Mayor Lori Lightfoot told WTTW News on Monday night she was “disappointed” that efforts to test all Chicago Public Schools students and staff for COVID-19 had gotten off to a slow and confusing start. 

As Chicago emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, Mayor Lori Lightfoot told WTTW News on Monday that city officials must be “bold and transformative” to address not only the immediate damage caused by the pandemic but also the city’s longstanding woes. 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to close a projected $733 million budget gap in 2022 relies on $385 million in federal relief funds and nearly $299 million in savings and efficiencies, but the plan contains “no new tax or significant fee increases” for Chicago residents, she said.

Black Caucus Chair Ald. Jason Ervin (28th Ward) said the City Council should act quickly and loosen the rules because the legal sale of cannabis is “raining hundred-dollar bills” and those hurt by the war on drugs should be able to take advantage of the gold rush.

More than two months after Inspector General Joseph Ferguson announced he would leave office on Oct. 15, the Chicago City Council on Friday finally took the first steps toward finding his replacement as the city’s watchdog.

Intense criticism has not prompted Mayor Lori Lightfoot to rethink her plan to demand that the Chicago City Council give the city’s Law Department the authority to sue the leaders of Chicago’s gangs and “go after their blood money.”

The Chicago Public Schools graduate and former CPS chief financial officer under then-CEO Arne Duncan is expected to take control of the nation’s third-largest school district later this month, becoming the first Latino CEO within CPS.

Ald. Jim Gardiner (45th Ward) on Tuesday apologized on the floor of the Chicago City Council chambers for sending profane and misogynistic texts to a former aide about Ald. Tom Tunney (44th Ward) and two women who work at City Hall. 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot wants to employ a new tactic in the fight against crime and violence: sue gang members in civil court. But the plan is proving controversial.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot and interim Chicago Public Schools CEO Jose Torres on Thursday unveiled a new Chicago Families Forward Fund, which they say will distribute more than $9 million in assistance to CPS families before the end of the fall semester.

Members of the Chicago City Council unanimously endorsed a plan Friday to extend the city’s program that earmarks a portion of city contracts for firms owned by Black, Latino and Asian Chicagoans as well as women for another six years, without expanding its scope.

“No one should ever be denied access to city services because of their political opinion, whom they may have supported in an election,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said.

Government and airline officials gathered Thursday to mark the completion of a $6 billion modernization project to untangle the jumble of runways that for decades made flying into and out of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport feel like a downtown traffic jam at rush hour. 

A push by Mayor Lori Lightfoot to allow cannabis to be sold legally downtown cleared a key city panel on Wednesday, even though it won’t allow Michigan Avenue to become a “pot paradise.”

A final vote is set for Sept. 14 on an eight-year deal that offers more than 11,000 Chicago police officers annual average raises of approximately 2.5% — while imposing new rules on officers suspected of misconduct.

The Chicago City Council may be forced to confront the role its decades-old tradition of giving aldermen the final say over housing developments in their wards has played in creating a hyper-segregated city rife with racism and gentrification.