Mayor Emanuel and the city of Chicago are back to square one in efforts to resolve the funding crisis for two of the city's four pension funds, likely exacerbating the city's ongoing fiscal problems. 

This month Mayor Rahm Emanuel says he plans to wind down seven Tax Increment Financing Districts located near downtown. Critics of the move say he’s hanging downtown out to dry, but others say this is a first step toward taxing transparency. We’ll hear from Crain’s Chicago Business columnist Greg Hinz and Tom Tresser of the TIF Illumination Project.

He famously called television a “vast wasteland," but Newton Minow's influence goes far beyond that iconic phrase. Geoffrey Baer sat down with Minow to talk about some current political issues.

Illinois Senate President John Cullerton is a key player in the state budget standoff. Yesterday, Gov. Rauner told reporters that the state would have a budget if it was up to him, Sen. Cullerton, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Today, what remained of the goodwill between Rauner and Democratic leaders seems to have evaporated. Paris Schutz has more.

A U.S. Appeals Court on Tuesday overturned five of the 18 convictions against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is currently serving a 12-year sentence in a Colorado federal prison.

Gov. Bruce Rauner on Tuesday held a press conference to lay blame for the weeks-long partial state government shutdown at the feet of House Speaker Mike Madigan, and to decry lawmakers for taking a pay raise when there's no budget in place. We'll get the latest Springfield news from Chicago Tonight's Amanda Vinicky.

In a city that has 50 aldermen, it might not come as a surprise that Illinois has the most units of government in the country, nudging out the competition with 6,964 governmental bodies, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This fact isn’t lost on Gov. Bruce Rauner, who created the Local Government and Unfunded Mandates Task Force to come up with recommendations on how to trim down that number. We discuss the task force’s recommendations.

This is week three of the partial state government shutdown. Carol Marin talks with four lawmakers about whether a compromise is in the foreseeable future.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle won a victory Wednesday after the county board narrowly signed off on her controversial sales tax hike, but there might be some legal and political risks. We’ll talk with the Civic Federation president Laurence Msall and Nick Kachiroubas, an assistant professor at DePaul University’s School of Public Service.

Cook County Commissioners approved Wednesday a 1-percent increase in the county portion of the sales tax, which brings Chicago’s sales tax to 10.25 percent. President Toni Preckwinkle’s proposed penny-on-the-dollar sales tax was approved by a vote of 9-7.

The Democratic-led Illinois Senate on Wednesday passed the temporary one-month budget by a vote of 39-0 (with 15 voting present) that the House passed last week, but can they override Gov. Bruce Rauner's veto? Amanda Vinicky joins us tonight with the latest updates from Springfield.

The Illinois Senate is back in session Tuesday. This week’s showdown is centered on who will keep state workers paid: the Democrat-controlled General Assembly or Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle has proposed raising the county sales tax by a penny on the dollar to help cover a pension-fueled budget shortfall. Wednesday, the county board is scheduled to vote on the hike. President Preckwinkle joins Chicago Tonight. We'll also hear from Cook County Commissioner Bridget Gainer, who opposes raising the sales tax.

Andrea Zopp talks about her candidacy to become the democratic nominee in the primary race for U.S. Senate against Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth. The winner will face incumbent Senator Mark Kirk.

After more than 20 months of negotiations, a landmark deal was reached Tuesday between world powers and Iran that curbs Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the easing of economic sanctions. The deal reduces Iran’s stockpiles of enriched uranium and the number of its centrifuges by two-thirds. It also prevents Iran from producing weapons-grade plutonium. 

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle and from both chambers talk about the emergency one-month budget the Senate will vote on this week, and whether there will be any negotiations or attempts to pass a full budget for the coming fiscal year when the House returns to Springfied on Wednesday.