Spurred by the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Ald. Gilbert Villegas introduced the measure earlier this year. A revised measure, which was unanimously endorsed by the Contracting Oversight and Equity Committee on Monday, added a ban on contracts with those convicted of hate crimes. Current city law prohibits those charged with or convicted of a felony from contracting with the city in addition to those convicted of misdemeanor bribery, attempted bribery, theft, perjury or related offenses.

It is the second time in six months that alderpeople have called an emergency meeting of the City Council to publicly push back against Lightfoot’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The alderpeople demanded the session one day after the deadline for Chicago Police Department members to get at least the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

“We’re not doing mass firings today, which is what I think a lot of folks have been propagating. That’s not going to happen,” said Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

If you’re on the hunt for an apartment in downtown Chicago this spring, brace yourself for some sticker shock. The net rent at high-end, or Class A, apartment buildings rose 32% last year, while the net rent at less-expensive Class B properties jumped 34%, according to the Chicago office of Integra Realty Resources, a consulting and appraisal firm. After plunging in 2020, rents rebounded from a low base, but they have recovered everything they lost and even hit new highs.

As of late 2021, the City of Chicago has assisted more than 8,600 households with rent and utility payments through ERAP funds. The average rental assistance payment is $8,900, and the average utility assistance is $800 per applicant. However, landlords have complained that the Rent Relief program is bogged down in bureaucratic red tape.

The attorney general’s office, which is overseeing the city’s compliance with the consent decree alongside a federal monitor, urged the police department to avoid using “crude performance measures” that exclude “the quality of interactions” and risk “having officers treat community members as statistics to be collected, and not as human beings with problems, concerns and needs.”

Sophia Ramos, mother of a 4-year-old at Blair Early Childhood Center, said she was “really happy that they’ve gone mask optional. I was really frustrated with the teachers union and not having a voice in whether or not to mask my child.”

Most city employees can appeal if they are terminated, either to the city’s Human Resources Board or an arbitrator. Chicago Police officers can only be terminated on the recommendation of Chicago Police Supt. David Brown and a vote of the Chicago Police Board.

“We will continue to send all the aid that we can,” said Mayor Lightfoot.

“La Salle is full of distinguished buildings, with the street seeming to cut through cliffs of limestone and terra cotta that stop at the Chicago Board of Trade Building at Jackson Boulevard. It’s a classic urban vista. But it’s facing capitalism’s version of climate change. Business anchors such as BMO Harris and Bank of America are moving elsewhere downtown, drawn to high-rise views and naming rights on buildings. Financial exchanges don’t draw physical crowds of traders anymore.”

Among them, seven people were seriously wounded in a mass shooting Sunday afternoon in South Chicago.