The Daily Parker

We have a truly delightful mix of light rain and snow flurries right now that convinced me to shorten Cassie's lunchtime walk from 30 minutes to 15 minutes to just 9 minutes each time I came to a street corner. I don't even think I'll make 10,000 steps today, because neither of us really wants to go outside in this crap.

I'm also working on a feature improvement that requires fixing some code I've never liked, which I haven't ever fixed because it's very tricky. I know why I made those choices, but they were always the lesser of two evils.

Anyway, elsewhere in the world:

• Jonathan Pie rants about Scotland's new hate-crime law that has everyone from civil liberties groups to JK Rowling up in arms.
• Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson (D) signed off on four office-to-residence projects on LaSalle Street in the Loop. (It's the picturesque street featured in one of The Dark Knight's best stunts.)
• Four Chicago restaurants made the James Beard Awards finals. (I've only been to one of them, sadly.)
• Related to that (if you think about it), Chicago will see its first sanctioned Chicago River swim in a century on September 22nd, over 50 years after the Clean Water Act took effect.
• Vitalii Kovalev, executive chef at several haute cuisine restaurants in New York and Florida turned out to be a Russian spy, who later came down with Havana Syndrome.

Finally, the cancellation of the UK's HS-2 project north of Birmingham has left more than 50 homes empty for two years. Can't think why the affected constituencies have flipped from Tory to Labour, can you?