Subscribe to the Maroon Newsletter.

Good morning. It’s spring break.

J Street has announced they will hold an Israel Trip which includes Palestinian voices.

• Participants “will meet both Israelis and Palestinians and won’t ignore the occupation,” J Street UChicago said on Facebook.
• “This is the first time in 20 years that a free trip to Israel is being run that shows the realities of life in Israel to Jewish students,” fourth-year Zachary Spitz, a member of J Street U’s national student board, told The Maroon.

The first exascale supercomputer in the United States will be built at Argonne National Laboratory, in a collaboration between the Department of Energy, Intel, and the supercomputer manufacturer Cray Inc.

• ‘Aurora’ is expected to be the world’s fastest supercomputer.
• The $500 project is anticipated to be up and running by 2021.

Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer (J.D. ‘79) will become the first woman to preside over the Northern District of Illinois federal court, whose jurisdiction includes the city of Chicago.

• Pallmeyer presided over the corruption trial of former Illinois Governor George Ryan, sentencing him to over six years in prison on charges including racketeering, obstruction and tax fraud, and lying to the FBI.

Architecture on and off campus

Design for Center in Paris: Studio Gang Architects, the Chicago-based firm that designed Campus North, has released images for the University’s new center in Paris.

Robie House Reopens: The classic example of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie School architectural style, Robie House, which sits at the corner of 58th Street and Woodlawn Avenue, will re-open to visitors this Friday, March 29.

Local Politics

Ahead of April 2 runoffs, campaigns are heating up.

Mayoral race: Lori Lightfoot is pulling ahead against Toni Preckwinkle.

• A recent poll shows Lightfoot at 53 percent and Preckwinkle at 17 percent.
• Seven losing candidates from the general election are backing Lightfoot, while none are backing Preckwinkle.
• Appealing to younger voters, Chance the Rapper endorsed Preckwinkle last week and has even even recorded a robocall for her. When announcing the endorsement, Chance claimed that Lightfoot’s record as a federal prosecutor had not been in the interest of Black Chicago youth. Skepticism toward Lightfoot’s views on policing heightened after she suggested at a forum on campus to convert closed schools into mini cop academies.

Fifth Ward race: All eyes have been on Will Calloway this week. He’s running against long-time incumbent Leslie Hairston.

• Calloway hosted a public talk on Sunday to apologize for Facebook posts he published in 2015 calling gay marriage “an abominable sin.”
• Gunshots were fired at Calloway’s campaign office. Calloway and several staffers were in the office but no one got hurt. Police did not find the offenders.
• In a surprising change of mind, Hairston now supports a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) for the forthcoming Obama Center. She is attributing her decision to the results of a CBA referendum vote during general elections.

20th Ward race: Stakes are high after incumbent Willie Cochran resigned last week after pleading guilty to using money from the ward’s charity fund to pay for personal expenses.

• Cochran is the third out of the last four 20th Ward aldermen to be convicted of corruption, and also the 30th aldermen in the city since 1973 to be convicted. Building trust in the community has been a strong message in campaigns of both runoff candidates, Nicole Johnson and Jeanette Taylor.
• The runoff winner is supposed to officially take office on May 20. Though outgoing mayor Rahm Emanuel has pledged to not appoint an interim alderman before next week’s runoff, he has not yet said if he will appoint someone new or appoint the runoff winner after the runoff election.

Grey City

Editor Caroline Kubzansky writes in:

Grey City takes a hard look at Pell Grants, from their original uses to how they now fit into financial aid at UChicago, and concludes that they comprise one small piece of a large, complex puzzle.

Crossword

Play The Maroon’s crossword online at our new site.

• Prepare for finals with last week's crossword and flex your cortex…or should we say Core texts? Our latest crossword, “Space is the Place,” is online now.

Subscribe at chicagomaroon.com/newsletter. Feedback via e-mail.