Staffing remains a major concern, Pedro Martinez said, and declining enrollment is a key challenge. But he said he also sees an opportunity to explore innovative models for the district’s smallest schools — for example, as career high schools focused on

Police said someone stole a car and parked it in front of Ford’s garage before setting it on fire.

No matter the outcome of the vote, the advancement to the House of Delegates represents a positive step in negotiations. CPS and CTU came nowhere near an agreement this time last year, leaving themselves open to a major dispute in the winter when the highly contagious Omicron variant of COVID-19 took over the city. If the union accepts the offer, the development would represent a major first win for CTU President Stacy Davis Gates.

A recent count found 145 officers assigned to the transit detail; That’s about 90 fewer than before the pandemic. And through the end of July, there were 488 attacks on Chicago’s transit system – the highest number since 2011. At the same time, ridership has been cut in half by COVID.

According to state law, individuals are barred from running if they’ve been convicted of bribery, perjury, an “infamous crime” or a felony. But there’s a history of candidates with felony convictions being cleared to run for office after receiving pardons, a “restoration of rights” from the governor or completing conditions of a plea agreement.

Investors and analysts gave Chicago high marks for its use of federal COVID-19 relief and noted concrete signs of fiscal progress, but crime, long-term return-to-work trends, and debt pose headwinds to the upward momentum. The assessment came from market participants who attended the annual Chicago Investors Conference, launched a decade ago by former Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration and continued by his successor Lori Lightfoot.

What’s behind this sudden, seemingly dramatic improvement in the city’s financial condition? According to Lightfoot, the sunny 2023 outlook reflects her success in shoring up Chicago’s fiscal foundation for the long run. A more accurate description would call the forecast a mixture of helpful short-term factors and election-year hopium. Lightfoot and the aldermen who will approve or reject her budget are all up for re-election next year.

The board’s advisory opinion cites a similar decision in 2009 by the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board and a Los Angeles law that permits elected officials to use municipal vehicles for both official and personal purposes within Los Angeles County.

“We’ve already seen some stations going under the $3 a gallon mark,” said Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst at gasbuddy.com. It’s good news for southern states like Texas and Oklahoma; In Chicago, he said, there has been a recent decline in the city and its suburbs but many stations are moving the opposite way, going up to $4.59 a gallon.

Lead by Minneapolis, the list of bottom 10 cities struggling to recover is rounded out by San Francisco (-45.9%), Portland (-45.2%), Seattle (-40.8%), Philadelphia (-39.2%), New York City (-37.9%), St. Louis (-28.2%), Washington D.C. (-27.3%), Baltimore (-24.9%) and Chicago (-22.8%).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that students can pursue a lawsuit against Loyola University Chicago for failing to refund in-person fees. The plaintiffs allege that students paid 265% more in tuition than their already-online peers after being forced to learn remotely. When Loyola’s campus closed, students also were not issued a refund for parking permits, according to the lawsuit.

One of the big undercovered stories of the year is the flight of current and potential officers from police forces across the country. A case study is what’s happening in Evanston, Ill. The citizens of Evanston can thank the politicians they elected when their homes are robbed and nobody responds.

Prior to the pandemic, there were an estimated 58,000 people experiencing some form of housing instability in Chicago. Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Recovery Plan directed $1 billion to create two dozen affordable housing developments in 20 city communities. That’s the largest investment in affordable housing in the city’s history. The city is also using funds to acquire unused hotels and convert them to shelters.

That festivals are temporary can heighten conflict. “Because music festivals aren’t brick-and-mortar establishments, they do have a kind of ephemeral aspect to them,” said sociologist Jonathan R. Wynn. “They fly in, set up shop, bring in tourism dollars, then move on.” Since 2010, Lollapalooza has generated more than $2 billion in revenue for Chicago, including $305 million in 2021.