“Over the years, the Civic Federation has repeatedly advocated for cutting the 50-member City Council in half, only to have alderpersons protect their fiefdoms, aided by acquiescence from Chicago mayors who chose the political path of least resistance…But Sarah Wetmore, the federation’s acting president, believes the election of Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s most progressive mayor ever, along with a younger, more liberal Council, has created a host of reform opportunities once thought politically impossible.”

In a speech where he got fired up at times, Mayor Brandon Johnson stressed the need for city and business led investments to help transform communities and make Chicago safer. “Shame on a society that believes only some people should be invested in, shame on a society that will write off the child because of their past or because of the trauma that they are experiencing,” he said.

A “working group” made up of city, state, and labor officials tasked by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson with finding long-term funding and structural fixes to pension funding strains held its first meeting this week with a fall legislative veto session the target for initial action.

Union officials and Democratic politicians but no one from the business community or tax watchdogs.

While 35-year-old Carlishia Hood stood at the order counter, 32-year-old Jeremy Brown arrived at the restaurant, and the two began arguing. During the altercation, Hood texted her son outside and pointed at Brown. After the first punch, Hood’s son drew her firearm from his hoodie and shot Brown in the back.

The district said proposed cuts were primarily driven by significant enrollment losses. But Dulce Arroyo, a community organizer and former CPS teacher, said enrollment losses should be taken as a sign of needing more support, not less. “Instead of keeping schools fully staffed and funded and making them safe spaces for these committees, the board continues to take away funds and resources. It makes zero sense that the district wants stellar enrollment rates, while it also takes more funds and resources away every year.”

Wednesday the state Board of Elections discussed asking either the Illinois attorney general’s office or the Cook County state’s attorney’s office to investigate the missing money. Instead, the elections board told staff members to continue what’s now been an eight-month investigation into what happened with $375,000 in campaign contributions that Burnett’s campaign fund has reported putting into investment accounts at banks since 1999.

Cook County expects to head into next year with a nearly $86 million budget gap and is still struggling to fill around 4,000 vacant jobs. While the estimated budget hole is larger than the $18.2 million gap projected this time last year, it is one of the county’s smallest deficits in the last decade.

Meanwhile Northwest Side Alderman Gilbert Villegas said he wants to sit down with officials from the city’s four employee pension funds to suggest they invest in local development projects. “Would get projects finally going- would allow for jobs to be created…again, tax revenue being created,” he explained. “Those are things that we want to continue to see going on. We need that positive activity to occur.”

“My experience shows how the Chicago Principles work in practice. If I were at a different school, I might have been railroaded or officially denounced. Some of my classmates complained to the university’s DEI bureaucracy and communications team, but they were rebuffed. Administrators here consistently protect free speech, so students can write whatever they want without winding up in university discipline purgatory.”

The latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates, released Thursday, indicate Black residents are continuing to leave many urban centers in the North and elsewhere, adding to decades of decline. These losses have hit many major cities with historically large Black populations, including Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Oakland, Calif.

Among the unknowns: the cost of a recent rule change involving reimbursements for immigrants enrolled in a state insurance plan, and the ongoing expense of caring for recently arrived asylum-seekers not eligible for insurance. Cook County officials estimate they spend roughly $1.8 million a month to care for asylum-seekers at CCH’s Northwest Side clinic and at Stroger Hospital, but that varies based on the volume of new arrivals.