The story had been that people were leaving Illinois, and that the population dropped by about 18,000. But the U.S. Census Bureau came out last week with fresh numbers in its post-enumeration survey that show the reverse: The state gained some 250,000 people between 2010 and 2020.

The Chicago City Council is expected to give its final stamp of approval to the Bally’s plan on Wednesday, sending the proposal to the Illinois Gaming Board, which must license Bally’s to operate the Chicago casino set to be built near Chicago Avenue and Halsted Street.

Crime in Chicago usually peaks during the summer months, when hot temperatures force people outside and fray tempers. In recent years, the Memorial Day holiday weekend has been extremely violent.

Ald. Nicholas Sposato (38th Ward) and Ald. Emma Mitts (37th Ward) — who both support the proposal — used a parliamentary procedure to prevent a vote on Monday. However, Public Safety Committee Chair Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th Ward) filed a notice with the city clerk’s office to ensure the measure would get an up-or-down vote on Wednesday. 

Chicago City Council members voted 43 to 7 to approve a new ward map this week. The approval came after a monthslong tug-of-war between the council’s Latino and Black Caucuses over the balance of wards. The approved map has 14 wards with a majority of Latino voters — one short of the 15 wards the Latino Caucus had demanded.

The Defenders for All Act took effect at the beginning of this year. Since then, the Cook County Public Defenders’ immigration unit says it’s taken on over a dozen cases free of charge — the largest county in the nation to do so.

The new Chicago ward map garnered enough City Council votes to dodge a referendum, but some community organizations say it reflects the same old problems.

In Illinois, which lost a seat in redistricting because of its shrinking population, the state's two first-term female representatives — one Democrat, one Republican — were among the 18-member delegation's biggest losers in the state's remapping.

The Chicago Police Department is beefing up police presence after a new deadly downtown shooting. Meanwhile, the mayor’s new daily curfew of 10 p.m. clears a committee and will be voted on by the full City Council next week.

Even though Lightfoot stacked a special City Council committee with her allies to consider the casino proposal, Ald. Tom Tunney (44th Ward) acknowledged Friday that the mayor did not have enough support to advance the plan to build a casino and resort.

Two people were killed and seven people were wounded in a mass shooting late Thursday blocks from Michigan Avenue amid a continuing surge in violence downtown. Mayor Lori Lightfoot called the incident “an outrageous act of violence.”

A Manhattan judge declared Trump in contempt of court on April 25 and fined him $10,000 per day for not complying with a subpoena in New York’s long-running investigation into his business practices.

The 14-3 vote by the Chicago City Council’s Public Safety Committee tees up a showdown over the controversial measure by the full City Council, which is set to meet twice next week on Monday and Wednesday. 

Leaders of a Tennessee abortion clinic calculated driving distances and studied passenger rail routes as they scanned the map for another place to offer services. They chose Carbondale in Illinois — a state that has easy abortion access but is surrounded by more restrictive states in the Midwest and South.

The ACLU of Illinois immediately blasted the new Millennium Park policy as “too vague, allows too much discretion and does not recognize the right to protest for those under 18.”

Efforts to rethink the policy and spur development on the South and West sides while preventing long-time residents from being displaced from the Northwest Side are starting to pay off, symbolized by the grand opening set for Friday of an apartment complex near the CTA Blue Line Logan Square station, Housing Commissioner Marisa Novara told WTTW News.