The jury heard the first direct testimony from someone who prosecutors allege Burke sought to extort by weaponizing his powerful position as chair of the City Council’s Finance Committee and the longest serving member of the City Council. 

Reflecting on the impact political cartoonist and activist Danny Sotomayor had on the AIDS epidemic in Chicago during the 1980s and 1990s. 

Three debates for next year’s presidential general election are set to be held in college towns in Texas, Virginia and Utah between Sept. 16 and Oct. 9, with the lone vice presidential debate happening in between in Pennsylvania.

Former first lady Rosalynn Carter, the closest adviser to Jimmy Carter during his one term as U.S. president and their four decades thereafter as global humanitarians, has died at the age of 96.

National Transportation Safety Board Chairperson Jennifer Homendy said the Chicago Transit Authority train was traveling at 26.9 mph on Thursday when it struck the snow-removal equipment, which was on the tracks conducting training for the winter season.

Chicago gets more money from the state to care for migrants. City Council rubber-stamps Johnson’s $16.6 billion budget. And former Ald. Ed Burke’s trial resumes after a COVID-19 delay.

The new policy could mean more than 3,000 people will lose their beds in city shelters by early February, with the rest forced out by April.

The NTSB will examine the condition of the track and the train, how people were protected inside the train, the operator’s training and work history, and the CTA’s safety culture, including how dispatch cleared the Yellow Line train.

Federal prosecutors called their first witness Friday afternoon in the longtime alderman’s landmark corruption trial — Elmhurst College professor Constance Mixon, who gave the jury a crash course in the city’s political system.

While prosecutors said former Ald. Ed Burke was a “bribe-taker and an extortionist” who used his elected office to “line his pockets,” Burke’s attorneys said he was an “old school, hardworking public servant” devoted to Chicago and its residents.

According to Cook County data, 35% of residents speak a language other than English at home, while 14% of those people say they speak English less than “very well.” Meanwhile, migrants continue arriving in Chicago with limited to no English-speaking skills and few resources.

After a weeklong delay after an attorney tested positive for COVID-19, a jury was picked Thursday to decide the federal corruption trial of former Ald. Ed Burke and his two co-defendants.

Three people were seriously injured, nine suffered moderate injuries and 11 others were not seriously injured but were taken to a hospital, according to Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford. 

With Congress unwilling to act, Illinois has no chance to step in because lives are at stake, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said.

The budget, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2024, includes no new taxes, fees or service cuts, making it much easier for alderpeople to back the plan touted by Mayor Brandon Johnson as a down payment on promises to invest in working-class Chicagoans.

The announcement represents Mayor Brandon Johnson’s first attempt to reduce the city resources available to the migrants currently in the city’s shelter system.