Even as the financial toll of decades of police misconduct is likely to grow in the coming months, Chicago exhausted its annual budget of $82.2 million months ago and had spent nearly triple that amount by July 31, according to WTTW News’ analysis.

President Donald Trump has threatened to deploy the National Guard to Chicago, New York, Seattle, Baltimore, San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, to fight what he says is runaway crime. Yet data shows most violent crime in those places and around the country has declined in recent years.

Illinois in 2023 became the first state to fully eliminate the use of cash bail with the Pretrial Fairness Act. Proponents said the law is intended to address equity issues. The president claims such policies allow “dangerous individuals to immediately return to the streets and further endanger law-abiding Americans.”

Community leaders, supporters and family members held a memorial Thursday at the burial place of Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, at Burr Oak Cemetery in south suburban Alsip to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Till’s murder.

The petition was filed on the same day two children were killed and 17 other individuals were injured in a mass shooting at a Catholic church in Minneapolis. As of Thursday, authorities had not yet publicly identified the specific weapons used in that shooting, only to say one of them was a rifle.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the shooter — armed with a rifle, shotgun and pistol — approached the side of the church and shot through the windows toward the children sitting in the pews during Mass at the Annunciation Catholic School.

President Donald Trump has threatened to send National Guard troops to Chicago to address crime, calling the city “a killing field” despite violent crime being on a downward trend.

Cesar Ramirez, 47, received his sentence this week after he pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated kidnapping stemming from the October 2022 incident. He was initially charged with numerous felonies that also included attempted aggravated sexual assault, attempted aggravated sexual abuse and aggravated battery.

Former NFL quarterback Jay Cutler was sentenced to four days in jail as part of a plea deal on Tuesday, after being charged with driving under the influence and possession of a firearm in 2024.

A federal judge in Chicago sentenced Yousef Abu Alhawa to 42 months in prison after he pleaded guilty last year to wire fraud and tax charges.

Chicago Police Department data shows that compared to last year, violent crime in the city is down 22% through the end of July. There have been 36% fewer shootings, and homicides are down 32%.

President Donald Trump signed an order threatening to freeze federal funding to governments and jurisdictions that have eliminated the use of cash bail as a means of holding defendants in jail pretrial. Local officials say the system put in place in Illinois in 2023 is working.

A Defense Department official who was not authorized to speak publicly said some units on certain missions would be armed — some with handguns and others with rifles. The spokesperson said that all units with firearms have been trained and are operating under strict rules for use of force.

U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros announced Friday the creation of a new section within the Northern District of Illinois’s Criminal Division that will be dedicated to the prosecution of health care fraud.

With lots of money approved by Congress this summer starting to flow into ICE, the agency is in midst of a huge hiring effort as it aims to get thousands of new deportation officers into the field in the coming months.

The high court majority lifted a judge’s order blocking $783 million worth of cuts made by the National Institutes of Health to align with Republican President Donald Trump’s priorities.