In a confidential memorandum delivered to Johnson’s top aides July 18 by the former commissioner of the Department of Housing, Marisa Novara, and the former commissioner of the Department of Planning & Development, Maurice Cox, Johnson was urged to borrow $1.25 billion in anticipation of those TIF districts going offline. The move would be a remarkable shift in how the city pays for and subsidizes development projects. The bond issuance would begin the process of Chicago weaning itself off the special tax districts created in the last three decades to incentivize development.

The Tinley Park village board Tuesday adopted an ordinance that grants police the power to ticket bus operators or impound their vehicles if drivers attempt to make an unscheduled stop and unload passengers. The new ordinance also requires bus companies to provide background checks of their passengers.

“Dozens of sick people, including children, denied analgesics and other palliative measures,” wrote Annie Gomberg, with the city’s Police Station Response Team. “If a resident needs medical help, they are on their own with no advice other than to call 911, and told that it will ‘cost them a lot of money’ to use an ambulance and go to a hospital as a deterrent. I thought we were paying for doctors and nurses?”

“How do you take away something that we know is successful?” state Rep. LaShawn Ford asked. “We have students that have done well at Whitney Young. We have students who have done well at Walter Payton. We have students who do well at these schools, and to blow it up, it could be what you call chaotic.”

“What needs to happen in Chicago is Brandon Johnson needs to have the backbone to reverse the sanctuary city policy right now,” said Tio Hardiman of Violence Interrupters. “We need to make sure we do not take any more migrants in because we are not prepared to provide the proper services to the migrants. Look at the child who died and others who are becoming ill.”

Bicyclists are nearly always “permitted” users of the road — but are only “intended” users of the road when bike lanes or signage are present, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled last week. That distinction means the city of Chicago is not liable for damages sustained by a bicyclist who was injured after he hit a pothole on a city street that had no such signage.

The flight originated in El Paso, Texas, and records link the plane’s tail number to the Texas Division of Emergency Management, according to the police log of the incident. The flight is also an indication that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is escalating efforts to damage President Joe Biden’s chances for reelection and divide Democratic voters.

“These schools offer the best students the best resources and produce outstanding results. The rest of Chicago Public Schools produce much less than excellence.”

The database includes cumulative payments for costs associated with the city’s New Arrival Mission and breaks down expenses by vendor and payment amount, dating back to October 2022. The city says it will update the portal on the 10th of each month.

A new ordinance ensures that Henyard continues to receive her $224,000 a year salary as township supervisor. But if a non-incumbent becomes supervisor—in other words, if someone challenges Henyard and beats her—the salary for that position drops to just $25,000 a year, a pay cut of nearly 90%.

Abbott’s Press Secretary Andrew Mahaleris said that Mayor Brandon Johnson is “flat out lying…If he truly cared about these migrants, he would stop spreading falsehoods and complaining about a few thousand migrants being bused into his sanctuary city. Instead, Mayor Johnson should call on President Biden to take immediate action to secure the border — something the President continues failing to do.”

Data shows that in 2019, when postal police patrols were still allowed, there were eight reported letter carrier robberies in Chicago. Last year, the number increased 300 percent to 32, data shows.

Theo Anderson, researcher and writer specializing in business case studies and Josh Salzmann, professor of U.S. history at Northeastern Illinois: Over the coming decades, the number of Americans fleeing climate-change driven droughts, fires, floods, hurricanes and water shortages will likely exceed that of the Great Migration by a wide margin. 13 million Americans will be displaced by sea-level rise alone. While many counties across the Sun Belt could lose more than a third of their GDP from the effects of climate change, the Great Lakes region will see migration of people

Since the venue opened Sept. 9, the temporary casino has brought in between $694,913 and $778,964 per month in local tax revenue, according to Illinois Gaming Board data, about a quarter of what it needs to generate to keep up with budget projections, and a fifth of Bally’s more ambitious target.

American Federation for Children senior fellow Denisha Allen said, “Students do not have the freedom to move about in government schools, and they never will, and so this move by the Chicago mayor to increase, quote-unquote, options in a school, that school district that’s already failing students, it’s really a facade. We need to blow up the entire system, give that money directly to parents, and allow them to choose the best school for their kid to get them out of these schools, like the head of the teachers’ union did in Chicago.”

“We stepped up when nobody else was willing, and I am thankful to Gage Park for bearing with us in that moment, but now it’s everyone else’s turn to do the same,” said Ald. Ray Lopez. One neighbor said he’s witnessed drug deals, prostitution, littering, and more around the fieldhouse-turned-migrant-shelter, and he’s afraid that if he goes away for a weekend somebody will break into the empty house.

Froylan Jimenez, a civics teacher at John Hancock College Prep High School in Chicago and a member of the Chicago Teachers Union: “Some say competition in education is synonymous with inequity and school choice is inherently flawed. That’s extreme. It is highly possible for Chicago Public Schools to improve the admissions process and have more diversity at selective-enrollment schools, strengthen the funding and quality of neighborhood schools, and retain charter schools that are high-functioning and provide Chicago’s youths a sound education.