Stories by Heather Cherone

Gov. J.B. Pritzker, 56, has announced he will run for a second term as Illinois governor and put his response to the COVID-19 pandemic at the center of his bid for reelection.

Pierre Loury was shot and killed by police Officer Sean Hitz after a brief chase in April 2016. The City Council’s Finance Committee voted Monday to advance the proposed settlement, which is set for a final vote Wednesday by the full City Council.

The agreement could end years of contentious debate over how best to ensure that the Chicago Police Department no longer routinely violates the constitutional rights of Chicagoans.

The state’s ban on most evictions will have lasted more than 17 months after the governor in 2020 ordered Illinois residents to stay home to stop the spread of the coronavirus. The deadline to apply for rental assistance grants of up to $25,000 from the state is Sunday, officials said.

Supporters of a long-stalled plan that would put an elected board of Chicago residents in charge of the Chicago Police Department said Friday they are close to an agreement with Mayor Lori Lightfoot that could pave the way for a final vote next week.

U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly cannot solicit campaign funds for candidates running in state contests as the head of the Democratic Party of Illinois, the Federal Election Commission ruled Thursday. Instead, the party can create a separate committee to seek campaign cash.

Aldermen should have input on who gets hired as their ward superintendents — but cannot have the final say, Inspector General Joseph Ferguson determined.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot acknowledged that the rise in shootings and murders concentrated on Chicago’s South and West sides has forced her to reset her agenda as mayor. “We have experienced too much bloodshed in this city,” she said Thursday.

Supporters of the plan told aldermen Wednesday that it will benefit young residents of the West Side and bring much-needed investment to one of Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods. If the plan is approved, it will end a ferocious controversy that has raged for nearly four years.

It won’t be smoke-filled, but members of the Chicago City Council will head to a backroom at City Hall later this month to start crafting new ward boundaries that could shape Chicago politics for the next decade.

Chicago officials have reinstated the city’s COVID-19 travel advisory as cases spike with the spread of the delta variant of the virus in Missouri and Arkansas. The order had been suspended for 42 days.

The city is conducting additional environmental studies after the head of the Environmental Protection Agency said the proposal raises “significant civil rights concerns.”

Determined to convince tech companies to trade in views of the Golden Gate Bridge for the City of Big Shoulders, Mayor Lori Lightfoot spent Wednesday and Thursday wooing Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, even as the city reeled from the most violent weekend of 2021.

The 34th Ward alderperson is the second-longest serving member of the City Council — and the third sitting member to be charged with federal crimes. She faces one count of bribery conspiracy, two counts of using interstate facilities to promote bribery and one count of lying to the FBI.

Chicago owes $32.9 billion to its four employee pension funds representing police officers, firefighters, municipal employees and laborers, according to the 2020 Certified Annual Financial Report — an increase of nearly 3.5% from 2019. 

Inspector General Joseph Ferguson will leave his post as the city’s watchdog in October after running into a brick wall of opposition from Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Chicago City Council during the final 18 months of his term in office.

Ald. Carrie Austin (34th Ward) was indicted Thursday on four charges that she took bribes from a developer and lied to Federal Bureau of Investigation agents. The 72-year-old alderperson is the third sitting member of the Chicago City Council to be charged with federal crimes.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot took a page from former President Donald Trump on Thursday and bestowed a belittling moniker on a political opponent, referring to Ald. Ed Burke (14th Ward) as “Burger King Ed,” a reference to the criminal charges Burke faces.

The special meeting set for Friday is the second time this year that aldermen have called an emergency meeting of the Chicago City Council over Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s objections. Our Spotlight Politics team weighs in.

The roadblocks preventing a new deal between the police union and city officials are unchanged since the contract expired on June 30, 2017 — and both sides are dug in and unwilling to compromise.

The nationwide Fight For $15 movement pushed the challenges facing Chicago’s lowest-paid workers — who are primarily Black and Latino — to the top of the agenda for city officials.

A federal judge will not force the city to permit Reserve Management Group, the parent company of General Iron, to operate a metal shredding and recycling operation on Chicago’s Southeast Side.

Chicago and other major cities are experiencing a “pandemic-spurred surge” in violence that officials are having success in fighting despite a rising number of shootings and homicides, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said during a one-on-one interview Tuesday on “Chicago Tonight.”

All 50 states, along with Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., are recording fewer than 15 new cases per day per 100,000 residents and are no longer covered by the travel order, officials said Tuesday.

Hours after Mayor Lori Lightfoot blamed the shutdown of the Cook County court system by the COVID-19 pandemic for escalating violence across Chicago’s South and West sides, several aldermen told “Chicago Tonight” that rising inequality and distrust of the police is to blame. 

Illinois residents scrambling to renew their driver’s licenses and identification cards got a five-month reprieve Monday as lines swelled at secretary of state offices across the state.