If confirmed on Monday, Nicole Lee would become the first Chinese American to serve as an alderperson.

The American Bar Association’s standing committee on the federal judiciary has afforded its highest rating, “well qualified,” to the Harvard-educated Jackson. A junior high school friend gushed over the “supernova” debate team champion. Skeptics, including Alabama’s attorney general, warned that her views on crime and policing are “outside the mainstream.”

Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th Ward) had urged the Illinois Supreme Court to overturn decisions by the Illinois State Board of Elections as well as lower courts that allowed politicians accused of political corruption to use funds contributed by supporters of their campaigns to defend themselves from accusations of wrongdoing while in office.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re about to make history here,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said, just before the first electronic vote.

The Chicago City Council voted 34-13 to settle the lawsuit, the first significant payment approved by city officials to compensate Chicagoans who alleged they were mistreated by Chicago Police officers during the unrest and protests that swept the city in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. 

Jackson appeared for a third day before the Senate Judiciary Committee for tense confirmation hearings, providing a vivid portrait of the nation’s promise, but also its enduring racial challenges.

Madeleine Albright, the first female U.S. secretary of state, has died of cancer, her family said Wednesday. She was 84.

A senior NATO military official said the alliance’s estimate was based on information from Ukrainian authorities, what Russia has released — intentionally or not — and intelligence gathered from open sources. The official spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by NATO.

Civilians fleeing Mariupol said the city was under relentless bombardment, with block after block of destroyed buildings and corpses in the streets. But the Kremlin’s ground offensive in other parts of the country advanced slowly or not at all, knocked back by lethal Ukrainian hit-and-run attacks.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot does not expect to pick one of the three finalists and ask the Chicago City Council to ratify her decision until early summer, a significant delay since the fall, officials said.

The centerpiece of Mayor Lori Lightfoot's efforts to crack down on crime after violence soared in 2021, the measure will remain in limbo for at least another month.

The public will get its first glimpse of the $3.5 million effort that began in 2017 to modernize the operations of the Chicago City Council at Wednesday’s meeting — as long as the network is willing, and the cloud does not crash.

The measure ratifies decisions made by Treasurer Melissa Conyears Ervin after her 2019 election to stop new investments in oil and gas firms while moving $70 million in investments from 225 fossil fuel companies. 

Housing Commissioner Marisa Novara said the initial imposition of the fee in April 2021 had helped slow gentrification-fueled displacement happening along the popular biking and jogging trail and in Pilsen, one of the city’s most in-demand real estate markets.

The Chicago City Council is set to pay $450,000 to the family of a man who was struck and killed by a car driven by a Chicago Police officer.

As Russia intensified its effort to pound Mariupol into submission, its ground offensive in other parts of Ukraine has become bogged down. Western officials and analysts say the conflict is turning into a grinding war of attrition, with Russia bombarding cities.