among Palestinians, she said, but a new generation is coordinating activities online and sharing videos from across Israel and the occupied territories, further binding them together in a shared struggle.

Israel’s leaders blame the unrest on Hamas, which does not recognize Israel’s right to exist and is branded a terrorist group by Western countries. They say the Islamic militants seized on protests in Jerusalem to incite war and unrest across the region.

“It’s a great success for Hamas, but I’m not sure that it has to do with the popularity of Hamas,” said Ofer Shelah, a former parliament member from a centrist party. “Something like this, when it happens, it ignites fumes that have already been there.”

Still, he said grievances within Israel’s Arab community and the conflict with the Palestinians are “two different stories.” He noted that before the fighting broke out a small Arab party was poised to play a key role in forming the next Israeli government.

Over the years, Palestinian citizens of Israel, while facing discrimination in many aspects of their lives, have also made inroads in others, building successful careers in law, academia, entertainment and medicine.

The peace process launched in the early 1990s was based on the idea that a century-old territorial dispute between Jews and Arabs could be resolved by dividing the land along the armistice lines from the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. The state of Palestine would include most of east Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, lands Israel captured in a later war, in 1967.

But even with the cajoling of five U.S. presidents and much of the international community, the two sides were never able to reach an agreement or resolve the power imbalance favoring Israel. The last substantive talks broke down more than a decade ago.

And lines which were always arbitrary faded away.

Jewish settlers — who never wanted to divide the land to begin with — pushed into east Jerusalem and the West Bank, and their supporters came to dominate Israeli politics. Today, there are more than 700,000 settlers in both territories, the vast majority living in built-up residential areas connected to Israeli cities by rapidly expanding highways.

The Palestinian Authority, once seen as a state-in-waiting, has only limited autonomy in scattered enclaves making up less than 40% of the occupied West Bank. Its close security ties with Israel, and its decision last month to cancel the first elections in 15 years, have led many Palestinians to view it as an extension of the occupation.

If the West Bank is looking more like Israel, the opposite is also true.

Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up 20% of the population, face widespread discrimination, especially when it comes to land and housing. Israel has spent decades establishing new communities on lands seized in 1948 that are intended for Jewish “settlement” — a descriptor used by Israelis and Palestinians alike.

In recent years, Jews with close ties to the settler movement have moved into predominantly Arab neighborhoods, not only in east Jerusalem, where they are trying to evict dozens of Palestinian families, but in mixed cities across Israel. Palestinians have cited that as one of the underlying causes of the recent ethnic violence. The Jews say they have the right to live anywhere in their country.

When the riots broke out, Israel redeployed hundreds of paramilitary Border Police — normally used to quell violent demonstrations in the West Bank — into its own cities.

Some of Israel’s traditional allies are taking notice, with left-leaning Americans increasingly drawing parallels to racial injustice in the United States.

“For years, most of the world, including liberals and progressives, believed that there was a good democratic Israel that was separate from a bad, Israeli-run apartheid regime in the occupied territories,” says Nathan Thrall, a writer living in Jerusalem who authored a book about the conflict. “That argument is collapsing before our eyes.”

That leaves Gaza, from which Israel withdrew all its troops and settlers in 2005, and where Hamas seized power from the Palestinian Authority two years later. Israel and Hamas have fought four wars in a little over a decade, and Israelis routinely speak of the territory as though it is a hostile neighboring country.

But more than half of the 2 million Palestinians living in Gaza are the descendants of refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in what is now Israel in 1948. Israel controls Gaza’s airspace, coastal waters, population registry and commercial crossings.

All of this together, according the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem and the New York-based Human Rights Watch, amounts to a single apartheid regime in which the roughly 7 million Jews living between the river and the sea dominate the roughly 7 million Palestinians — just in different ways depending on where they live.

Israel adamantly rejects the apartheid label and bristles at talk of a single state, which it views as an assault on its very legitimacy, even though its political system is dominated by leaders opposed to Palestinian independence.

Tareq Baconi, an analyst with the Crisis Group, an international think tank, says the question of whether there should be one or two states has been rendered largely irrelevant.

“Partition was something Palestinians and Israelis tried to do, backed by the international community, and it failed,” Baconi said.

“There might be some form of partition in the future. Who knows? Right now… the issue is that the single state that controls these territories is constitutionally committed only to Jews, not to Palestinians,” he said.

___

Joseph Krauss has reported from across the Middle East, including Israel, the Palestinian territories, Egypt and Iraq, since 2004. He joined The Associated Press in 2014. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/josephkrauss.

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At least 1,244 people have been shot in Chicago this year, and there have been 244 homicides.

Three people were killed and 14 others were wounded by gun violence in Chicago over five hours Thursday night into Friday morning, with shootings now up 36% over last year.

The violent night comes as the Chicago Police Department prepares for the traditional summer surge in violence. Last weekend had the most shooting victims so far this year.

While shootings are up 36% from the same period last year, homicides are up 19%, according to data kept by the Chicago Sun-Times. At least 1,244 people have been shot this year and there have been at least 244 homicides.

Overnight, a 56-year-old man was killed in a double shooting in Grand Crossing on the South Side. He and another man, 54, were shot as they stood outside in the 7300 block of South Blackstone about 3:20 a.m. The 56-year-old died at a hospital, while the other man was in fair condition.

At 2:15 a.m., a man was shot dead as he stood outside with friends in Englewood. The man, 27, was shot in his back and chest in the 6000 block of South Racine Avenue. Another man, 33, was wounded by the gunfire as he was changing a tire, police said.

Around 6:30 a.m., police found a man who was shot dead in Austin on the West Side. The man was found in a vacant lot in the 4700 block of West Jackson Boulevard with a gunshot wound to his head, police said. He appeared to have been shot “a while ago,” police said.

Other shootings:

• A woman was shot about 10:40 p.m. Thursday in Humboldt Park. The woman, 18, was a passenger in a car when someone on the sidewalk shouted gang slogans and fired in the 1300 block of North Monticello Avenue, police said. He was listed in good condition.
• Two men were shot in Austin at 11 p.m. Thursday in the 700 block of North Lorel Avenue, police said. One man, 33, was shot in his abdomen and listed in serious condition. The other man, 21, was struck in the calf and was stabilized.
• At 11:15 p.m., a teenage boy was shot in Austin. The boy, 17, was shot in the leg outside in the 900 block of North Lockwood Avenue, police said. His condition stabilized
• At 11:20 p.m., another man was shot in the same neighborhood. The 30-year-old was shot in the calf as he walked on the sidewalk in the 1100 block of South Mason Avenue, police said. He went to a hospital in fair condition.
• At 11:45 p.m., a woman was shot in Woodlawn on the South Side. The woman, 36, was shot by someone on sidewalk as she rode as a passenger in a vehicle in the 400 block of East Marquette Road, police said. She was in good condition with a shoulder wound.
• A man was shot at 12:15 a.m. Friday following a traffic accident in Austin. The man, 24, was shot in his shoulder in the 4800 block of West Washington Boulevard, police said. He was in good condition.
• At 1:05 a.m., a 63-year-old man was critically hurt in South Chicago. Someone shot him n the neck in the 7900 block of South Oglesby Avenue, police said.
• At 1:10 a.m., two teenagers were wounded, one critically, when someone fired into a Gresham home on the South Side. The pair were shot as they sat in the living room in the 7900 block of South Laflin Street, police said. An 18-year-old was critical with gunshots to his abdomen and neck. A 19-year-old was grazed in his arm and in good condition.
• About 2:10 a.m., one person was shot and two others were injured following a shooting and crash on the Dan Ryan Expressway near Garfield Boulevard.
• About 2:55 a.m., a woman was shot in Park Manor on the South Side. The woman, 28, was shot in her shoulder in the 7400 block of South Champlain Avenue, police said. She was listed in good condition.

No arrests were reported in any of the shootings.

Read more on crime, and track the city’s homicides.

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In 2000, Dobkin wrote in defense of cis-women-only spaces while also seeking out conversations with transwomen and defending the right of everyone to love and be themselves.

NEW YORK — The lesbian singer and feminist activist who appeared in an iconic and recently resurgent 1975 photo wearing a t-shirt that read “The Future is Female,” has died. Alix Dobkin of Woodstock, New York, was 80.

An early leader in the music scene for lesbians and women, she passed away at her home from a brain aneurysm and stroke, according to Liza Cowen, her friend and former partner.

“Everything that she did was about being a public lesbian in the world,” said Cowen, who also took the striking photo.

In 1973, Dobkin formed the group Lavender Jane with musician Kay Gardner. With an all-women team of musicians, engineers and even vinyl pressers, they recorded the album “Lavender Jane Loves Women” — the first ever to be entirely produced by women, Cowen said.

Dobkin had been performing in the folk music scene in Philadelphia and New York in the 1960s, where she mingled with future superstars like Bob Dylan, according to her 2009 memoir “My Red Blood.” The title references her parents’ and her own membership in the Communist party.

When she came out as a lesbian, she forged ahead musically as an early leader and then mainstay of Women’s Music, a genre made by, for and about women. The genre fostered a whole network of publications, recording labels, venues and festivals starting in the 1970s.

“She became an iconic, kind of bigger-than-life figure for women who identified as lesbians,” said Eileen M. Hayes, author of the book “Songs in Black and Lavender,” a history of Black women’s involvement in the movement.

Dobkin sang songs like “Lesbian Code,” that playfully lists the many ways women interested in women identify each other. She also had a version of the alphabet song that begins, “A, you’re an Amazon.” Dobkin, who was Jewish, often played Yiddish songs during her performances and told stories she had heard growing up in Philadelphia.

She often performed for all-women audiences. An undated flyer advertising one of Dobkin’s shows explained all-women concerts offered women the opportunity “to come together to develop our culture as part of the process of taking control of our lives.” It asked men who supported the struggle against sexism not to attend.

A friend and collaborator, Kathy Munzer, produced shows for lesbians in Chicago for more than 30 years and called Dobkin “The Head Lesbian,” saying in a Facebook post that she inspired others to take pride in who they were.

Before the AIDS epidemic, lesbian and gay organizations operated separately, Hayes said. A prominent women’s festival where Dobkin played for years, the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, excluded transwomen from attending. In 2000, Dobkin wrote in defense of cis-women-only spaces while also seeking out conversations with transwomen and defending the right of everyone to love and be themselves.

“I especially worry about the narrowing of women’s identity and the erasure of women’s history. For voicing these considerations we have been attacked as ‘bigoted,’ ‘transphobic’ and worse, but are these not credible concerns?” she wrote in a column in the Windy City Times.

Reflecting on the fight about cis-women-only spaces, Hayes said at the beginning of the women’s movement, “it was a statement about, who is this movement supposed to benefit the most?”

The choice to create a parallel media ecosystem also reflected how difficult it was for women to break into the mainstream music industry, Hayes said.

“It didn’t support women as performers, and singers, and engineers and advertising people,” Hayes said. “It’s still very hard for women to break into the industry.”

Hayes called the newfound fame of the slogan “The Future is Female” and the reemergence of the photo of Dobkin “fabulous.”

The slogan originated from a woman’s bookstore in New York, Labyris Books, that had screenprinted a small run of the shirts, Cowen said. She photographed Dobkin wearing one for an article she was writing about lesbian fashion. An Instagram post in 2015 by @h_e_r_s_t_o_r_y, an account that chronicles lesbian history, featured the image. That inspired an unaffiliated company to print the T-shirts again and eventually introduced the slogan to a new generation, according to the New York Times.

“What we’ve learned through the women’s movement is that, yeah, the future is female, but it’s not a uni-dimensional female,” Hayes said. “It’s a female identity that is constructed with various threads, various backgrounds, and that is the corrective our new generation makes to the failings of earlier generations.”

In the weeks before her death, Dobkin’s family kept a public diary about her health that drew hundreds of comments from friends and fans. They wrote of how Dobkin’s music provided them comfort, guidance and community.

“And still you bring us together again, wonderous woman you are!!!” read one comment.

Before coming out as a lesbian, Dobkin married Sam Hood, whose father owned a folk music venue in New York where she had played. Dobkin is survived by him, their daughter, Adrian, and three grandchildren, among other family members, former partners and fans.

As a historian and witness to the women’s movement, Hayes said she was grateful to have had Dobkin’s musical and political leadership.

“I think that the death of Alix Dobkin just reminds us of how far we’ve come in terms of LGBTQ right to life,” she said. “And right to life as in the right to be.”

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Improving coronavirus numbers have made more summer events possible. Here’s the latest updates on this year’s changing entertainment landscape.

With coronavirus case numbers and positivity rates on the decline, the summer festival season in Chicago is in much better shape than last year.

The city has given the green light for festivals and “general admission outdoor spectator events” to welcome 15 people for every 1,000 square feet.

The city has debated various ways bolster vaccination rates among young people most likely to attend outdoor music events like Lollapalooza and Riot Fest. Mayor Lori Lightfoot said a proposal to create a coronavirus vaccine passport for Chicago events is “very much a work in progress” but that preferred seating at those events could be one way to urge vaccination.

Some festivals have already announced their return and concerts are starting to be rescheduled.

We’re tracking the status of the city’s festival and major events throughout the area as new cancellations and postponements are announced. Check back for more updates.

May

• Navy Pier Fireworks: The Pier is hosting a 10-minute fireworks show every Saturday in May at 9:00 p.m.
• Manifest Urban Arts Festival: Columbia College Chicago’s student driven event that showcases graduating student work. May 10-14.
• For the Love of Chocolate: Long Grove, demonstrations, classes, presentations, experiences, vendors, chocolatiers, entertainment and so much more. Advanced online registration is required, May 14-16.
• Hot Stove Cool Music virtual music festival, benefits the Foundation To Be Named Later, which was co-founded by former Cubs president Theo Epstein. Eddie Vedder headlines. May 18.
• Mayfest: Armitage Ave. at Sheffield Ave. in Lincoln Park, May 21 – 23.
• Pivot Arts Festival: Reimagining Utopia – A Performance Tour: Live, a multi-arts experience featuring world premieres in theatre, dance, video, music and puppetry. May 21 – June 5.
• The South Side Jazz Coalition – Jazzin’ On The Steps. At St. Columbanus Catholic Church, 331 East 71st St. May 23.
• Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts at Symphony Center, beginning May 27. Tickets will go on sale 10 a.m. May 11, at cso.org. Performances will take place over three consecutive weekends at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 1:30 p.m. Fridays, 7:30 p.m. Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays.

June

• “Tuesdays on the Terrace,” Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, starting June 1 and every Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. through Aug. 31.
• Old Town Art Fair, June 12-13.
• “The Obama Portraits,” Art Institute of Chicago, June 18 – Aug. 15.
• Pride in the Park, Grant Park, Headlining will be Chaka Khan, the legendary Queen of Funk; Gryffin, the self-taught prodigal producer; and Tiësto, who has been dubbed “the world’s greatest DJ.” June 26- 27.

July

• The Ravinia Festival announced it will reopen in July 1 for 64 concerts through Sept. 26 with a slate of outdoor concerts including a six-week residency by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Also slated to appear are: Cynthia Erivo, Kurt Elling, Brian McKnight, Ides of March, Madeleine Peyroux, Midori, Joshua Bell, Pinchas Zukerman, the Chicago Sinfonietta and the Joffrey Ballet.
• Ribfest: Naperville/Romeoville, July 1-4.
• Grant Park Music Festival, Millennium Park. All concerts are free with reserved seats for all concertgoers and will take place Wednesday, Fridays and Saturdays at 6:30 p.m. Run time will be 90 minutes, without intermission. July 2-Aug. 21.
• African/Caribbean International Festival Of Life: Washington Park, July 2-4.
• The Windy City Smokeout, headlined by country music superstars Darius Rucker, Dierks Bentley and Jon Pardi, will return July 8-11 outside the United Center.
• The Auditorium Theatre presents “ABT Across America” featuring American Ballet Theatre, Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park, July 8.
• Southport Art Fair, Waveland Ave. and Southport Ave. July 10-11.
• The Chicago Loop Alliance announced plans for Sundays on State, a weekly summer street festival, which will close portions of State Street on Sundays for pedestrians starting July 11.
• Chicago Auto Show is on for July 15-19 — breathing life into McCormick Place for first time since pandemic began.
• “Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change, and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40,” Smart Museum of Art, July 15 – Dec. 19.
• Millennium Art Festival: Lake St. at Michigan Ave., July 16-18.
• Race to Mackinac: July 16-17.
• Chinatown Summer Fair, July 17-18.
• Belmont-Sheffield Music Fest: 3200 N. Sheffield Ave, July 17-18.
• Chicago Latin Jazz Festival, Humboldt Park boathouse, July 23-24.
• Lincoln Square Greek Fest: July 23-25 (tentative dates).
• “Planting and Maintaining a Perennial Garden: Shrouds by Faheem Majeed,” through July 24, Hyde Park Art Center.
• Lake County Fair: July 28- Aug. 1.
• Jeff Fest: Milwaukee and Lawrence Avenues, July 30-Aug. 1.
• Lollapalooza: Grant Park, July 30-Aug. 1.
• Chicago International Dragon Boat Festival, July 31.

August

• Dave Matthews Band tour heading to Northerly Island this summer, Aug. 6 and 7.
• Northalsted Market Days: Aug. 6-8.
• Lake County (Ind.) Fair: Crown Point, Indiana, Aug. 6-15
• Printers Row Art Fair: Dearborn St., from Harrison to Polk, Aug. 7-8.
• Retro on Roscoe: Roscoe St. & Damen Ave., Aug 13-14 (tentative dates).
• Edison Park Fest: Aug. 13-15 (tentative dates).
• Wells Street Art Festival: Aug. 14-15
• World Naked Bike Ride: 6 p.m. Aug. 16. Route to be announced.
• Ruido Fest: Addams/Medill Park, Pilsen. Aug. 20-22.
• Summer Smash: Douglass Park. Aug. 20-22.
• Taste Of Greektown: Aug. 20-22.
• Gold Coast Art Fair: Grant Park. Aug. 21-22.
• Sangria Festival: Humboldt Park, Aug. 20-21.
• Dragon Boat Races: Chinatown. Aug. 28.

September

• Summerfest: Milwaukee. The festival will take place over three weekends, Sept. 2-4, 9-11 and 16-18. More than 100 artists are slated to perform including Chance the Rapper, Miley Cyrus, Luke Bryan, Pixies, Rise Against, Wilco, Diplo, and Fitz and the Tantrums.
• Pitchfork Music Festival: Union Park, Sept. 10-12.
• Printers Row Lit Fest, Sept. 11-12. Headlining the festival will be National Book Award winner Ta-Nehisi Coates.
• Chicago Vegandale: Vegan Food Festival, Grant Park. Sept. 11.
• RiotFest: Douglass Park, Sept. 17-19.
• Dead & Company: Wrigley Field, Sept. 17-18
• Wright Plus Architectural Housewalk: Oak Park. Sept. 18.
• Artfest Michigan Ave.: Sept. 18-19.
• Hyde Park Jazz Festival, Sept. 25-26.
• Lyric Opera of Chicago 2021-22 season, opening night featuring an all-new production of Verdi’s Macbeth, Sept. 25.

October

• Chicago Wine Fest, at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Oct. 2.
• Spring Awakening/Autumn Equinox, Addams/Medill Park, Oct. 2-3.
• “Six,” Broadway In Chicago, at the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place, Oct. 5, 2021 – Jan. 30, 2022.
• Lincoln Park Wine Fest, Jonquil Park, Oct. 9-10.
• Court Theatre – “Othello,” Court Theatre, opening Oct. 21.

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Prosecutors say Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time, shot and killed two people and wounded a third in August during protests after the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

The November trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, an Illinois man charged with killing two people during chaotic protests that followed the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin last year, will take up to two weeks, attorneys said Friday.

Prosecutors and Rittenhouse’s attorneys confirmed with Kenosha County Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder during a 10-minute status conference that the trial will begin Nov. 1. Both sides said they don’t expect the proceeding to last the full two weeks.

In a sign of the intense publicity surrounding the case, they also told the judge they plan to send out questionnaires to prospective jurors to ask them about their background and beliefs. The questionnaires can help attorneys decide whom to strike from the pool. Attorneys in the trial of a white former police officer who was convicted of killing George Floyd in Minneapolis used such questionnaires.

Schroeder said he wants to see the questionnaires by Aug. 1.

Rittenhouse appeared in person in the courtroom for the first time since he was arrested last year. COVID-19 protocols have forced him to appear via video at previous proceedings but those restrictions have been lifted. He sat at the defense table dressed in a blue suit, blue tie and a black surgical face mask. He said nothing.

Prosecutors say Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time, shot and killed two people and wounded a third in August after traveling from his home in Antioch, Illinois, to Kenosha. The city was in the throes of several nights of sometimes violent demonstrations after Officer Rusten Sheskey shot Blake, leaving the Black man paralyzed from the waist down.

Rittenhouse and his attorneys have said he went to Kenosha to protect businesses. Video shows Rittenhouse, armed with an assault-style rifle, shooting Joseph Rosenbaum, Anthony Huber and Gaige Grosskreutz. Rosenbaum and Huber died. Grosskreutz survived his wounds.

Cellphone footage shows Rittenhouse, who is white, walking past police lines with his hands up and his rifle still slung over his shoulder even as protesters screamed that he had just shot people.

He turned himself in to police in Antioch several hours later, maintaining that the three men attacked him and he fired in self-defense.

He has since become a polarizing figure in the national conversation over police brutality and racism. Conservatives have held him up as a symbol for gun rights and praised him for pushing back against anti-police protesters, even going so far as to raise $2 million to cover his bail. Others contend he escalated tensions by walking around the protest with a rifle.

Rittenhouse’s attorney, Mark Richards, has said in court documents that Rittenhouse and his family have moved into an undisclosed safe house because they’ve received multiple threats.

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If you’re living in or planning on visiting the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago, you will not have a problem finding something to eat. Uptown truly has the most variety when it comes to different kinds of cuisines. From American to Chinese to Nigerian, the neighborhood boasts a wide variety of dishes. So depending on your mood, you definitely can find something here. Let’s look at 12 of the best restaurants in Uptown that you must try if you’re in that area.  

Tiztal Cafe

4631 N Clark St, Chicago, IL 60640

There are other things on the menu at Tiztal, but you’re really there for their delicious chilaquiles, made with fresh chips, chihuahua cheese, and a delicious green salsa. They come with eggs and your choice of meat, and you should definitely choose chorizo.

Kal’ish

1313 W Wilson Ave, Chicago, IL 60640

Kal’ish is an all-day vegan comfort food spot serving things like burgers, pulled pork sandwiches made with jackfruit, and (seitan) chicken and waffles. Overall it’s a reminder that vegan food doesn’t need to be healthy, which is just fine by us.

Immm Rice & Beyond

4949 N Broadway, Chicago, IL 60640

Immm Rice & Beyond is a casual restaurant serving delicious Thai street food – you’ll find a long menu of curries, noodle dishes, grilled meats, and six different papaya salads. They clearly understand that when everything is good, it’s hard to choose what to order, so there’s even a section called “Thai Dinner Table” where you can order tasting portions of different dishes, along with rice (or noodles for curries).

Ba Le

5014 N Broadway, Chicago, IL 60640

Ba Le Sandwiches is perfect for a quick bahn mi pick me up. There are 16 different sandwiches on the menu, including vegan and vegetarian options. You can eat your way through the entire menu (we have) and count on your bahn mi being fantastic – served on crusty french bread, and paired with crisp pickled daikon, carrot, onion, cilantro, and jalapeño. Plus, they have deli cases full of buns, sausages, meats, and pastries so you can grab pre-packaged food to take home.

Kie Gol Lanee

5004 N Sheridan Rd, Chicago, IL 60640

This Mexican restaurant specializes in Oaxacan cuisine, a.k.a. the region of Mexico that brought us some of our favorite moles (like the rojo and negro) and antojitos. Everything on the menu is delicious, but while you’re here be sure to order one of their specialties: tlayudas, ceviches, birria, and chilacayota – a squash aguas frescas.

Demera

4801 N Broadway, Chicago, IL 60640

Demera has some of the best messobs and injera in the city, and luckily, this Ethiopian spot also serves them to-go. This means you can order the messob dinner for four, and make it a dinner for one. Take it home, lay it out, and enjoy your giant meal all by yourself.

Golden House Restaurant & Pancake House

4744 N Broadway, Chicago, IL 60640

Something about Golden House feels super familiar. This place is actually Patsy’s Pies from Shameless. So come here for the pancakes, but stay for the Gallagher flashbacks. Plus the friendly staff is awesome, and will instantly make you feel like a regular.

Tweet

5020 N Sheridan Rd, Chicago, IL 60640

Want something delicious for breakfast that also makes you feel like a responsible citizen of the earth? Try Tweet. Almost everything here (from benedicts to pancakes to breakfast burritos) is deep inhale hormone-free, antibiotic-free and organic. 

Lucy’s Uptown

4570 N Broadway Ave, Chicago, IL 60640

Lucy’s is new to the corner of Wilson and Broadway, but trust me you can’t miss it. This diner is painted with colorful rainbows, peace signs, and a redheaded logo that might remind you of Wendy. They keep it simple, with a short menu focusing on perfectly seasoned fried chicken sandwiches, burgers, fries, and milkshakes.

Tank Noodle

4953-55 N Broadway, Chicago, IL 60640

Tank Noodle is a favorite for Vietnamese food in Uptown. There’s an extensive menu that will make you want to order a lot, and it’s all good. Get everything from pho bowls, congee, and rice dishes to banh mi.

Iyanze Bar And Cafe

4623 N Broadway, Chicago, IL 60640

You can mix and match a wide variety of Nigerian stews, starches, meats, fish, and mollusks at Iyanze – a staple of Uptown’s West African food scene. The food is prepared from scratch daily and served cafeteria-style. Get whatever looks good to you that day, and a couple of extra scoops in case you can’t make a decision.

Sun Wah

5039 N Broadway, Chicago, IL 60640

The expertly prepared Beijing roast duck dinner from Sun Wah includes a whole duck with perfectly crispy skin, sliced and served with steamed bao buns, pickled daikon, and hoisin sauce. The rest of the bird is used to make duck fried rice or duck noodles. Finally, the bones are rendered into a duck broth soup with winter melon, cilantro, and eggs as the finishing course. In other words, it will put your dry Thanksgiving turkey to shame.

Restaurants Uptown Featured Image Credit: Lucy’s Uptown on Yelp

The post 12 Best Restaurants in Uptown appeared first on UrbanMatter.

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A poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows Americans are more likely than they were before George Floyd’s death to say that police violence is a serious problem and about half think police who cause harm on the job are treated too leniently by the justice system.

A year after George Floyd’s murder at the hands of a white police officer sparked global protests and a racial reckoning, a majority of Americans say racism and police violence are serious problems facing the nation. Yet relatively few believe attention in the past year to the issues has led to positive change.

A poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows Americans are more likely than they were before Floyd’s death to say that police violence is a serious problem and about half think police who cause harm on the job are treated too leniently by the justice system. The poll also found that about 6 in 10 Americans say racism in the United States is a very or extremely serious problem; it’s similar to the percentage that said the same thing one year ago.

But about half of Americans, including about 6 in 10 Black Americans, say Derek Chauvin conviction of Floyd’s murder has not changed their level of confidence in the criminal justice system. About one-third say their confidence increased. Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, was convicted in April on state charges of murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death. A federal grand jury indicted Chauvin and three other former Minneapolis police officers involved in Floyd’s arrest and death after the poll was conducted.

“Racism is a core feature of American life and it dominates certain relationships between African Americans and white Americans in ways that I don’t see how they’re going to change in the near or distant future,” said Kyle T. Mays, assistant professor in African American Studies and American Indian Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

AP-NORC polling showed a shift in views of police violence and injustice toward Black Americans last June, just weeks after Floyd’s killing. In 2019, just 36% of Americans called police violence an extremely or very serious problem. After Floyd was killed, that number increased to 48%, and 45% say so now. About 6 in 10 say police are more likely to use deadly force against a Black person than against a white person.

At 77%, the overwhelming majority of Black Americans say police violence is a very serious problem, compared with 36% of white Americans. Among white Americans, the percentage saying police violence is not a serious problem increased from 26% last June to 36% now; that’s roughly the same percentage who said so in 2019, before Floyd’s killing.

The partisan gap in views of police violence as a serious problem has also widened since last June. Among Democrats, about 7 in 10 say police violence is a very serious problem. Among Republicans, 58% say it is not a serious problem, compared with 44% last June.

Georgia resident Linda R. Curtis, who was a police officer for 24 years, believes police misconduct is a serious issue, partly because of problematic behavior she witnessed throughout her career. Despite her history within law enforcement, as a Black woman, she worries about her family’s safety.

“When police see me, they don’t say, ‘Oh, this is a retired police officer,’ or that my other half is a retired firefighter or that my two children are sons of a retired police officer and firefighter,” Curtis said. “They just see two Black men and an opportunity. I’ve always taught my sons how to respond when they’re stopped because of what I saw in my own ranks.”

A majority of Americans continue to support sweeping changes to the criminal justice system, including 25% who think it needs a complete overhaul and 43% that it needs major changes. An additional 27% support minor changes, while just 4% think no changes are needed. Black Americans are most likely to call for the largest changes.

Louisiana resident Alan Hence said that as a Black man, he has faced discrimination by police who, he believed, were often aggressive toward him during routine traffic stops because of his race. His personal encounters and the “deep hurt” he felt after the killing of Floyd and other Black Americans at the hands of police reinforced his belief that the nation’s criminal justice system needs to be overhauled.

“This country was founded on supremacy that cultivated racism and I believe that it created a culture in America that stands strong today and has proven extremely hard to change,” said Hence, 40. “But investing in changing police culture, changing their relationships and procedures when dealing with the public, could have a drastic effect.”

Relatively few Americans, 24%, say attention on police violence against Black Americans over the past year has led to change for the better, while 31% say it has led to change for the worse and 44% say it has made no difference. Fifty-four percent of Black Americans say it has not made a difference, with the remainder split evenly between seeing change for the better and for the worse.

“Nothing has really fundamentally changed, even if you put one individual in prison for police violence,” said Mays, the UCLA professor and author of “An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States.”

The House of Representatives passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in March, but the bill is unlikely to win approval in the Senate before the May 25 anniversary of Floyd’s death. The bill, which would end qualified immunity and implement other changes, has faced significant Republican opposition, as well as criticism from some activists who believe it doesn’t go far enough.

Beyond policing, about 8 in 10 Black Americans and about two-thirds of both Hispanic and Asian Americans say racism in the U.S. is a very or extremely serious problem. Among white Americans, about half call it that serious, and about 3 in 10 more say it is moderately serious.

Black Americans say they personally have faced discrimination in a variety of ways. Six in 10 say they have been discriminated against often or sometimes when dealing with the police, compared with just about 1 in 10 white Americans. About 3 in 10 Asian Americans and about 4 in 10 Hispanic Americans say the same.

About 6 in 10 Black Americans also say they have been regularly discriminated against when applying for jobs or in stores or shopping malls, about half when applying for housing or for a loan and about 4 in 10 when receiving health care.

The intersection of dueling crises — the pandemic and the racial justice movement — that have disparately impacted people of color has forced some white Americans in particular to struggle with the nation’s history of racism in ways that they never have before.

“George Floyd definitely had an impact on me,” said Andy Campbell, 57 and an Oklahoma minister. “It was a matter of realizing that the whole country was built on this lie of racism. And that the history of the country was built on a lie of exceptionalism. White supremacy is a white problem. That’s who has to deal with it.”

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Stafford reported from Detroit and Fingerhut from Washington.

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Stafford is a national investigative writer with The Associated Press’ Race and Ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Kat__Stafford.

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,842 adults was conducted April 29-May 3 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

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The federal lawsuits accuse the former teachers of taking advantage of and abusing them and the school and district of failing to take proper action.

In two federal lawsuits filed Friday, Lake Forest High School faces accusations that two former teachers sexually abused students.

The suits were filed in Chicago by seven former students against the school and Lake Forest Community High School District 115. One also names former Lake Forest High School driver’s education teacher Cynthia Martin, and the other names former teacher David Miller as defendants.

The lawsuit accusing Miller says he targeted boys facing difficult circumstances at home to “groom and sexually abuse male students for nearly 35 years.”

In the other suit, Martin is accused of “using her home and the provision of alcohol to sexually abuse a female student.”

Both suits, which seek unspecified monetary damages, say school officials were aware of the allegations and did nothing.

Ian Alexander, the lawyer for the accusers, said that, although the statute of limitations for any possible criminal charges has passed, a judgment in their favor would provide justice and send a message to schools that sexual abuse can’t be tolerated.

“The only way we can hold the school accountable is to do this,” Alexander said.

The school board and LFHS officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Martin said the accusations aren’t true. She told a reporter she knew her accuser “30-something years ago” but never took part in any illicit activity.

“I don’t know why she’s saying this,” Martin said.

The woman suing her — who filed the lawsuit using only a first name, Sharon — spoke with a reporter on the condition she be identified only by that. She said Martin abused her from the fall of 1986 through the spring of 1988, after her father died, and her mother was in a psychiatric hospital.

Sharon said Martin had her over to her home, where they shared alcohol and marijuana before sex.

She said she didn’t tell anyone.

“I felt special,” the woman said. “She gave me beer and pot, but she’d also give me gifts and bought me clothes. And I just didn’t have anyone to do that. It felt like, in a way, that someone was looking out for me.”

Miller, who wouldn’t comment, was a Lake Forest grad who worked there from 1966 to 2009, as a Spanish teacher, in the theater department and with the audiovisual program.

The school theater was named for him in 2002 — his name was removed last year because of abuse allegations, according to the suit.

Six people — three named, three filing under first names or as John Doe — are suing Miller, accusing him of abuse over more than three decades.

Richard Wolfgram, 50, one of the plaintiffs, says he started at Lake Forest in 1984 just two weeks after witnessing his father’s suicide.

Of Miller, Wolfgram said: “I remember he taught me about the stages of grief. He was basically trying to be like a therapist to me. But when we were together and no one was around, he was very physical. And it was a hug that, over time, became more physical, more intimate.”

Another plaintiff also agreed to speak with a reporter, though on the condition that he would be identified only by his first name, Jonathan, as in the lawsuit. Now 59 and a financial analyst, he attended Lake Forest from 1975 to 1979.

According to the suit, he worked on a stage crew and attended a party Miller had at his home in the fall of 1978 or spring of 1979, when he was 16 or 17, and that he stayed after to clean up. The suit says Miller had him lie down and touched him “in a sexually inappropriate manner,” and “similar encounters with Miller occurred on several other occasions before [he] graduated.”

Jonathan said he didn’t say anything about what happened until after returning as a college freshman to the school to edit a video he’d made. He said Miller tried to force a kiss on him. He said he then told his mother.

“The next day, she actually went to talk to the principal to say what had happened” but was told not to leave things along because Miller was an asset to the school, Jonathan said.

Michael de Koning, another of Miller’s accusers, is 50 and an equities trader in Arizona. He said Miller’s abuse crushed his dreams.

“I wanted to be a director when I grew up,” de Koning said. “I wanted to be in the business. The moment that happened, all of that went away.”

Another plaintiff — suing only as John and speaking on the condition of being identified by his first name — said he attended the school from 1976 to 1980 and Miller’s abuse robbed him of his love for drawing.

“I used to draw a lot in high school,” he said. “But, after this happened, I could not draw. It was too upsetting.”

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