Former President Barack Obama’s foundation set a goal last summer of raising $1.6 billion between 2021 and 2026 to pay for construction of his presidential center and an endowment to sustain it for years to come. The foundation’s total revenue for 2021 of $160 million, almost all of it from fundraising, only gets it 10% of the way there.

The CTA’s array of challenges also come during a time when the agency is still struggling to rebuild its daily ridership. CTA President Dorval Carter said the agency’s providing about 800,000 rides on an average weekday, down from 1.5 million or so daily rides in 2019 but a substantial improvement from 2020 that’s still trending upward.

Ald. Ray Lopez filed an order Thursday to prohibit Tax Increment Financing (TIF) money to the Chicago Park District if any alteration is made to the name “Solider Field” or its monuments. Thursday marks 100 years since the groundbreaking for the Municipal Grant Park Stadium, later renamed Soldier Field on November 11, 1925, in honor of US soldiers who died in combat during World War I.

Chicago has so far spent the bulk of its COVID relief money on salaries and benefits, mostly for positions that existed before the pandemic hit. The district is an outlier, particularly among high-poverty districts, in how much of its COVID relief dollars has covered staffing costs: Out of about $871.9 million in spending the district reported to the state in early July, more than 85% went to pay and benefits — compared to 27% on average for other Illinois districts.

Robert Boik was summoned to CPD Supt. David Brown’s office and summarily fired in apparent retaliation after sending an email criticizing Brown’s decision to move 46 officers under Boik’s supervision to the Bureau of Patrol as part of a larger reorganization of the Chicago Police Department.

The driver shortage continues amid concerns over COVID-related learning losses and a nationwide teacher shortage as kids return to the classroom this fall. “Either their families were struggling to be able to get them to the school building themselves or students are arriving to school late,” one mother said. “We’ve even had many students who are asked to leave school early, so they can accommodate their bus route,” she continued. “That’s not how this is supposed to work.”

In negotiating the past two teacher contracts with CPS, CTU even required a moratorium on the growth of charter schools. The latest contract provides: “There will be a net zero increase in the number of Board authorized charter schools over the term of this agreement and the total number of students enrolled by the 2023-24 school year will not exceed 101% of the total student enrollment capacity as of school year 2019-20.”

Rising interest rates and a slowdown in spending have pushed a growing number of companies to lay off employees or pause hiring, moves that have historically led businesses to reduce office space. Job cuts among big tech companies—which drove much of the pre-COVID leasing boom in Chicago—threaten to diminish local office demand, driving office vacancy beyond its current record high and potentially setting back the recovery of the city from the public health crisis.

“The clock is now running for the publicly traded Rhode Island-based company to win license approval from the state, finalize its proposal with the city’s planning department and get its casino opened on an ambitious timeline. If all goes well, Chicago gamblers could be splitting aces and pulling slot levers in temporary quarters by next summer, but several hurdles remain.”

In June, 5,000 Chicago residents received the first of 12 monthly payments of $500, no strings attached, as part of the Chicago Resilient Communities Pilot. And Cook County has announced that its Promise Guaranteed Income Pilot will soon distribute $39 million to 3,250 low-income residents in monthly payments of $500 for two years. “Together these pilots represent the largest investment in unconditional cash assistance in a single metropolitan area in the United States,” according to the University of Chicago Inclusive Economy Lab, which plans to measure the impact of

The Guaranteed Income Pilot Program will provide $500 a month for 12 months on a prepaid debit card to 150 households using funds from the city, Northwestern University and the Evanston Community Foundation. Funding includes $700,000 from the American Rescue Plan. Northwestern will be using the program as a research tool to explore the impact of guaranteed income and the stories of those benefiting from the program.

Chicago heads into 2023 budget season with a $127.9 million gap to close, offering the market a key fiscal update as the buy-side heads to town for the city’s annual investors’ conference.

In 2016, Navy Pier officials asked City Council to approve an update to the pier’s planned development, authorizing, among other things, the construction of a transient marina on its north side, where boats could dock for the day. It was unanimously approved. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources all signed off. But one big agency held out — the city of Chicago’s Department of Transportation, citing “unspecified security concerns.”

The mayor responded to city council members’ claims of being kept in the dark about the planned summer event after a report revealed NASCAR would likely be more disruptive and less lucrative than Lollapalooza: “The level of excitement that I have seen from people, who frankly, were closeted NASCAR fans, all across our city, I think is off the charts.”

Mayor Lori Lightfoot claims the tax increase is needed to help the city’s poorly performing pension system, which has nearly $47 billion in debt, and prevent job layoffs and other cuts. “If the choice is nondelivery of city resources, a layoff of city workers, or