Dozens were put on city-run buses to the Broadway Armory in Edgewater, among the first to be lodged there after it opened as a shelter for asylum-seekers Tuesday morning. Chicago sanitation workers threw away what the migrants left behind at the police station into a garbage truck — mattresses, children’s backpacks, shopping carts filled with food, rugs and clothing.

“As it stands, we are one of the most integrated communities in the nation,” Village Board President Vicki Scaman said at a recent meeting of the Oak Park board of trustees. “But we could lose that integration if we become less and less affordable.”

U.S. Postal Inspectors’ data shows 16,000 theft reports in Chicago between January 2020 and March 2023. They’ve investigated 77 and made 36 arrests. The data also showed USPS hadn’t made a single arrest for an arrow-key-related theft between 2020 and March 2023.

“If you look at what’s supporting the hotel industry right now, it’s leisure travel, it’s special events, concerts, Lollapalooza,” Illinois Hotel & Lodging Association spokesperson Michael Jacobson said. “They go a long way to driving individual weekends; but the real story is what hasn’t come back.” Conventions and business travel have yet to rebound to their pre-pandemic levels and the Illinois Hotel & Lodging Association predicts it could be at least a year before they do.

The 43rd Ward saw a 17 percent increase in robberies last year, according to Chicago Police data. The neighborhood also saw a mass shooting near the zoo in June. Since 2021, the police district has also seen a 21 percent decrease in assigned officers, resulting in a loss of 74 neighborhood cops.

Updated projections were provided during a budget hearing this week that incorporate the costs of pay increases to County employees. The projected budget gap for the upcoming fiscal year, FY2024, was initially estimated to be approximately $86 million based on the June preliminary forecast. The updated projections, however, have increased the anticipated FY2024 budget gap to $170 million.

About 300 people lived inside Wright College’s gym and atrium for the summer, and 400 stayed inside Daley College’s gym. It wasn’t immediately clear how many migrants have been moved to the Islamic center, which can house 500 to 600 people. The move was always part of the plan, since City Colleges students are set to return Aug. 24 and staff need to clean the building’s gym and atrium before then.

So far this year, the FBI reports armored truck robberies have tripled in the city of Chicago, compared to all of 2022.

“I mean, I don’t know what it’s going to take. I don’t know what kind of help we can get but it is a call on parents. It’s a call on aunts, grandmothers, grandfathers, uncles, cousins, friends,” Ald. Monique Scott said. “We got to love on each other a little bit more.”

In the past four years, nine principals have been removed pending discipline or investigations into “serious misconduct,” according to CPS’s response to a public records request. Of those, six are Black men — who are already scarce among principals. The remaining three are a Black woman, a white woman and a white man. CPS didn’t list several more principals because they were either interim, left while under investigation or were immediately fired.

Only about half of the driver positions needed to provide transportation to all students have been filled with three weeks to go until the first day of school. General education students in magnet or selective programs will not have transportation on the first day of school. CPS is providing free CTA Ventra cards valued at $35 a month for eligible students and a guardian for these students.

“The Chicago Police Department has 12,000 officers, the federal U.S. Attorneys and federal agents, we can’t replicate that,” said Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Morris Pasqual. “What we can do is essentially function as more or less a force multiplier. We can bring added resources, added money, added expertise, added personnel and just added effort to the effort.”

The unusual suggestion came from Lakeview Ald. Bennett Lawson following an hours-long “teen trend” near the Belmont CTA station in June. Many insurance policies carve out exceptions for mob action and civil unrest.

Video shows the victims were among a large group of teens, about 200, who had gathered there on the street next to Hamilton Park. Then, suddenly, shots were fired by unknown offenders.

Chicago Ald. Anthony Napolitano, also a former Chicago police officer, weighs in on one of more than 100 laws signed by Gov. JB Pritzker in one day: “Illinois is always trying to be the most progressive state that there is. Nothing is ever done for Illinois’ people; it’s always for the political agenda.”