Chief Executive Officer Andy Gloor said that Chicago had some 60 cranes in the air in 2017 and 2018 when Rahm Emanuel was mayor. That dropped to an average 11 or 12 during the Lightfoot administration.

In the 41st Ward on the Northwest Side, Johnson faces more of a challenge to win over constituents; It had the most votes for his challenger, Paul Vallas. Voter Mary Bolger, a 30-year resident, wants “equal division around the whole city. The city is not just one area, one neighborhood, one section. We’re all Chicago.”

“Here’s where I’m going with this, just so we’re clear,” Judge Maryam Ahmad told the prosecutor. “These are individuals who’ve not been in the country very long. You’re now telling me that they were arrested at Macy’s, committing a felony retail theft. So the court wants some idea of who is in front of me. Additionally, as the public defender just indicated, one person has already indicated he’s using another name. So, who are these people? Who are these individuals?”

“Building owners are no doubt panicking as the value of their real estate continues to plummet, as are those affected by all the lost tax revenue. The government, in turn, is doing what the government does best: swooping in to throw money at a problem it created in the first place.”

Lightfoot acknowledged that her successor is even more left-wing than herself even as she said that Republicans had conspired to end her career. “Unfortunately the people who were jumping on the bandwagon of a Republican posing like a Democrat now got a democratic socialist as the mayor, so be careful what you wish for,” she remarked.

“As (Ken) Griffin’s exit from Chicago shows, it’s not just high taxes that are driving people out of cities. There are other costs—moral, social, and cultural—when you create communities that spurn property rights and celebrate looting.”

While the Bears work on their financing — including an appeal of Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi’s reassessment of the 326-acre property — Village Manager Randy Recklaus said the village and its consultants await further information so they can start their own studies on things like traffic. “We are just not at a point where we can say exactly what the impact on our residents will be.”

Mauro Glorioso sued Sun-Times Media Holdings and reporter Tim Novak in January 2021, regarding articles from February and October 2020 examining a November 2019 anonymous whistleblower complaint lodged with the Illinois Office of Executive Inspector General in regard to the 2011 Trump Tower assessment.

“[The Bears] can ask for whatever they want,” Mayor Tom Hayes said while responding to a public comment on whether and how tax dollars would support the project. “But it will be subject to discussion and public input and a vote by somebody.”

Around 3,100 migrants are in temporary shelters, relying on donated clothes and food as Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson inherits the crisis – but he hasn’t offered up a plan either. This week, alderpeople blasted Chicago’s response, saying migrants are living in “inhumane” conditions due to a series of failures from the country’s immigration system to decisions

For the study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, more than 2,000 Chicagoans were tracked for 25 years. The average age for witnessing a shooting was just 14 years old.

Across the city, Chicago residents have varied perspectives on policing, but agree on the need for change. “Over 90 percent of the youth gun violence victims are no longer enrolled in school at the time when they become victims, so one area that we can focus on is really directly engaging those young people,” said Roseanna Ander, of the University of Chicago Crime Lab.

Chicago leaders say they are working on plans to accommodate the expected influx, but haven’t released many details.

Wrote Jason Poje, a long-time felony trial attorney for the Cook County states attorney’s office: “My partners, our Victim/Witness advocates, our Investigators, our support staff, the police officers and detectives, time after time I see each of you putting everything you have into helping people we encounter on the worst days of their lives…And yet, I’m leaving. Why could that be? The simple fact is that this State and County have set themselves on a course to disaster. And the worst part is that the agency for whom I work has backed literally every policy change that had the predicable,

“Northwestern University has long been a school hostile to free speech. My alma mater was ranked 197 out of 203 universities for free speech in a major survey by FIRE…. This month showed why Northwestern developed a reputation for speech intolerance and a lack of ideological diversity. Northwestern University’s Associated Student Government suspended the funding for the College Republicans due to objections to posters for an event featuring writer and critical race theory critic James Lindsay.”

Johnson has forged a compromise to shrink the number of City Council committees from 28 to 20 and replace Finance Committee Chairman Scott Waguespack with Ald. Pat Dowell, whose endorsement of Johnson was a turning point of his mayoral campaign.