Stories by Matt Masterson

Navient, the second largest student loan servicer in the U.S., agreed Thursday to cancel $1.7 billion in debt owed by more than 66,000 borrowers across the country as part of a multistate lawsuit that accused the company of abusive lending practices.

Rank-and-file CTU members on Wednesday signed off on the deal, two days after the union’s elected delegates voted to suspend a labor action that saw the vast majority of teachers refusing to work in person amid a spike in COVID-19 cases.

A probationary Chicago police officer who was off duty shot three people at a suburban bowling alley Tuesday night, according to the agency that investigates police shootings.

Chicago students are set to return to their classrooms this week after several days at home as the city and Chicago Teachers Union have reached a compromise on new COVID-19 mitigations inside schools.

“Although we have been negotiating hard throughout the day, there has not been sufficient progress for us to predict a return to class tomorrow,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot tweeted Sunday.

The Chicago Teachers Union on Saturday sent a new proposal to the city hoping to resolve its ongoing labor action in which its members have refused to work in schools in-person during a spike in COVID-19 cases

In the lawsuit, parents claim the union’s action is actually an “illegal strike” — language that’s also been used by Mayor Lori Lightfoot. They want a judge to order teachers to return to their schools and resume in-person learning.

While a few school buildings may be open to students, Chicago Public Schools has once again canceled classes as negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union continue. 

Chicago Public Schools students will stay at home for a second consecutive day Thursday, as the district has once again canceled classes after the Chicago Teachers Union voted to begin working remotely.

The Chicago Teachers Union announced late Tuesday that its rank-and-file members voted in favor of a measure to halt in-person work and transition to remote work Wednesday as it continues negotiating a deal with the city and school district over additional health and safety measures.

The Chicago Teachers Union is set to vote Tuesday evening on a labor action that would see its 25,000 members work fully remotely beginning Wednesday. If that measure is approved, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said he’ll have no choice but to cancel classes.

Charter schools taking tens of millions of dollars in unnecessary loans, security workers cutting hours to apply for enhanced public benefits and bus companies who pocketed payments while laying off employees were among the issues highlighted in a new report.

“I am so pissed off that we have to continuously fight for the basic necessities, the basic mitigations … this makes no sense,” CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates said Monday.

“By getting tested before returning from break, we can have a successful and healthy start to the new year,” CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said in a statement.

The National Weather Service on Tuesday said that as of 12:10 p.m., one-tenth of an inch of snow had been recorded at O’Hare Airport — Chicago’s official weather site — making the first measurable snowfall in 287 days.

According to the Chicago Police Department, there were 16 shootings across the city between 6 p.m. Friday and 11:59 p.m. Sunday.

There were 16,581 new and probable COVID-19 cases recorded within the past 24 hours by the Illinois Department of Public Health. That’s the highest single-day total this year and the highest since November 2020, per IDPH data.

In a sentencing memorandum filed Wednesday, federal prosecutors said former Ald. Ricardo Muñoz “abused his public position and betrayed the public trust” by embezzling nearly $38,000 in city money over the course of approximately three years.

The special prosecutor who secured convictions this month against Jussie Smollett said the way the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office first resolved the former “Empire” star’s criminal charges was a “disgrace” and that Kim Foxx and others lied about how it went down.

Finger-pointing, misleading statements, “substantial abuses of discretion” and a “major failure" of operations were among the findings included in a special prosecutor's investigation into Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx and her office's handling of the Jussie Smollett case.

A 26-year-old father allegedly shook and beat his infant child to the point where the boy suffered injuries consistent with a car crash and will require medical care for the rest of his life, prosecutors claimed.

“We’re gonna have to see what happens with omicron, but I do not expect that we will be making plans to move entirely remotely and certainly not for extended periods, even if that were a thing,” Dr. Allison Arwady said Thursday.

Chicago education officials approved a settlement Wednesday that will put an end to years of litigation with the Chicago Teachers Union over a series of layoffs that disparately impacted hundreds of Black teachers and paraprofessionals.

“The trial of Mr. Smollett being complete, it is now appropriate for the seal on the (Office of Special Prosecutor’s) Summary Report to be lifted and for it to be publicly available,” Dan Webb wrote in a new motion Wednesday.

A man accused in a fatal shooting after a traffic accident earlier this year now faces charges in a separate West Englewood homicide in which he allegedly killed a man as he stood outside a vehicle that had two young children inside.

Brett Dimick, 30, has been charged with reckless homicide stemming from the Aug. 14 hit-and-run that left 24-year-old Sophie Allen dead and another woman injured.