Stories by Heather Cherone

The Community Development Commission sent the proposal to the Chicago Plan Commission, which is scheduled to consider the issue at its meeting scheduled for Oct. 20.

A coalition of progressive groups has been working for nearly a year to prevent Mayor Lori Lightfoot from being re-elected by uniting behind a single candidate. Nothing in the Lightfoot’s spending plan is likely to alter that determination — and may give them more ammunition to use against the mayor.

A vote on a measure that would strip members of the Chicago City Council of their authority to ban commercial property owners from hiring a firms to patrol their parking lots and swiftly immobilize cars that are parked there illegally was delayed. A familiar lobbyist and campaign cash factor into the debate. 

Chief Financial Officer Jennie Huang Bennett faced pointed questions from members of the City Council’s Budget and Government Operations Committee on Thursday about the "advanced pension payment" proposal.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to close a projected $170.6 million budget gap in 2023 relies on booming tax revenues that she said proves Chicago’s budget has fully recovered from the economic catastrophe caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot did not explain Thursday how she would propose to bridge the city’s projected 2023 budget shortfall, which is now 33% bigger than the gap she detailed nearly two months ago.

Chicago Police Department officers agreed to allow those arrested access to a phone within three hours in order to resolve a lawsuit filed by the Cook County Public Defender’s Office after mass arrests during the protests and unrest triggered by the police murder of George Floyd in May 2020.

Brandon Johnson, 46, has yet to formally announce that he will run for mayor of Chicago — but the backing of the Chicago Teachers Union will ensure that he will have ample resources if he does take on Lightfoot, who has long been at odds with the city’s most politically powerful labor union.

The unanimous Supreme Court decision, released Sept. 22, resolves a 7-year-old lawsuit brought by Charles Green, who was sentenced to life in prison at age 16 after being convicted in a 1985 quadruple murder. Green was released in 2009, and wants to prove his innocence.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she was determined to chart a “bright and lasting” future for LaSalle Street between Washington Street and Jackson Boulevard, an area of the city she said had been permanently altered by the shifts triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

State Sen. Emil Jones III, D-Chicago, pleaded not guilty Friday to charges he took a $5,000 bribe from a firm that installed red-light cameras throughout the state and lied to Federal Bureau of Investigation agents.

Chicago and Cook County last faced a low risk of COVID-19 on May 5. The region has bounced between a medium risk and a high risk all summer.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who is running for re-election, said it was not enough for the lawmakers to resign as leaders of the Democratic Party in the Illlinois Senate.

In all, the payments approved Wednesday are equivalent to 30% of the city’s annual $82 million budget to cover the cost of police misconduct lawsuits.

The new law is modeled on the city’s rules designed to protect immigrants from prohibiting members of the Chicago Police Department from cooperating with federal law enforcement agencies.

The charges against state Sen. Emil Jones III were made public by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Illinois through an information, a court document that is typically filed in cases where the defendant has indicated they plan to plead guilty.

Despite promises, a federally-funded program has removed just 154 lead service lines from Chicago homes as of Monday, according to data provided to WTTW News by the Department of Water Management.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced her choice of Timmy Knudsen less than 24 hours before the City Council’s Rules Committee is set to consider his nomination. A final vote by the Chicago City Council is expected Wednesday.

The Chicago City Council is set to pay $9 million to a man who spent 25 years in prison after being convicted of murder in 1994 following an investigation led by a Chicago Police detective accused of routinely framing suspects.

The Chicago City Council is set to pay $15 million to the family of a woman who was struck and killed by a car driven by a Chicago Police officer.

Sgt. Christopher Liakopoulos, 43, and Officer Reuben Reynoso, 42, are set to appear Friday afternoon in Cook County bond court to face charges of aggravated battery with a firearm, aggravated discharge of a firearm and official misconduct.

The near-total ban on abortion that took effect Thursday in Indiana will force more people to travel to already-overwhelmed Illinois clinics for reproductive health care and seek help from groups that have already reached their capacity, reproductive health care advocates told WTTW News.

“It is not a good look for him to have the oxygen and audacity not to show up,” Ald. Jeanette Taylor (20th Ward) said.

More than 500 immigrants who are seeking asylum have arrived in Chicago on 11 buses since Aug. 31, officials said.

The program, which is expected to include 3,250 households, will launch a test of a basic-income program with $41.5 million from the federal COVID-19 relief package signed into law by President Joe Biden in March 2021, Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle said.

The February 2023 election represents a nearly unprecedented opportunity for Democratic Socialists to not only take on Mayor Lori Lightfoot but also to remake the Chicago City Council after a wave of retirements and departures.