“For the next few weeks, at least, it is here to stay,” Dr. Allison Arwady said. “We’re a little over 300 cases right now, so when we’re halfway in that substantial mark, we will recommend taking them off.”

“From the flawed onboarding process, training and retention of new hires, to the erratic and unpredictable operations, the Chicago post office is dysfunctional at best,” Mack Julion of the National Association of Letter Carriers said at Friday’s hearing.

“The City of Chicago’s four pension funds are severely underfunded. A combination of statutory underfunding, benefit enhancements, investment losses, optimistic assumptions and other long-term problems have all contributed to their abysmal financial condition.“

In museum-speak, a docent is a trained volunteer who greets visitors and guides them through the collection, filling in details of the artists’ lives, speaking to the visual elements of the work on display and adding art-history context. The Art Institute used to have more than 100 docents, 82 of them active, until Veronica Stein, an executive director of learning and engagement, sent a Sept. 3 email canning all of them. In gratitude for their long, unpaid service—averaging 15 years each—the Art Institute offered the involuntarily retired guides a two-year free pass to the museum.

In “zombie foreclosures,” lenders begin foreclosure proceedings against homeowners but don’t follow through because they want to avoid the financial responsibility that comes with holding title to the property — costs that often exceed the value.