A budget forecast for 2026 projects a $1.15 billion deficit for the city, driven by the end of one-time federal pandemic aid and continued uncertainty over pension payments for Chicago Public Schools employees.

It’s not yet clear when military troops could be deployed into Illinois, but Gov. JB Pritzker expects President Donald Trump to “keep the militarization going” even after the federal government shut down overnight.

U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer said officers who have an alternative service weapon that “meets appropriate standards should be required immediately to use that alternative weapon.”

“Someone who says ‘I’m against abortion but says I am in favor of the death penalty’ is not really pro-life,” Pope Leo XIV said. “Someone who says that ‘I’m against abortion, but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States,’ I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”

The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed Lisa Cook to remain as a Federal Reserve governor for now, declining to act on the Trump administration’s effort to immediately remove her from the central bank.

Mayor Katrina Thompson on Tuesday accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials of waging a “disinformation campaign” amid their continued use of chemical and less-lethal munitions directed at crowds outside the agency’s Broadview processing center.

The last shutdown was in President Donald Trump’s first term when he demanded that Congress give him money for his U.S.-Mexico border wall. Trump retreated after 35 days — the longest shutdown ever — amid intensifying airport delays and missed paydays for federal workers.

Nearly 400,000 Social Security and SSI recipients receive their benefits through paper checks.

Chicago taxpayers paid $295 million between 2019 and 2024 to resolve lawsuits naming officers whose alleged misconduct led more than once to payouts, according to an analysis of city data by WTTW News. In all, the city spent $491.7 million to resolve lawsuits alleging 1,643 Chicago police officers committed a wide range of misconduct.

“CPD has failed to rein in its culture of brutality and abuse,” according to the coalition of police reform groups that forced the city to agree to federal court oversight. “The department is moving in the wrong direction.”

If government funding legislation isn’t passed by Congress and signed by Trump on Tuesday night, many government offices across the nation will be temporarily shuttered and nonexempt federal employees will be furloughed, adding to the strain on workers and the nation’s economy.

Dozens of armed federal agents, in full tactical gear, walked the streets of some of the city’s most prominent tourist and shopping areas. That comes amid a surge of immigration enforcement that began early this month.

The department recently sent letters to local governments in at least six states — Alabama, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts and New Mexico — informing them it was withdrawing money awarded under the $1.1 trillion infrastructure law former President Joe Biden signed in 2021.

Mayor Katrina Thompson in a letter to the ICE Field Office Director Russell Hott on Friday claimed ICE’s response to protesters exercising their First Amendment rights outside the Broadview facility is “endangering nearby village residents” and harming Broadview’s police and firefighters.

President Donald Trump’s unprecedented retribution campaign against his perceived political enemies reached new heights as his Justice Department brought criminal charges against a longtime foe and he expanded his efforts to classify certain liberal groups as “domestic terrorist organizations.”

The measure reverses the city’s 68-year ban on tiny homes but creates a patchwork of regulations that could significantly differ from ward to ward in order to uphold the decades-old tradition known as aldermanic prerogative.