One staffer told the Office of Inspector General Joseph Ferguson that to determine if an investigative file was complete, they would simply look to see if it seemed thick enough — and if it was too thin, they would search digital records, according to the report.

“I’m not here to attack you. I’m not here to break into your store,” Porter said she told Frank and Gene Charness. “What I will do is stand in front of this store and guard this store while you take a break.”

The call is not only for 100% black contracts, but jobs as well. “There are plenty of qualified black tradesmen out here. They just have not been afforded the opportunities to get into labor unions,” said John Worthy, president of Skilled Tradesmen Local 46.

Wednesday brought another hit to Chicago’s police department. The City’s Inspector General put out a scathing report on how helter-skelter CPD record-keeping is, finding the police department is even “unable to effectively determine what records exist.”

Adding to the confusion, the governor dismantled the COVID-19 hospital inside the McCormick Place on May 1 to allow for conventions to resume in July, if able.

Approximately 83,000 people applied for $1,000 grants during the program’s first round, announced in March, but only 2,000 were selected via a lottery in April.

Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau said Pritzker’s plan is based off “weird science” and has used an “asinine display of logic” in his guidance to restart the state after COVID-19’s peak in a video message posted to the Village’s YouTube page.

Since the fund was announced in April, more than 8,000 small businesses, nonprofits, and independent contractors have reached out about it, Preckwinkle’s office said.

On April 23, Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued an executive order discouraging evictions during the stay-at-home shutdown triggered by the pandemic. Lightfoot’s so-called eviction “moratorium” would remain in place 60 days after expiration of the governor’s executive order.

As of Tuesday afternoon, 4,190 physicists, scientists and academics have signed on to the work shutdown. The #Strike4Black Lives joins another global academic work stoppage — #ShutDownSTEM and #ShutDownAcademia — to call out systemic racism in tech and research communities. Neither strike will include those working on ending the coronavirus pandemic.

Lightfoot did not directly accuse Lopez of leaking the recordings, but clearly suggested he was behind it. “Shame on him. Shame on him. That’s what I say,”

While funding for the Chicago Police Department has steadily increased over time, the number of violent crimes committed in the city has fallen dramatically since its peak in the early 1990s. While funding for the Chicago Police Department has steadily increased over time, the number of violent crimes committed in the city has fallen dramatically since its peak in the early 1990s.

$1,000 in cash assistance from the new Chicago Resiliency Fund for undocumented immigrants, families with mixed immigration status, college students living in poverty, and people recently released from prison.

One staff member said, “We are not labor organizers. Our real passion is science and education. We’re just doing what we can to try to save some of our colleagues.”

“Given Metra’s decline in ridership and revenue because of COVID-19, when and if that stimulus money arrives we would hope that the Metra’s leaders would dedicate our hard-earned tax money toward keeping the operation running and not consider using it to buy rolling stock from a company owned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — even though that might be permitted under federal guidelines.”

“I think you’re 100 percent full of s—, is what I think,” Lightfoot responded. “If you think we were not ready and we stood by and let the neighborhood go up, there is nothing intelligent that I can say to you… I understand that you want to preen.”

Tuesday, she was asked how that differed from a Chicago Police officer’s obscene gesture that got him stripped of his police powers. Images of the gesture were widely seen on social media.

“I think there’s a big difference,” Lightfoot said. “First of all, I’m a public official and I coded my words. This officer is sworn to serve and protect the community.

“And in a heated circumstance, no doubt, he went against his training.”

The announcement comes a few days after the city’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability said it was recommending that another officer captured on video using a homophobic slur be placed on administrative duty or relieved temporarily of his police powers during its investigation.

“I haven’t seen s–t like this before,” Lightfoot said on the call. “The number of places all over the South and West sides in particular that have been hit today has just been off the charts. Literally hundreds, if not thousands, of locations. Big stores, small stores, strip malls, many corner places, it is all over the city.”

City officials said that according to federal guidance, the CARES Act grant funding must be directed to COVID-related eligible costs, which includes both immediate health expenses and programs that provide services that many residents need as a result of the pandemic’s economic impact.

She said, “We absolutely have to have reform and accountability of our Police Department, but equally imperative and urgent is the absolute necessity of investing in communities.”