Which Pizza Ranks Supreme; US Citizens Denied Passports at the Border; Homeless Shelter Needs

On The 21st: We speak with Chicago food reporter Steve Dolinsky about his new book and his picks for Chicago's 101 best pizzas. Plus, amidst heat warnings throughout the state, what are homeless shelters doing to keep residents safe? And, the State Department is denying passports to some people who have birth certificates from Texas. We talk to the ACLU of Illinois about what's going on at the border. 

There are a few topics that you know are guaranteed to set off a calm conversation around the dinner table. There’s religion, politics and pizza. Tell a group of lifetime Chicagaoans that you hate pan pizza and only like New York slices... you had better strap in.

Or try to convince someone from another coast that the best thin crust can really be found in taverns in the Midwest. There’s also Detroit style, St. Louis provel and of course, Hawaiian.

Everyone has their favorite pizza, and everyone is right. And it’s this kind of passion that has infused Steve Dolinksy’s new book Pizza City USA and his subsequent tasting tours. Dolinsky is also know as the Hungry Hound food reporter for ABC-7 Chicago and for his podcast, The Feed, with Rick Bayless. Steve Dolinsky joined us in our Evanston studio. 

The first Chicago pizza was tavern style in the 1930s says @stevedolinsky. Workers were going home from the factories and bar owners thought, "Hey we can get people to drink more if we give them something salty."

It wasn't until the 1943 that deep dish arrived on the scene. pic.twitter.com/4orLPUWPNJ

— The 21st (@21stShow) September 4, 2018

Plus- 

Labor Day weekend usually means the end of summer, or at least fewer hot and humid days. And, for people seeking shelter and struggling with homelessness, it also means that hopefully they won’t have to worry as much about finding cooler places.

But when that does happen, homeless shelters often serve as cooling centers. To tell us more about what homeless shelters are doing to manage the heat, we were joined by Carol Alcorn, she’s executive director of Ottawa PADS - Public Action To Deliver Shelter - in the Illinois Valley, about an hour northwest of Peoria.

And-

Last week, The Washington Post broke the news that the state department is denying passports to people who have the documents to prove they’re citizens. According to the Post, the Trump administration is accusing hundreds of people born along the US-Mexico border of having fraudulent birth certificates.

Now, Texas Democrats are calling for an investigation into the legal limbo at the border, which has in some cases, left citizens stranded outside the U.S. Others have been sent to immigration detention centers and entered into deportation proceedings.  

To get the latest on the situation, we were joined by Ed Yohnka from the ACLU of Illinois. 

"The presumption should be that if the person has documents that the person is a citizen," says @ACLUofIL's Ed Yohnka. "That would certainly mean that they're not in detention."

— The 21st (@21stShow) September 4, 2018