Police officials say additional officers will be on the ground this holiday weekend, including along the lakefront and around entertainment venues. Those officers will be working 12-hour shifts and all days off have been canceled through Monday.

Ald. Carrie Austin (34th Ward) was indicted Thursday on four charges that she took bribes from a developer and lied to Federal Bureau of Investigation agents. The 72-year-old alderperson is the third sitting member of the Chicago City Council to be charged with federal crimes.

Chicago has recorded 332 homicides through the first six months of 2021, according to the Chicago Police Department. Though that figure is just below the 338 homicides in the first half of 2020, it still marks the second deadliest six-month stretch to start a year since 1999.

The special meeting set for Friday is the second time this year that aldermen have called an emergency meeting of the Chicago City Council over Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s objections. Our Spotlight Politics team weighs in.

The roadblocks preventing a new deal between the police union and city officials are unchanged since the contract expired on June 30, 2017 — and both sides are dug in and unwilling to compromise.

Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction and opened the way for his immediate release from prison Wednesday, ruling that the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby.

“To say I’m hurt is an understatement,” said Jackie Wilson, who spent more than three decades in prison following multiple wrongful convictions for the 1982 murder of two Chicago police officers.

A man who said he sprayed trees in a Naperville park to protect them after an anxious dog chewed off the bark has been ticketed by authorities.

Donald Trump’s company and his longtime finance chief are expected to be charged Thursday with tax-related crimes stemming from a New York investigation into the former president’s business dealings, people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

Major changes to Illinois’ criminal justice system that passed in the wake of George Floyd’s murder will begin to take effect Thursday, including a requirement that officers track and report to the state incidents in which they use a gun on someone. Here’s what else is changing.

Hours after Mayor Lori Lightfoot blamed the shutdown of the Cook County court system by the COVID-19 pandemic for escalating violence across Chicago’s South and West sides, several aldermen told “Chicago Tonight” that rising inequality and distrust of the police is to blame. 

Police Superintendent David Brown on Monday said investigations remain ongoing into a shooting in the South Shore that left one dead and five injured, and another at Marquette Park that left one dead and 10 injured.

The Chicago Blackhawks have hired a former federal prosecutor to conduct an independent review of allegations that a former player was sexually assaulted by a then-assistant coach in 2010.

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability recommended two months ago that Officer Evan Solano have his gun and badge taken from him after the March fatal shooting of a 22-year-old in Portage Park, even as a probe of the killing continues.

In the U.S., many people view incarceration as the punishment one receives for breaking the law. But a recently released study indicates that for the more than 3.3 million people with criminal records in Illinois, punishment continues well beyond time served.

The Supreme Court has already issued big decisions on health care and religious freedom this month. And next term, the high court has agreed to take on cases about abortion and guns. The court could say as soon as Monday what it will do about these issues awaiting action.