The two-year, $3.5 million pilot program represents the first time in Chicago’s history that the city’s emergency dispatch system will send someone other than a sworn and armed police officer to a call for help, officials said.

The Chicago police officer seen in a video grabbing a woman as she attempted to leave North Avenue Beach with her dog Saturday has been placed on administrative duties while the incident is investigated.

For the first time in 17 months, Chicago Public Schools students returned to the classroom for full-time, in-person learning Monday. At some schools, the mayor was there to welcome them back.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she was “deeply concerned” by the altercation between a white male officer and Nikkita Brown, a Black woman. The incident is now under investigation by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.

While Mayor Lori Lightfoot contends Chicago is “fiscally bouncing back,” Chicago’s top financial officials made it clear at a hearing Monday that the city’s finances are still mired in the deep hole created by the economic catastrophe of the coronavirus pandemic.

The lawsuit accuses both DoorDash and Grubhub of advertising delivery services from restaurants without their consent, damaging the restaurants’ reputations and forcing them to scramble to resolve complaints.

The mandate is likely to trigger a legal battle with the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 7, which represents the city’s 12,000 rank-and-file officers.

City officials will have to move cautiously 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 in the face of hostile courts, officials warned the Chicago City Council.

Ald. Carrie Austin’s resignation as chair of the City Council’s Committee on Contracting and Oversight Equity comes nine days after WTTW News reported that the committee spent more in 2020 than nearly all other City Council committees while meeting only three times.

The parent company of a now-shuttered metal recycler on the North Side will pay a fine as part of an agreement to resolve charges that the firm’s operation violated the Clean Air Act, Environmental Protection Agency officials announced Wednesday.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday declined to demand that indicted Ald. Carrie Austin (34th Ward) step down as chair of the City Council’s Contracting Oversight and Equity Committee or resign from the City Council. The committee is poised to convene a subject-matter hearing at 1 p.m. Tuesday.

City workers will “absolutely” have to be vaccinated against COVID-19, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Monday, promising a formal announcement in “days.”

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s picks for key city posts during her first two years in office failed to keep pace with the growing number of Latino Chicagoans, according to an analysis by WTTW News.

More than 45 days after Ald. Carrie Austin (34th Ward) was indicted on charges of bribery and lying to federal officials, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who picked Austin to lead the Committee on Contracting Oversight and Equity, has yet to call for Austin to relinquish her position. 

Chicago police said the girl and her 6-year-old sister were each shot multiple times by an unknown suspect in the 6200 block of West Grand Avenue around 2:50 p.m. Sunday. 

Before the pandemic, Chicago finance officials projected that the city would eliminate its longstanding imbalance between revenues and expenditures and reach structural balance in 2023. In all, the pandemic cost the city $1.7 billion, complicating those efforts.