Stories by Heather Cherone

With the backing of hotel owners and the Illinois Hotel & Lodging Association, the city’s tax on hotel rooms downtown, near McCormick Place, the Illinois Medical District and Hyde Park will rise from 17.5% to 19%, the highest in the nation.

In all, groups affiliated with AIPAC spent more than $20 million to influence the outcome of four contests in Illinois’ 2nd, 7th, 8th and 9th Congressional districts, according to federal campaign finance reports.

The intense race has drawn tens of millions of dollars spent by outside groups on television, mail and online advertisements, with most coming from pro-Israel, pro-artificial intelligence development, pro-cryptocurrency and pro-cloud data center interests.

Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi has conceded defeat to Pat Hynes, a one-time employee of the two-term incumbent’s office.

The board’s decision comes after Mayor Brandon Johnson pushed for nearly a year to name former Ald. Walter Burnett (27th Ward) to lead the CHA, only to run into a brick wall of opposition from board members and federal officials.

Officer Chavez Siler Sr. violated nine departmental rules on Nov. 16, 2021, when he grabbed and pushed a student who was then 17, during dismissal, according to records obtained by WTTW News through a Freedom of Information Act request.

NetChoice, a trade association representing the tech industry, filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court to block the Social Media Amusement Tax included in the city’s 2026 spending plan.

Lawyers for the Harrell family all but dared the Chicago City Council to reject their lawyers’ recommendation to pay $27 million to resolve the lawsuit blaming the Chicago Police Department for the death of Stacy Vaughn-Harrell during a police pursuit.

Anjanette Young has worked for more than six years to force CPD to change the way it uses search warrants after a botched raid of her apartment.

The ordinances rejected by the committee would have banned video slots and poker machines in the 26th Ward, the 27th Ward, the 28th Ward, the 33rd Ward, the 35th Ward and the 49th Ward.

“We respectfully urge you to cast aside any efforts to codify the invalidated levies struck down by the Supreme Court and instead enact meaningful statutory constraints on presidential tariff power that allow for appropriate congressional review,” the letter reads.

The City Council’s Finance Committee on Friday is set to consider the proposed settlement, which calls for taxpayers to pay $20 million and the city’s insurance company to pay $7 million. A final vote of the City Council could come March 18.

Two officers suffered minor injuries and were taken to the hospital after the incident that began at 5:39 p.m. Monday, according to a Chicago Police Department statement.

With a little more than a week until the March 17 election, the debate hosted by WTTW News’ “Chicago Tonight” was the first after President Donald Trump launched the war against Iran that has already killed seven members of the U.S. military.

Officers made an average of 732 traffic stops every day for an entire year that were not documented as required by CPD policy and state law, according to data from the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

It was “improper” for the department led by Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry to refuse to provide those records to the Office of the Inspector General, Deborah Witzburg said in a statement.

Michael Williams, then 65, spent nearly a year in jail after being charged with murder, only to have the charges dismissed after prosecutors told a judge they did not have enough evidence to proceed to trial.

The cuts, imposed by the Trump administration, will hit the county’s bottom line next year, threatening the ability of more than 400,000 Cook County residents to get necessary health care.

The proposal called for parents to face jail time if their children “violate curfew, engage in drag racing, flipping of cars, intoxication or use of paintball guns.”

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability determined that the shooting was unjustified, and Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling agreed, according to records published Friday.

The jury found that nine CPD officers acted improperly and used excessive force against Ebony Tate, her mother and four children on Aug. 9, 2018, when a CPD SWAT team set off flash-bang grenades outside the family’s apartment before breaking down the door and repeatedly pointing assault rifles directly at the children.

A jury is now deciding whether CPD officers traumatized Ebony Tate, her mother and four children on Aug. 9, 2018, when a CPD SWAT team set off flashbang grenades outside the family’s apartment before breaking down the door and repeatedly pointing assault rifles directly at the children.

Officer Richard Rodriguez is the fifth member of a tactical team to be stripped of his badge and gun after COPA identified a troubling pattern of undocumented and unprofessional traffic stops of Black Chicagoans downtown.

The other winners of the fourth annual contest were Stephen Coldbert, Pope Frío XIV, The Blizzard of Oz, Svencoolie and Caleb Chilliams, Chicago officials announced.

CPD has been under federal court oversight for nearly seven years as part of an effort to stop officers from routinely violating Black and Latino residents’ constitutional rights by overhauling the way the department trains, supervises and disciplines officers.

“I share your impatience,” U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer said. “I do recognize it is too slow.”