In 2014, Chicago saw homicides hit a historic low at 426. The city has exceeded that number every year since and is on pace to again this calendar year by more than 80%, according to U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch.

Alderpeople are poised to pay $2.2 million on Wednesday to settle three lawsuits claiming Chicago police officers used excessive force in 2014, before officers were required to wear cameras and record their interactions with Chicagoans.

A federal docket entry on Monday showed that a hearing has been scheduled for Wednesday for Derek Chauvin to change his current not-guilty plea in the case. These types of notices indicate a defendant is planning to plead guilty. 

On Monday, members of City Council's finance committee unanimously endorsed a recommendation to pay $2.9 million to Anjanette Young to resolve the lawsuit she brought after police officers handcuffed her while she was naked and ignored her pleas for help during a botched raid in February 2019.

Two white men, Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam, were tried on murder charges about a month after Emmett Till was killed, but an all-white Mississippi jury acquitted them. 

The rallies before and during the Jan. 6 riot are a major focus of the committee’s investigation. Committee members have said they want to know who financed the events and whether organizers were in close touch with the White House and members of Congress as they planned the events.

A jury’s guilty verdict that Jussie Smollett faked a racist and homophobic attack isn’t the end of legal proceedings for the former “Empire” actor or others.

“Everyone is always welcome downtown, everyone is welcome to enjoy all our city has to offer,” Police Superintendent David Brown said. “Chicago belongs to all of us, but if you come downtown or anywhere else, you engage in disorderly conduct or other crimes, you will be arrested.”

The jury convicted the 39-year-old on five counts of disorderly conduct — for each separate time he was charged with lying to police in the days after the alleged attack. He was acquitted on a sixth count.

Alphonso Joyner, 23, was ordered held without bail during a court hearing Thursday following his arrest on charges including first-degree murder and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon stemming from the brazen killing of 71-year-old Woom Sing Tse.

The agenda for the meeting of the City Council’s Finance Committee set for 10 a.m. Monday does not identify the amount the city would pay Anjanette Young and her attorneys to resolve the case, an indication that a final agreement is close, but is not yet final, sources told WTTW News.

The deliberations began after a roughly one-week trial in which two brothers testified that Jussie Smollett recruited them to fake the attack near his home in downtown Chicago in January 2019.

Charleston Harris, 37, was ordered held without bail Wednesday following his arrest on a single count of first-degree murder stemming from the fatal July shooting of 44-year-old Theodore Smith.

An analysis of 280,000 drug possession cases between 2000 and 2018 revealed about half of those cases were dismissed. In 2018, such dismissals rose to 72% of cases, according to a report by the Chicago Sun-Times and Better Government Association.

The trial, which began last week, is the culmination of a case that began on the frigid night of Jan. 29, 2019, when Jussie Smollett told police two men had attacked him, made anti-gay and racist comments, poured bleach on him and put a noose around his neck.

More than 1,000 homicides have been recorded in Cook County so far this year. In the suburbs, Harvey has seen the highest total of homicides with 30.