Denisha Allen, founder of Black Minds Matter and senior fellow at the American Federation for Children: Every lawmaker in Chicago should be on notice. Faith in public schools and the Chicago Teachers Union is waning, while the need for education freedom increases. Chicago public schools are at a critical juncture, confronting hard truths about the Chicago Teachers’ Union and its role pushing policies that harm education, particularly that of Black students.

“These schools have enhanced the quality of life in Chicago for countless students and families and have become a hub of community in neighborhoods across the city. They have also helped make Chicago Public Schools an attractive option for parents who might otherwise seek greener pastures beyond the city limits. The Board of Education should think carefully before dismantling these prime civic assets.”

Voters in Evanston will see a new type of ballot in the city’s next local election that will allow them to rank candidates from highest to lowest preference. The method, called ranked choice voting, is designed to ensure that a candidate wins with a majority of voters. It also attempts to solve the conflict posed by third-party spoiler candidates.

Johnson said during his campaign that “a Johnson administration would not end selective enrollment at CPS schools.” Now, his board of education is pushing forward a plan to end selective enrollment and force students to attend their neighborhood schools.

Kwame Opam now deputy managing editor for news at the Sun-Times and and previously the strategy and operations deputy for the breaking news teams at The New York Times: “I’ve been inculcated in the profession’s articles of faith. believe in comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, telling truth to power, and finding beauty and relief in a good yarn…. I’m lucky. Seriously, I can’t tell you how lucky I am. I’m up to my ears in good writing about Chicago and surrounded by journalists committed to telling its story every day.

Under a new law in 2024, nearly all workers in the state of Illinois will officially be guaranteed at least one week of paid leave, but things are different for those who live in Chicago and Cook County.

“The Chicago Department of Public Health has a team dedicated to detecting and responding to reportable communicable diseases in shelters and other congregate settings. Cases of varicella have been reported in new arrivals, and in response the team has consulted with shelter managers and other facilities to provide infection control guidance,” the statement said.

In the past decade, the private Illinois school has created nearly 400 new administrative and support staff positions while also adopting a policy to hire more “diverse” staff. Meanwhile, its student enrollment numbers remained relatively stagnant.

“Nothing illustrates the perversity of the ‘equity’ agenda and its hostility toward the exceptional and exemplary quite like progressive officials’ efforts to cut overachievers down to size for the imagined benefit of everyone else. Chicago’s chief social engineer, Mayor Brandon Johnson, is only the latest to join that crusade.”

A city ordinance that passed on Wednesday allows for Johnson to impound and tow buses that don’t deliver asylum seekers to designated “landing zones.” Johnson said the ordinance is in response to actions at the U.S. southern border.

A LaSalle Street office landlord seeking taxpayer help converting part of its building into apartments has taken a step toward doing it without city subsidies or affordable units, a sign of impatience with the city’s LaSalle Street Reimagined initiative while Mayor Brandon Johnson waffles over his support for the program. A joint venture of Corebridge Financial and Chicago developer Golub is seeking permission to convert part of the office building at 30 N. LaSalle St. into 349 apartments, according to a zoning application introduced

The Chicago Association of Realtors reported that 5,352 city homes were listed for sale as of Dec. 2. That’s down nearly 25% from the same time a year ago and the lowest figure in the association’s records, which go back to January 2007.

As university presidents across the country face criticism over comments and responses following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, University of Chicago President Paul Alivisatos has largely stayed out of the public fray. Alivisatos did not issue a school statement or offer public comment following the attacks — a standstill tactic that has landed other leaders in hot water — but instead leaned on the school’s practice of institutional neutrality, often referred to as the “Chicago Principles.”

The turnover at the top of World Business Chicago highlights the growing chasm between the mayor and business leaders who are growing increasingly concerned that the city isn’t on the right track when it comes to economic development — an activity that should be Job No. 1 for any mayor, even this one.

The head of communications and the chief audience officer at Chicago Public Media announced today they are stepping down. The announcement of Berger and LeCompte’s departure comes a week after Chicago Public Media CEO Matt Moog announced he would be stepping down to “return to his roots as a tech entrepreneur.” After Moog announced he would leave after CPM finds a new CEO, it was revealed that union leadership at both the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ, which are owned by Chicago Public Media, sought an investigation into allegations of a “hostile

The Chicago Teachers Union made another move to silence its critics after the House of Delegates voted in favor of the “Resolution to

“Teachers,” he says, “make your classroom LGTBQ+ inclusive from the very first day. This is tip No. 8.”

The delegates voted overwhelmingly in support of a letter demanding a Ceasefire in Israel’s assault on Gaza.

President Barack Obama granted executive clemency to more than 1,900 federal prisoners, a record. Jesse Webster made the most of his freedom. Three others are back in jail.

Burke: “Well, maybe if they don’t have any access to the property because the driveway isn’t legal, they might get the message.”

The city of Chicago is adding impoundment to its list of penalties on buses carrying migrants into the city that don’t obey set rules on where and when to drop them off.

It’s rare that the City Council would make changes to an ordinance so soon after it was approved, but the amendments reflect the concerns expressed by moderate members of the Council and the Black Caucus’ efforts to not severely impact small businesses in their wards.

Liberal lawmakers in Chicago are furious with how Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson has responded to tens of thousands of immigrants who have descended on the city after illegally crossing the border and are calling for the resignations of more than half a dozen city officials.

John Busch, Chicago-based tech entrepreneur and former fellow at World Business Chicago: First, we must realize as a business and civic community that we are involved in competition. The biggest winners of this trend are not stakeholder groups in Chicago, but the other cities vying for our momentum in Indianapolis, Columbus, Nashville, Austin and Miami. Second, all the city’s stakeholder groups exist within the same ecosystem.

The fund and its trustees decided to invest in private credit following results of a study spurred by changing expectations for returns from higher interest rates and inflation, Fernando Vinzons, chief investment officer for the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund, said in an emailed statement Monday. The future allocation, with no exact deadline, of $300 million to $350 million will represent about 3% of the fund’s assets.

213 W. Institute Place, a vintage seven-story loft office building in River North just sold for 61% less than was paid for the building in 2017. It’s another data point illustrating the decimated value of office buildings as companies shedding office space have driven up vacancy and as higher borrowing costs have whittled the pool of prospective buyers. Many office properties in the heart of the city are now worth less than the mortgages tied to them, fueling a historic wave of distress.

Mark Tebbe, who has led WBC’s efforts to attract and retain startup and technology companies since 2014, plans to step down as chair of its innovation and technology council by mid-May. “I don’t see the focus on the business community that I have seen with other mayors,” said Tebbe, who has worked for three Chicago mayors during his tenure at World Business Chicago in an unpaid role. “The behind-the-scenes work to make (economic development) happen just hasn’t been demonstrated.”

Ald. Jeanette Taylor, 20th, responded “absolutely not” on Monday when asked if she regrets any of the her comments last week. Then, she said, “I felt like we’re not ready and it’s showing out in the wash…. We’re pretending like now we got the power, let us show you how it’s supposed to be done, and we look real stupid right now…. We were not ready because we haven’t been in government long enough to know how the government really runs. . . .You still have daddy Daley’s people still in these committees, still in these departments, so we’ve got

“American Airlines and United Airlines want Chicago O’Hare’s expansion that they signed off on in 2018 slowed down – or stopped – as the project runs $1.5 billion over budget. Somehow the carriers are surprised that a massive public infrastructure project, in Chicago no less, is spending far more than originally projected? And in fact it’s only just the ‘next phase’ where a 24% projected cost overrun totals $1.5 billion more than expected. That’s before construction on the new terminal even starts! The project’s total cost has grown from $8.7 billion to a projected $12.1 billion. So

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters marched through the streets of downtown Chicago on Saturday afternoon. The demonstration was organized by the U.S. Palestinian Community Network and the Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine.

Special prosecutors Maria McCarthy and Fabio Valenti recently stood before Will County Judge Donald Carlson arguing that their client, former Chicago Police Detective Kriston Kato, was the victim of a renegade, utterly illegal institution created by one of the most corrupt state legislatures in the country. The attorneys argued in a motion that a state agency created in 2009, the Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission (TIRC), was an unconstitutional infringement on the judiciary, an argument that, if embraced by the courts, could have far reaching impact on Illinois.

“Laws need to be enforced at the border,” Jackson said, and “more resources” are required for cities like Chicago. Meanwhile, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson had a novel approach to accepting responsibility for the crisis. He didn’t. Instead, he blamed “right-wing extremists” who want to “bring slavery back” and “refuse to accept the outcome of the Civil War.”

A federal law enforcement agency and Chicago’s inspector general are looking into the process by which Bally’s won the Chicago casino license, according to people familiar with the matter. Sources, including one who has been interviewed in the matter, say a second, parallel inquiry is being conducted by Chicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg.

Dozens of south suburban residents are furious and say they may lose their homes. “I’m leaving, I’m gone and going to Indiana,” said Louise Markasovic, whose assessment went up 41 percent.

Johnson: “Everyone knows that the right-wing extremism in this country has targetted Democratically-ran cities and quite frankly, they’ve been very intentional about going after Democratically-ran cities that are led by people of color…. They’re still mad that a black man is free in this country. This is nothing new.”

Margarito Flores developed a U.S. delivery platform for drugs. Now he advises police officers on dismantling gangs that operate like criminal versions of Amazon.

‘What we’ve seen is a very raggedy form of right-wing extremism,’ the woke Mayor said. ‘Everyone knows that the right-wing extremism in this country has targeted democratically run cities and quite frankly and they have been quite intentional about going after democratically ran cities that are led by people of color.’

While the city has made some important progress on the expenditure side, the new mayor’s first budget didn’t make similar strides on the revenue side, according to Fitch Ratings, which upgraded Chicago’s general obligation debt to BBB-plus from BBB in October. For example, the budget didn’t include raising the property tax levy to account for inflation, which had been included under the previous administration. Fitch’s upgrade, which didn’t hinge on passage of the budget, cited “a decline in the city’s long-term liability burden stemming from steady growth in the economic resource base and improved debt management practices,” including making advance

Nearly 200 Black and Latino students at Evanston Township High School signed up this year for math classes and a writing seminar intended for students of the same race, taught by a teacher of color. These optional so-called affinity classes are designed to address the achievement gap by making students feel more comfortable in class, district leaders have said, particularly in Advanced Placement courses that historically have enrolled few Black and Latino students.

Escalating tensions over the war between Israel and Hamas are disrupting the city and dividing Democrats as they prepare to show unity in nominating the president to a second term next summer. Illinois’ congressional delegation is divided, too. All but two members <a class=" js-tealium-tracking " href="https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2023528" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-tracking="mpos=&mid=&lindex=&lcol=" aria-label="supported a resolution on Israel’s right to defend

“If we have interest earned to help balance the budget, I don’t know why we’re not doing that,” Lenert said. The budget already planned for the use of about $10 million of savings before deciding to forego the tax hike. Both decisions go against the advice of Kane County CFO Kathy Hopkinson and a policy the board adopted earlier in the year to either cut spending or find new revenue sources to balance the budget.

According to the Illinois Report Card, Dyett, Goode, Curie and Prosser have chronic absentee rates of 70%, 49%, 69% and 64%, respectively. Even prestigious schools like Northside College Prep and Payton College Prep have unacceptable chronic absenteeism of 25%.

A venture led by Antheus Capital, a major South Side multifamily owner, earlier this month paid $59 million for Aspire Residences, a 24-story, 275-unit high-rise at 2111 S. Wabash Ave. that opened in 2020, according to Cook County property records. Draper & Kramer took out a $69 million construction loan to build the apartment complex, Crain’s reported in 2019.

“The owner of the building at 111 W. Jackson Blvd. defaulted on its $105 million mortgage tied to the property by failing to make loan payments since May…. It’s another addition to the long list of downtown office buildings poised to be seized by lenders as weak demand for offices and a surge in borrowing costs have pummeled property values.”

Glencoe property taxpayers will see a 5.7% rate hike. Over in Wilmette, the property tax levy is set to go up 2.94%. According to New Trier High School Associate Superintendent Christopher Johnson said existing property taxpayers would face a 5% increase. He said he has not calculated the impact for individual property owners but added the high school represents approximately a quarter of the overall property tax bill throughout New Trier Township.

So it was somewhat reassuring to see Gov. J.B. Pritzker step in with promises of significant aid to prop up Mayor Brandon Johnson’s haphazard handling of this human tide.

“They try to convince us you can turn life insurance into an investment instead of just insurance, but in the end, you get both subpar insurance and subpar investments.” The premiums are expensive, and the cost of whole life insurance tends to be much higher than term life insurance .So why would the CTU send out an email that would only benefit 1 percent of its members? Contributions to CTU’s PAC, apparently.

Many of the desks at Chicago Academy High School sat empty during the last period of classes Thursday, as about 250 students — half of the student body — walked out to demand a cease-fire in solidarity with the children of Gaza. Palestinian American pupils organized the Chicago Public Schools-sanctioned walkout, leading chants as students marched around the predominantly Latinx school in Dunning on the Northwest Side before returning for the last 30 minutes of classes.

Samir Mayekar, managing director of the Polsky Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago: “We are living in an era of transformative public investment in research and industrial policy that can further position Chicago as our country’s hub for scientific breakthroughs. So let’s keep going — together.”

A pro-Palestinian protest at Democratic Party headquarters in Washington, D.C., that turned violent is sending a jolt through political circles in Chicago, which plans to host the party’s presidential nominating convention this summer.

The Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit policy group, released its annual State Business Tax Climate Index report last month. Rather than focusing strictly on how much states levy, the report aims to evaluate how well tax systems are year, Illinois received its lowest index score in the last 10 years. It dropped to No. 37 in the national rankings

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson only has a 28% approval rating, according to an Illinois Policy Institute poll of 800 registered Chicago voters conducted by Echelon Insights.

A vertical shopping mall in the center of Chicago’s Loop business district is for sale, a move that puts a high-profile retail property on the market during a slowdown in sales throughout the country.

Midwestern Jews and allies traveled to Chicago from Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin and Illinois for the demonstration, organizers said.

A victory for Chicago workers could spell trouble for Chicago employers. Many of them say this new ordinance will kill their small business.

“The 121 restaurateurs who signed this op-ed have invested in the city of Chicago, financially and emotionally, over many years. We ask for a government that manages with a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer. We ask for nuanced and balanced decision-making. We ask for a proposal that allows operators a chance to cure any honest mistakes without the threat of a lawsuit. We ask for more time and for a true economic study with the new PTO ordinance. We ask for a thoughtful pause from

if all goes right, it could become a new hub of Lake Michigan shoreline living, with expensive rentals for either short-term use or long-time living, a restaurant scene and a train ride to Chicago that makes driving over the Skyway and through Gary a thing of the past. If all goes as planned, “Michigan City is going to be so cool,” says Joe Farina, a restaurateur who has venues in the South Loop and Oak Park and last year opened Cafe Farina on Franklin Street in Michigan City.

Operators say that, eventually, they will raise menu prices to find the additional funds needed to pay staffers more. Restaurant owners are not liking the arithmetic, as they try to retain employees and keep rising menu prices — which rarely come back down — from scaring off customers.

Comment: CORE is the ruling faction of the Chicago Teachers Union and advocates for use of pension funds for social purposes.

Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates owns a property in Indiana and receives a property tax deduction reserved for owners who actually occupy their homes, according to public records obtained by the Illinois Policy Institute. Davis Gates would pay four times more in Indiana property taxes if she didn’t take the homestead deduction.

The delegates voted overwhelmingly in support of a letter demanding a Ceasefire in Israel’s assault on Gaza. VP Jackson Potter said in his report that Illinois is on the verge to be the first state in the nation to beat back vouchers. The Invest in Kids Illinois voucher scheme is set to sunset at the end of the year and Potter believes they have the votes to make sure it disappears.

Members of the City Council’s Black Caucus on Saturday called for Mayor Brandon Johnson’s floor leader to resign his post after allegedly trying to physically restrain an alderperson from entering the City Hall chamber during a chaotic Council meeting last week.

Alderman Raymond Lopez called the opposition to the vote “despicable,” while Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa said Chicago’s sanctuary status had nothing to do with illegal immigrants flocking to the city, which is a dubious claim, to say the least. Ramirez-Rosa said the council members who wanted a citywide referendum wanted “chaos” and “demagoguery” and “that’s what we got.”

Thousands from all over the country are heading to Washington, D.C., for what is expected to be the largest demonstration since the start of the Israel-Hamas War – including dozens who boarded buses Friday night in Chicago.

“Just amazing,” said Strautmanis, a former Obama White House aide who hadn’t seen the view before. He said his mission is for the center to fit the Obamas’ brand. “The Obamas are special,” he said. “They’re important. They’re iconic. But at the end of the day, they’re two people who decided that they want to participate in creating civic change, and anybody can do that.”

The meeting will be remembered as one of the City Council’s most chaotic since the infamous Council Wars of the 1980s. It doubled as a message that a growing number of City Council members are frustrated over the city’s handling of providing shelter for the 20,000 asylum seekers who’ve arrived in Chicago since last August. Lopez described the meeting as a “shitshow.”

While the body count was still being tallied, BLM groups in Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington issued statements supporting Hamas’s tactics. BLM Chicago tweeted an image of a Hamas paraglider with a Palestinian flag attached to his parachute and the caption “I stand with Palestine.” What’s shocking isn’t the rhetoric of BLM leaders in the aftermath of Oct. 7 but that so many people who ought

As Chicago’s downtown business district struggles under a post-pandemic malaise, President Joe Biden announced a slate of federal resources this week for developers and cities to speed up commercial-to-residential conversions. The White House initiative will open up funding from the Department of Transportation to finance residential development near public transit and facilitate transit agencies’ ability to transfer their properties to local governments or developers of affordable housing, according to a release.

For the fourth month in a row, home prices grew faster in Chicago than in any other major U.S. city, according to a national index of August home prices. In August, home prices in the Chicago area were up 5% from the same time a year earlier. While it’s more evidence of the Chicago housing market’s resilience during the recent nationwide slowdown under the weight of rising interest rates, there’s also data in the report that shows Chicago-area home values lag well behind most big cities in

Related Midwest plans to break ground by the end of the year on the first of two residential skyscrapers on the Chicago Spire site, a long-awaited step forward for a project that stands to dramatically change the city’s lakefront skyline. The developer disclosed plans to begin work in 45 days on a 72-story apartment tower at 400 N. Lake Shore Drive.

Thousands of demonstrators came together in Chicago’s Loop Saturday for a rally in support of Palestine. Many could be heard shouting “free free Palestine” as they called for a ceasefire in the war with Israel.

The building is zoned for a neighborhood commercial district, which does not allow for the operation of a temporary or transitional shelter without special use approval, according to zoning law. The city has not issued any such permit through the Zoning Board of Appeals, according to the lawsuit. Because the Johnson administration has not gone through the standard city review process, which includes holding a community meeting and an option to testify in front of a city board, the city has “deprived” neighbors of their legal rights to give input on the shelter, according

Over the past month, a series of NBC 5 Investigates reports exposed how the Kansas-based company has been paid more than $56 million within the past year and has routinely billed the city at 84 hours a week – including overtime – for most of its employees who worked at migrant shelters spread across Chicago.

Chicago institutions are borrowing more than $1 billion this week, helped by Wall Street’s improved outlook on the city and a bright spot in a bleak year for the municipal bond market.

Among other interesting facts, Chicago police are making just 30% of the number of vehicle stops than before, and vehicle stops were the primary way guns were confiscated.

Chicago earned an upgrade from Fitch Ratings Thursday thanks to the city’s improving economy and declining long-term debt burden.

But when Snelling begins his first departmental budget defense in the Budget Committee on Tuesday, members of the City Council will not know the exact dollar amount needed to cover CPD personnel in 2024. That’s because Johnson’s tentative deal with the city’s largest police union includes pay increases in 2024 beyond what Johnson’s $16.6 billion budget proposal accounts for.

The Windy City continues to buckle under the weight of new arrivals, testing the empathy of residents and leaders alike. “This is really a federal responsibility,” says Chicago’s deputy mayor of migrant rights. “It isn’t fair to put it on cities.”

The overall police budget actually increases from $1.9 to $1.99 billion. The budget is aspirational.To fulfill the new budgeted positions, the department would have to hire about 1,700 officers and staff by next year.

As Chicago studies whether to become the first big city to open a municipally-owned grocery store, it will be looking to places like this city of 1,000 people for tips on how to do it. At the moment, things aren’t going especially well.

If passed, Bring Chicago Home would increase the tax rate buyers pay on property sales over $1 million, with the additional funds dedicated to providing permanent affordable housing and wraparound services for unhoused Chicagoans.

“Our chapters believe that bird conservation should center birds and collaboration rather than celebrate a historical figure that is aligned with systemic racism,” said Judy Pollock, president of the Chicago organization. “We are happy to be part of a new group of chapters using this name.”

Evanston landlords launched a broad attack Tuesday night on proposed landlord tenant ordinance revisions they say would make it nearly impossible to evict disruptive tenants. The new rules would sharply restrict the right of landlords to not renew a lease at the end of its one-year term.

Federal assistance to Cook County residents affected by the June 29 – July 2 severe storms and flooding has topped $304 million. This amount includes FEMA grants of more than $235 million in Individual and Households grants for rental assistance, repair and replacement funding, and other needs grants that help replace personal property and provide storage and childcare payments. Comment: So much for that $4 billion deep tunnel system that was supposed to end routine flooding in Cook County.

Dr. Mika Tosca, a climate scientist and associate professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), issued an apology on her Instagram Wednesday for her incendiary post amid the Israel-Hamas war. “Israelis are pigs. Savages,” Tosca wrote earlier. “Very bad people. Irredeemable excrement.”

In July, Ald. Mike Rodriguez, 22nd, introduced an ordinance that would mandate employers in the city provide their full-time employees with 15 days off without differentiating between sick days and vacation time. The ordinance also allowed unlimited days to be carried over each year and did not require workers to provide documentation for medical issues to be excused from work.

“A recent Crain’s editorial, ‘A pass-the-popcorn moment for Chicagoans’ (Oct. 2), presents a misguided narrative on my concerns about the film ‘Dumb Money’ and the future of Chicago. Let’s start with the film. My team identified some glaring factual inaccuracies in a trailer promoting ‘Dumb Money’ and raised those with the studio. As I told CNBC a few weeks ago, I haven’t seen the film, but I look forward to watching it. I hope the studio produced a great movie and that it offers important lessons for

The Chicago-area housing market was the most affordable among the 10 largest metropolitan areas. That meant relatively stronger housing demand and the third-highest annual increase in home values.

Mr. Johnson has been eager to turn Chicago into a vanguard of the progressive left. Is apologizing for murdering children supposed to be part of this new political morality?

While moving retail out of more than half the 818,000-square-foot retail portion of Water Tower Place would be a tectonic shift at Chicago’s original high-rise mall, which opened in 1975, it’s certainly not a surprise. In the past three and half years, COVID shutdowns and organized retail theft by smash-and-grab teams have battered North Michigan Avenue and other shopping districts.

Thousands of people took to the streets Saturday afternoon at a rally in downtown Chicago to show support for the Palestinian people amid a growing humanitarian crisis spurred by war between Israel and Hamas. The demonstration stretched for blocks as it made its way down Michigan Avenue,

There is a humanitarian crisis developing in Chicago. As temperatures drop into the 40s, thousands of migrants have been unable to find room indoors to sleep and are forced to camp outside — sometimes with no tents and no blankets. Chicago’s Mayor Brandon Johnson had been promising “winterized” tents to shelter the thousands of migrants who are sleeping in police stations and makeshift shelters around the city. So far, nothing. And time is running out.

Wind and rain have descended on Chicago at the same time as unprecedented numbers of migrants from the southern border. But now there is less space than ever and city officials have no concrete plan moving forward on the prospect of winterized base camps, raising alarm from experts about a looming humanitarian disaster.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is counting on tourists and residents spending more to have fun, take ride shares and stay in hotels to help plug a half-billion-dollar deficit in next year’s budget.

“We are well aware that $150 million will not cover the expenses for the entire year … We’re going to ask the state of Illinois to step up in the same way that New York state has and help reimburse about half of the costs the city incurs, as well as operate its own shelters,” Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35^th) told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson presented his first budget to other city leaders on Oct. 11. While he kept his promise not to raise property taxes, there are other fiscal challenges that will hit taxpayers hard in the future and need to be addressed now.

Their efforts left only one biological female on the podium for the Single Speed race — Allison Zmuda.

Supporters of the Palestinians were at City Hall protesting against the measure, calling it “Anti-Palestinian.” They had planned to “flood city hall” with hopes of blocking the show of support to Israel.

Johnson’s plan to close a $538 million budget deficit relies heavily on an increase of $187 million more in revenue projections over what the city projected when it put out its budget forecast just a month ago.

Menu prices will increase, service charges will become more common, service itself could deteriorate and some of the city’s most vulnerable restaurants could move or even close.

The village board voted 4-3 in August 2021 the remove the previous patch over its “thin blue line” imagery. During several board meetings and hours of public comment, along with protests and counter-protests outside village hall, critics of the patch said the imagery had been co-opted by extremist groups and its use was intimidating to people of color.

These Washington Federal Bank for Savings customers had no idea the high interest rates that attracted them were feeding the fraud. The bank’s “smooth operators” lured them in, the daughter of one victim says.

Chicago police released a statement saying in part, “Though there is no actionable intelligence regarding any credible threats in Chicago at this time, CPD is paying special attention to synagogues and mosques so that all of our residents are safe. We also remain in close communication with community leaders and elected officials.”

Fueled by big blocks of sublease space that hit the market, the share of available office space in the suburbs increased to 29.7% at the end of September from 28.9% midway through the year, according to real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle. The new vacancy rate is up from 27.3% a year ago and 22.1% when the COVID-19 pandemic began.

After celebrating the Hamas paraglider massacre at a rave in Israel which killed more than 260 people, BLM Chicago has deleted their tweet, and said that they had “sent out msgs that we aren’t proud of.” But then they add, “We stand with Palestine & the people who will do what they must to live free.”

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement of Chicago posted an image on X (formerly Twitter) showing support for Palestine amid the Israel-Hamas conflict near the Gaza Strip. The account posted a series of graphical cartoons expressing their solidarity.

A thorough review of Chicago’s immigration fiasco by Mary Williams Walsh, a New York Times “escapee” and managing editor of News Items.

“My bigger concern is the fact that we have an alt-right movement not just here but around the globe…. This is about elevating the consciousness of the entire globe….”

Chicago residents have expressed fury at the city’s government for offering shelter to a massive influx of asylum seekers, as a youth football team is set to be kicked off their home field to make room for a migrant camp.

“I liquidated every piece of real estate in the state,” Duffy said in an interview this week. “I have leases where I am in an advantageous position, because now I can renegotiate. They’re all coming due. We like Chicago. There’s no reason for us to want to leave. But at the same time, if the atmosphere gets to the point where it’s intolerable, we have no choice.”

To Chicagoans, “the Loop” denotes the downtown section circled by elevated train tracks. Now the city is caught in the vortex of a “doom loop.”

“Public Affairs” features show host Jeff Berkowitz interviewing P Rea, a WVON AM Radio hostess, literacy consultant, and a Black conservative emerging GOP Leader. The discussion centers on what has been and is largely causing the major problems (1) of decades long CPS and public education failures around IL and (2) soaring crimes in Chicago and Cook County, off and on, for decades.

“If Dick Butkus hadn’t been born in Chicago, someone would have had to make him up….The funny thing is that off the football field Butkus was a very nice man: whimsically sardonic, self-aware, quite at peace with the idea that others looked at him and in their secret hearts saw what, if caught in a tight spot, they wished they could be.”

The buses packed with Venezuelan migrants are now arriving in downtown Chicago day and night, doubling in number in recent weeks. City officials are struggling to open more shelters, while more than 2,300 migrants are sleeping at police stations, in lobbies and just outside in makeshift camps.

Cook County’s health care tab is set to grow by about 6.6% to $4.26 billion next year, accounting for nearly half of the county’s proposed $9.14 billion budget. County officials attribute the higher spending to rising patient volumes but didn’t say what’s driving that increase.

According to a new analysis prepared exclusively for Crain’s by the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation and the Center for Municipal Finance at the University of Chicago, the property tax bill paid by the average Chicago homeowner could rise hundreds of dollars a year as office tower owners pay less because of the depressed value of their property. Homeowners effectively would pick up a bigger share of the tax load.

The owner of a Loop office tower has thrown in the towel on its $230 million mortgage, according to a foreclosure lawsuit filed late last week in Cook County Circuit Court, adding to the pile of distressed office properties plaguing the heart of the city. An entity led by Paris-based lender Societe Generale alleged in a complaint that the owner of the 49-story tower at 161 N. Clark St. defaulted on its loan by failing to make its loan payment due in August.

The agency that manages Chicago’s convention center campus wades into the market this week with a deal that continues its trend of pushing off looming bond payments to manage a persistent mismatch between its revenues and its debt service schedule.

The battle over tipping is accelerating in Chicago, where lawmakers could advance a new law as soon as Wednesday requiring restaurants to pay waitstaff the city’s standard minimum wage, regardless of how much they earn in gratuities.

If the increased transfer tax that Mayor Brandon Johnson has endorsed goes through, rents would go up by as much as $100 a month per apartment in buildings that get sold, according to a new report from a property owners association.

Legislation brewing at City Hall that would set carbon emission standards effectively banning the use of carbon-emitting gas in most new buildings in Chicago has yet to be introduced amid opposition and competing priorities, but it is likely to move forward later this year.

The longtime operator of the Signature Room restaurant near the top of the former John Hancock Center has closed the business. “Unfortunately, economic issues after the closure of our city and restaurant due to the COVID-19 pandemic persist. Chicago and Michigan Avenue have been slow to recover. Safety issues and negative publicity continues to deter visitors to Chicago. All of these issues are negatively impacting the health of our restaurant and are issues that are completely out of our control.”

The Republican leader said he’s spoken to CME Group Inc., the world’s largest futures exchange, about relocating to the Lone Star State. CME and other Chicago-based trading firms have complained about a pickup in violent crime since the pandemic as well as potential tax increases floated by the mayor. “I actually have approached the CME,” Abbott said Wednesday in an interview with Bloomberg Television in New York. “There are some businesses in Chicago that are fed up.”

For the third month in a row, home prices grew faster in the Chicago area than in any other major U.S. metro area, according to new data from the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices released this morning. Chicago-area single-family home values rose 4.4% in July compared with the same time last year.

One of the most prominent towers of Chicago’s skyline, the 83-story Aon Center was valued at $414 million, down nearly half from the $780 million it was worth when a $536 million loan secured by the property was issued in 2018, according to a report from credit ratings agency Morningstar.

Since August of last year, city finance records show a Kansas-based company, Favorite Healthcare Staffing, has billed the city of Chicago for more than $57 million. What’s not clear is exactly how those dollars were spent.

Around 6,160 new apartment units are expected to be built across Chicago this year, down from roughly 8,970 in 2020, according to a new report.

Names of the cities were not released. However, “Biden officials have rarely, if ever, spoken of this “family unification” flight program in the year since implementing it, perhaps mindful of the political outcry over the late-night “ghost flights” that DHS stealthily arranges to ferry migrant children into various airports, and mindful, too, of strong recent political backlash in large U.S. cities like New York and Chicago to paroled migrants busing themselves in from the border. Here, migrants flying directly into America go uncounted in the monthly Border Patrol tallies, unnoticed, and without media inquiry, virtually all information about it almost

According to a report commissioned by Lollapalooza promoter C3 Presents and conducted by Texas-based research group AngelouEconomics, Lollapalooza generated more than $422 million for Chicago’s economy, compared to $336 million last year.

As a massive foreclosure lawsuit against the owner of the Palmer House enters its fourth year, the hotel’s State Street retail space is poised to be seized by a lender.The bid price shows how far the property’s value has fallen in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“But to an administration that keeps signaling strongly that it’s focused primarily on improving the well-being of Chicago’s disadvantaged communities without regard for the well-being of the businesses and taxpayers whose livelihoods are critical to the whole city’s success, considerations such as these appear to be an afterthought. And they will continue to be — that is, until there are no businesses left to pick up the tab.”

The letters are stamped all over the hallways of Chicago’s giant skyscrapers and grand office buildings. DRW, IMC, CME, Cboe.These are some of the derivatives firms that collectively handle trillions of dollars a year in trades, greasing the wheels of global markets with everything from stock options to corn futures. Most of them have called Chicago home for decades — providing thousands of jobs within the city’s $75 billion finance industry. Now, the firms’ commitment to the Windy City is being tested by some $800 million in taxes proposed by a new mayor staring down a budget gap

The former head of the public library in south suburban Markham has been indicted on federal charges alleging he embezzled nearly $800,000 from the cash-strapped town over more than a decade and spent it on personal items such as tickets, auto repairs and home mortgage payments. Xavier Menzies, 51, of Chicago Heights, was charged in an indictment made public Friday with four counts of wire fraud.

The city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications said in a news release at 8:11 p.m. that the area was closed to incoming vehicular traffic from Division to 18th Street and from DuSable Lake Shore Drive to Halsted Street, citing “public safety due to large car caravans.”

The Chicago-based U.S. Soccer Federation is moving its headquarters to the Atlanta area, where it is going to build a training center, the organization said today. Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank, who owns soccer team Atlanta United, is contributing $50 million to the effort, the federation said in a press release today. The press release is here.

Chicago property owners have started receiving postcards in the mail urging opposition to the proposed increase in the real estate transfer tax that would fund the city’s efforts against homelessness.

The forecast, the first for Johnson since he took office in May, projects an overall $538 million shortfall due to “rising personnel, pension, and contractual costs, as well as the cost to care for new migrants arriving to the city,” according to the shortfall report.

Muni market participants from investors to ratings agencies are watching closely to see how the new administration tackles the city’s biggest pressures, from underfunded pensions to crime, and whether Johnson will continue former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s path toward structural balance that was rewarded with a series of rating upgrades.

Florida is funding an advertising campaign in the Chicago area offering a $5,000 bonus for cops to move there.

Mari Gallagher, “nationally known expert on neighborhood markets, food access, food security and public health”: “Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration should consider a few municipally owned or nonprofit grocery options and a community engagement effort that uses existing carrots and sticks to set a new commercial tone that, over time, other retailers match. Some local independent food stores aspire to step up, but they don’t have the purchasing power of dollar and convenience store chains. Why not help them with a collective purchasing initiative?”

This year’s list of Chicago’s 25 Largest Law Firms saw local attorney headcounts dip by an average 0.2% from June 2022 to June 2023. One figure that increased across all firms in the past year was associate base salary. Most firms in Crain’s top 10 have upped their associate base salary to $215,000 — a 13% rise since 2021.

Greg Hinz on his semi-retirement: “Much as a few internet trolls would prefer, I won’t be disappearing. You can still call me a raging progressive, or a MAGA-loving Republican. I’ll still do a monthly column here, as well as an occasional special project.”

Ms. Gates’s son deserves a quality education, but so do his neighbors. With any luck this controversy will improve the odds of renewing the Invest in Kids program. But the real moral and political scandal remains the same: that thousands of Chicago’s children are locked into failing public schools as part of a political job-protection program for the teachers union.

A group of migrant fathers, anticipating a joyous reunion with their families after several days away working on a construction job, arrived at a South Side shelter on Thursday evening only to be turned away by staff because the men had found jobs.

Bears President Kevin Warren said in a letter to season-ticket holders that the team has reopened discussions with the city about building a new indoor stadium downtown, Front Office Sports reported.

“If Davis Gates had simply defended her family’s decision by saying something like her son really had his heart set on going to that school, then I don’t think anyone could really disagree with her choice.”

“It is my distinct honor to teach this class,” Lightfoot said. “I view it as a tremendous opportunity to prepare students to become abject failures in whatever path they take in life before returning to make an enormous salary teaching at Harvard.”

After decades of political wrangling by past Chicago mayors, years of City Hall jockeying by potential developers for the lucrative deal and months of preparation by the lucky bidder, Bally’s temporary Chicago casino took the city’s first legal wagers from the betting public Saturday morning.

With winter just months aways, surely there’s a better answer than tents.

“No matter where you stand on the contentious issue of school choice — shorthand for the debate over using state money to help families defray the cost of private schools — most fair-minded people can agree on this: Vociferous opponents of school choice should probably live by the rules they would enforce on others. And yet, it’s come to light that one of the harshest critics of school choice in Chicago [Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis-Gates] — who has gone so far as to characterize those on the opposite side of the debate as racists — is sending one

“One almost has to admire the nerve of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who seems to be dismissing his critics as racists even as his administration plans to erect a statue honoring one of the city’s best-known bigots.”

But after years of planning and raising well over $1 billion, the Obama Presidential Center finally has emerged from the ground as a physical presence in Jackson Park, just across the street from Hyde Park Academy High School and a quick walk from the University of Chicago campus.

“It was a very difficult decision for us because there is not a lot to offer Black youth who are entering high school” in Chicago, Davis Gates said. “In many of our schools on the South Side and the West Side, the course offerings are very marginal and limited. Then the other thing, and it was a very strong priority, was his ability to participate in co-curricular and extracurricular activities, which quite frankly, don’t exist in many of the schools, high schools in particular.”

Comment: This column illustrates the media perspective — if you’re not a far left progressive, then you’re a “conservative,” even though you’re a Democrat.

Hinz: “There is a worsening labor shortage in this town — and not just at hotels and restaurants…. That’s why Johnson, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and even some Republicans — such as Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb — are urging Biden to take a little political risk and issue rules allowing refugees (who are in this country legally) to work while their cases are adjudicated. We’ll see what the White House does. Chicago was built by immigrants — literally. And they could help rebuild it, if the pols get out of the way.

With a looming financial cliff threatening to force cuts by as much as 40% in Chicago-area public transit service, voters are getting their first look at a plan that’s spent months in development on how to remake the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and Pace for the post-COVID era. The plan is, to use its own word, “bold” — calling for new investments and fare cuts funded by expanding the state sales tax

A Tribune investigation of the city’s response in the past year revealed a costly and at times disorganized approach, often characterized by poor planning, lack of leadership and troubling conditions in shelters.

A national republication of our Wirepoints column.

After filing a lawsuit blaming car thefts on Kia and Hyundai, “Will the mayor now begin filing lawsuits against media outlets for allowing reporters to venture out into the city he is supposed to be governing?”

Comment: Fred Hampton advocated for a violent, Marxist overthrow of U.S. government. He invoked the worst of history’s communists in the name of that cause, including Mao, Lennin, Marx, Che Guevara and Kim Il Sung. He chaired the Chicago chapter of the communist Black Panther Party. See our earlier column here on Fred Hampton in his own words.

Five years almost to the day since bondholders sued Harvey, Illinois, over a payment default, the litigation concluded Tuesday with court approval of a settlement that features fresh, unrated debt with extra protections for investors and a friendlier debt payment schedule for the long-struggling Chicago suburb.

Engineers have spent nearly 50 years and billions of dollars building huge tunnels and reservoirs to protect this city from flooding.

More than 70 VC firms have signed an open letter denouncing the lawsuit against Fearless Fund that Flippin helped organize. Among the signatories are Chicago VCs Brian Luerssen of LongJump Ventures and Shayna Harris with Supply Change Capital.

All across the country, downtowns, office spaces and shopping centers are at risk of becoming ground zero for a new economic hazard: the urban doom loop. The fear is that a commercial real estate apocalypse could spiral out and slow commerce, wrecking local tax revenue in the process. Crucially, wonky tax rules mean certain places are more exposed than others: Chicago and Boston, for example, have large office footprints and rely heavily on property tax revenue.

The online poll was conducted for Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, whose ward includes the central business district. The survey was open to anyone who chose to participate and, thus, is not scientific and may have attracted a disproportionately negative sample. Of the 662 ward residents who responded to the survey, 58% said they were “negatively impact(ed)” by the closure of DuSable Lake Shore Drive and other thoroughfares, compared to just 34.7% who said they were not. The remaining 7.3% were reported as “indifferent.”

Larita Clark is CEO of the Metropolitan Pier & Exposition Authority. Emilia DiMenco is CEO of the Women’s Business Development Center. Jaime di Paulo is CEO of the Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Michael Fassnacht is CEO of World Business Chicago. Lynn Osmond is CEO of Choose Chicago. Charles Smith is executive chairman of the Business Leadership Council: “We must do our part to communicate what makes Chicago great to our friends, colleagues and family. Rather than allow misperceptions to define us, we need to stand together as

As he marks his first 100 days in office, Johnson has yet to give the public a sign of who he may choose to fill vacant top posts at planning, transportation, housing and public health.

“Day of Dignity is an incredible opportunity for the Chicago community to come together in support of refugees, new arrivals and migrants that are part of the fabric of our Chicago community,” said Alisa Bhachu, Chicago Refugee Coalition executive director.

In a statement to FOX Business, a spokesperson for Hyundai said that engine immobilizers are now standard on all vehicles made by the company as of Nov. 2021.

Chicago police say a 42-year-old woman suffered a gunshot wound to the leg and a 26-year-old woman had a graze wound to her abdomen. The 42-year-old woman was in fair condition at University of Chicago Medical Center. The 26-year-old woman refused medical attention, according to the police statement.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson called the automakers’ failure to include immobilizers “sheer negligence” and said it “disproportionately impacts low-income Chicago residents” noting that “offenders have used stolen Kia and Hyundai vehicles to commit other crimes, including reckless driving, armed robbery, and murder.”

“Would anyone who has followed Chicago politics for any length of time ever write City Hall a giant blank check? Certainly no one in their right mind. And yet, that’s precisely what proponents of the newly redrafted “mansion tax” ordinance would have us do — and they have the added advantage of being able to characterize anyone who opposes their idea as a heartless creature who doesn’t care about the homeless people their measure is designed to help.”

Among respondents, 74% think Dallas and 72% think Boston are safe to live in or visit. Only 26% say Detroit, and 27% Chicago, are safe.

No decision has been made or appears imminent. But among the possibilities are moving to a new stadium in the city or suburbs, or even relocating to Nashville, a subject of recurring gossip on and off for years.

The Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund has declined an overture from Sterling Bay to back the Lincoln Yards megaproject, sending the developer back on the hunt for a financial partner to bail out the stalled $6 billion development.

A republication of our Wirepoints column.

A venture led by Chicago investor Musa Tadros that owns the office property at 105 W. Adams St. filed for bankruptcy protection July 31. The maneuver could delay a $178 million plan from a pair of local developers aiming to convert Tadros’ property into 247 apartments, one of five projects Chicago planning officials selected earlier this year for further review as part of the city’s LaSalle Street Reimagined initiative.

Arwady’s departure represents a new era for CDPH, one in which Chicagoans could see the public health department and its role transform dramatically if Johnson’s policies pan out. As is clear from Johnson’s removal of Arwady, CDPH’s next leader will be under intense pressure to align policies and programs with the mayor’s ambitions. Johnson’s plans, dubbed “Treatment Not Trauma,” include sending therapists to 911 calls and reopening 14 city-run mental health clinics.

What is it about political leftists that makes them unable to keep their hands off Chicago parks—and also unable to live by the standards they demand of others? Now, if you can believe it, the city of Chicago has chosen a park dedicated to the city’s first female mayor as the site for a new statue of a progressive activist who didn’t support the right of

In her interview, Arwady said it wasn’t that she was fired, but how she was fired that felt “really disturbing.”

Just after 5 a.m., a group of robbers smashed through the glass door of the store in the 500 block of North Michigan Avenue before stealing merchandise and fleeing, according to Chicago police.

Hedgepeth has also separately sued District 211 in federal court. In that case, she asserts the district violated her constitutional rights by firing her in retaliation for her political speech, which the school board found to be politically incorrect and objectionable.

According to a study from the real estate website Redfin, residents of the Chicago metro area are moving to Cape Coral, Florida, more than anywhere else. Located about 10 miles west of Fort Myers, Cape Coral is a city of approximately 200,000 residents that has more than 400 miles of canals and sits on the Gulf Coast.

Law reviews at three T-14 law schools, Columbia (#8), Northwestern (#10), and Stanford (#1), are engaging in underhanded discrimination against conservative students. And at the University of Chicago Law School (#3), journal acceptances have been unexpectedly delayed for reasons that are not yet clear. See also <span style="text-decoration:

Garrow called his memoir “Dreams From My Father” essentially fictionalized, said he was too lazy to be a good Supreme Court justice, and said his presidency will be considered a failure in the long run because of its foreign policy shortcomings. If he sounds like an abrasive right-wing figure, he isn’t – he calls himself to the left of Obama on issues like health care, is avowedly pro-choice and lamented Obama hadn’t modeled his post-presidency after Jimmy Carter, whose humanitarianism has often received better reviews than his one-term stint in the White House.

Actuary Mary Pat Campbell: You are more likely to get money from aliens to make Chicago solvent than to do it from either Illinois or the Feds.

The study, by the University of Arkansas School of Education, looked at the differences between how much public money goes to charter and regular public schools in large U.S. cities. It found that charters face a sizable funding gap despite claims from teachers unions that the charters are soaking up public resources.

Professor Terrell Morton is an “Identity and Justice in STEM Education” scholar who “draws from critical race theory, phenomenology, and human development to ascertain Black students’ consciousness and how it manifests in their various embodiments and actions that facilitate their STEM postsecondary engagements,” according to his faculty bio.

Count Chicago among the big metro areas that won’t be hit by the critical shortage of housing forming in some parts of the country. The reason isn’t a happy one: We’re losing population, which lightens demand for homes.

Property taxes in Chicago rose 6.6% this year, with a twist no one would have expected just a year ago: Homeowners, not landlords, picked up a bigger share of the tab.

The truth is the tax as currently drafted would hit a lot of people who are far from fat cats, particularly in the residential market. The Bring Chicago Home idea has, not surprisingly, drawn vociferous pushback from commercial real estate owners in particular, who point out — correctly — that this kind of a tax, levied now, would deal a body blow to a downtown office and retail market that’s never fully recovered from the effects of COVID and the work-from-home ethos it

O’Hare International Airport was the fourth-busiest airport in North America in 2022, as it struggled to regain its pre-pandemic flying level. Last year was the second straight year that O’Hare’s total passenger count trailed not only Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, but also Dallas-Fort Worth and Denver, according to Airports Council International.

Olam International has inked a 15-year lease for nearly 80,000 square feet at 24 E. Washington St., according to people familiar with the deal. The lease stands out as a rare commitment to more office space at a time when many companies are shrinking their office footprints and embracing the remote work movement.

An analysis of revenue from past festivals and projections based on the revised Chicago Park District permit revealed a surprising possibility: The event could bring in less money for the Park District and taxpayers over the next decade. “When these things get done in the dark, it always ends up being a bad deal,” said Ald. Brendan Reilly.

“Nobody is renaming anybody little mini-Al Capones. But they certainly, in many cases, had the same, terrorizing effect that Al Capone had 100 years ago,” John Catanzara said.

What the mayor so far doesn’t seem to grasp is that while he’s urging the rest of the city to treat Chicago’s young people with greater respect, he appears to have less regard for the people who live and work in the areas where these “large gatherings” are occurring.

“That’s not appropriate,” the newly minted mayor said in response to a reporter’s question about trends like “mob actions” the city has endured. “We’re not talking about mob actions. I didn’t say that,” Johnson barked back. “These large gatherings … it’s important that we speak of these dynamics in an appropriate way.”

The Chicago developer that turned a historic Michigan Avenue building into the LondonHouse hotel — and sold it for a record high price several years ago — has surrendered the ground-floor retail portion of the property to its lender. The retail space adds to a long list of distressed commercial properties downtown in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many retailers in the central business district have shuttered because of a lack of regular foot traffic from office users, given the rise of remote work.

“I am going to shoot you, little girl. Don’t be an idiot. Give me your phone,” Davis allegedly told one woman as he indicated that he had a gun in his pocket.

Chicago-area builders sold more new homes this spring than they have since 2008, thanks in large part to the paucity of existing homes for sale, according to a new report. It’s an increase of nearly 38% from the same time a year ago. “I’m not at all surprised to see this surge,” said Erik Doersching, CEO of Tracy Cross & Associates. “Sales would have been even higher if more developments were open, but supply is constrained because there’s not enough building going on.”

The homeless population in Humboldt Park’s namesake park has exploded during the pandemic. Local officials are scrambling to match residents with housing and medical care. “The number of people that we see defecate in our alley …,” Duncan said. “In our building, we’ll all text each other

The Chicago-based company this month formally began marketing more than 61,000 square feet at its Aon Center headquarters for sublease, representing about 30% of JLL’s workspace in the East Loop skyscraper. Separately, another big new sublease listing hit the market in recent weeks from cybersecurity company Trustwave, which put its entire 71,792-square-foot office at 70 W. Madison St. up for grabs. The pair of new listings add more available office space to a downtown market already awash in it. The office vacancy rate in the central business district reached an all-time high of

A large group of young people, mostly juveniles, ripped through the South Loop on Sunday evening, looting a convenience store, storming a Dunkin, and fighting as they ran through the streets. It was the second time in days that groups of teens targeted the area along Roosevelt Road.

“People in Phoenix could get third-degree burns by falling on pavement.”

Some hope Google’s future downtown office will also rejuvenate the Loop, where many older office buildings have high vacancy rates and shaky finances. But it’s uncertain whether Google alone can revive the city’s urban core.

Excited fans have been leaving their Mojo Dojo Casa Houses (the character Ken’s renaming of Barbie’s Dreamhouse) and flocking to Chicago’s theaters to see what has become a summer blockbuster. In its first weekend on July 21-24, Barbie made $162 million in the U.S. and broke Warner Bros.’ opening week-Monday box office record. Businesses in Chicago have also capitalized on to the movie, giving fans a taste — literally — of the Barbie dream.

Foxx’s core job is to prosecute, to protect the public. If she doesn’t, no one will. And on that count, the report is almost silent, indicating only that in the first six months the office “closed nearly 13,000 felony cases.”Closed? What does that mean? Were the cases dismissed, or did they go to trial? And if the latter, how many resulted in conviction?

“The federal government must step in with more funding and resources. Immigration is a national issue. Solutions must come at the national level.”

Though business people like any other group exaggerate the downside of tax hikes, you don’t have to be a genius to conclude that jacking up taxes at a time when the Loop is reeling is counterproductive. I mean, Johnson is talking about spending tens of millions of dollars to convert old LaSalle Street office buildings to residential use. Raising the transfer tax so much at one time could undo the progress the city wants on LaSalle.

Dana Levenson, former Chicago CFO: “If you’re looking for a magic bullet to cure the city’s pension fund debacle, you won’t find one here. However, at a minimum, the pension funds need to achieve market returns, and benefits, unfortunately, cannot increase. If all sides could come to an agreement about what more must be done, perhaps there’s hope for the city of Chicago’s pensions. If not, get ready for the doomsday scenario: pension fund bankruptcies and huge property tax increases.”

Chicago-area single-family home values rose 4.6% in May compared with May 2022, according to new data from the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices released this morning. That’s the highest growth for any of the 20 cities that the index tracks. At this time last year, Chicago was 18th on the list, near the end of a 61-month stretch when home values here consistently ranked at 20th or only a few places higher in terms of year-over-year growth.

By actuary Mary Pat Campbell.

Chicago is renowned for its deep-dish pizza, iconic skyline and rich musical heritage. It is also home to a vibrant and diverse community, with immigrants comprising 20% of the city’s population, and 14% of Illinois’. What may come as a surprise to some, considering negative national immigration rhetoric, are the achievements of this community, especially in business.

For the second year in a row, Cook County has delayed sending out notices to property owners informing them what they owe for the second installment of their property taxes. The county treasurer normally sends out the bills in early July, with taxes due in early August. This kind of lousy customer service — and that’s really how county officials should think of it — would never be tolerated in the private sector. If Kaegi, the Board of Review and the treasurer’s office can’t cooperate to ensure a stable, predictable flow of tax bills and deadlines, then it’s incumbent upon

“When housing affordability fell to an all-time low across the country, due in part to a large increase in mortgage rates, less expensive metros like Chicago become relatively more attractive places to live. While I’m not counting on a full reversal of Chicago’s long-running exodus, current housing market conditions may actually help slow the city’s population decline.”

The individual suburbs where buyers, on average, are reaching furthest above the asking price, according to Redfin, are:Kenilworth: 109%, Calumet Park: 108%, Glencoe: 106%, Norridge: 105%, Clarendon Hills, Lincolnwood, Robbins, Round Lake Beach, Summit, West Chicago: 104%.

As city and state programs pop up to compensate Black Americans for past harms, two experts are calling the idea of local reparations “an oxymoron.” Rather than refer to programs like Evanston’s as reparations, the authors say they should be called “racial equity initiatives.”

In recent years, large groups of teens have started gathering in downtown Chicago. WBEZ spoke with some of the young people behind these events.

Through Tuesday, 398 people had been robbed in Chicago this month—up 52% from 261 last year.

The deal would allow investors to shed the bonds’ default status, resolve investor litigation, and give the fiscally troubled Chicago suburb more time to repay its debt. It’s billed by Harvey officials as a central step in an effort to restructure various debts with the aim of attracting economic development and bolstering a beleaguered tax base hurt by outmigration, shuttered businesses and an aging population. The city also has weak tax collection rates that pose a drag on its budgets.

“The show’s accuracy extends beyond just the kitchen scenes to the messy, meritocratic dynamism that is running an American restaurant—and many of the policies that make doing so harder than it already is…. If anything, The Bear understates the regulatory challenges that aspiring restaurateurs face—especially in a place like Chicago.”

Kennedy Bartley is taking over as the next executive director of United Working Families, the group that helped elect Chicago’s new left-wing leadership. “I think when we’re talking about building true working-class, anti-racist, anti-capitalist power, we have to have a coalition, we have to have a united front.”

Since the mid-20th century, the ground between the city surface and the bedrock has warmed by 5.6 degrees Fahrenheit on average. All that heat, which comes mostly from basements and other underground structures, has caused the layers of sand, clay and rock beneath some buildings to subside or swell by several millimeters over the

Chicago will deliver its 2024 budget forecast in mid-September after a series of public roundtable meetings this month that, along with a newly delivered transition report, will help shape Mayor Brandon Johnson’s first budget.

In 2019, the city of about 75,000 just north of Chicago committed to spend $10 million over 10 years on local reparations. Dozens of other municipalities across the U.S. have taken initial steps toward reparations since.

Most of the recent uptick in vacancy came from new supply. Demand, meanwhile, was relatively strong: Net absorption, which measures the change in the amount of leased and occupied space compared with the prior period, rose by more than 427,000 square feet during the second quarter, according to CBRE. Comment: Note that these are occupancy rates based on how much space is under lease. Actual utilization based on entry card swipes has ticked up a bit recently to just over 50%.

“Exactly how screwed up are Chicago pension? I’m glad you asked.”

New York-based Vanbarton Group sold the Seneca, a 286-unit vintage building in Streeterville, for $55 million in mid-June. The price represents a 27% loss of value from the $74.9 million that Vanbarton paid for the Seneca in December 2014. New York-based Vanbarton Group sold the Seneca, a 286-unit vintage building in Streeterville, for $55 million in mid-June to a unit of San Francisco-based FPA Multifamily, according to a deed filed with Cook County. The price represents a 27% loss of value from the $74.9 million that

Investment losses last year eroded funding ratio gains achieved a year earlier by Chicago’s pension system, casting a shadow over a healthy pickup of taxes on the city’s audited financial results.

Robert Reed, former editor of Crain’s Chicago Business: Brandon Johnson” is demanding for-profit industries pony up more tax money. So why not ask great, successful and tax-exempt nonprofits — many of which run like corporations anyway — to start pitching in, too?”

Chicago and NASCAR, an Odd Couple With High Hopes, Take It to the Streets

Because of the “extreme increases” in hotel costs, organizers had to send some people to other states.

Topouzian’s company, Concord Health Supply, hoarded 79,160 respirator masks for a mean price of $5.08 each and sold them with a markup of 185% to 367%, officials said.

Alderman Lopez: “The longer the Biden administration waits to address this issue, the more uncontrollable this situation will become locally as well as nationally. This is not a hypothetical exercise in government; rather, it is a humanitarian crisis the likes of which many American citizens have never witnessed in their communities. It is impacting cities and states across this country and in every neighborhood struggling to address the needs of the new arrivals.”

That’s one of the great ironies of Invest South/West, a massive economic development initiative launched four years ago by former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Construction costs for the program’s affordable housing projects in some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods exceed $600,000 and even $700,000 per unit, far higher than the $450,000 to $500,000 per unit for the ritziest high-rises under construction in and around downtown.

John Bouman, executive director of Legal Action Chicago: The Supreme Court unanimously held that the excess market value is a species of property that no government can take away without just compensation. It is also clear that this whole system needs a reform that not only protects equity, but also keeps more people in their homes.

On June 21, a Chicago real estate agent sent a newsletter to 20,000 people that addressed a sore subject: people leaving the city because of crime and other problems. He urged people to stay and help heal the city’s ills. The newsletter is the latest flashpoint in a contentious debate citywide and more specifically in real estate circles. Are people leaving Chicago and, if they are, is it because of crime?

New stadiums for the Buffalo Bills and Tennessee Titans set records for public subsidies for NFL teams — but key differences between those projects and the Chicago Bears’ proposed new stadium could determine what taxpayers here may pay.

Billionaire Chicago real estate investor James Crown promises to reduce the murder rate in Chicago and make it “the safest city in America” by creating jobs in poor neighborhoods, funding violence intervention programs and strengthening law enforcement agencies.

Two of the priciest suburban office properties to change hands in the past decade are adding to the pile of buildings in distress or on the financial brink in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Johnson put no business people on his pension advisory panel. “That is exactly what many in business circles fear. That Johnson will smilingly take any financial offerings they choose to make in summer jobs, etc., and then ram through anything more he wants. It’s too early to say that for sure. But denying a key interest group a seat at the table, even at this stage, is not a good sign.”

Researchers found that people who defrauded the government for pandemic relief poured money into housing markets, driving inflation in some areas. Fraud didn’t occur uniformly across the U.S. Illinois’ Cook County, where Chicago is located, saw suspicious loan rates around 30%, compared with 10% in New York County, which consists of Manhattan, and Los Angeles County.

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.

“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.

Market Street this month surrendered the 12-story building at 209 West Jackson Boulevard through a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure. The lender on a $25 million debt tied to the property will now take ownership of the asset, while Market Street evades foreclosure litigation. It’s the latest sign of office distress in Chicago. The remote

Following a Juneteenth weekend in which at least 11 people were killed and 63 others were shot in Chicago, Interim Chicago Police Supt. Fred Waller praised officers for work that he argued is already starting to show signs of progress.

Johnson is doing his own fiscal forecast and holding a series of community roundtables next month before he releases that new document.

The Chicago convention will be hosted from Aug. 19-22 and is expected to draw 5,000 to 7,000 delegates and alternates and bring about 50,000 visitors to the Windy City. It is projected to rake in anywhere from $150 million to $200 million for Chicago’s economy.

Along with the heavy gun violence, aggravated batteries are up 17%, burglaries are up 12% and car thefts are up 153% compared to last year, according to Chicago Police statistics. However, Johnson recently claimed that his plan is working. Overall crime in Chicago has risen 38% since Brandon Johnson assumed office on May 15.

The Illinois Housing Development Authority is currently funding rental assistance payments through federal Covid relief American Rescue Plan dollars.

The pessimism from investors who bet on office buildings and mass transit can be seen in market signals that are flashing red.

Invesco sold North Water Apartments, a 398-unit property at 340 E. North Water St., to Miami-based Crescent Heights for $173 million, according to real estate data provider CoStar Group. The price represents a 28% drop in value for the Streeterville property since 2016, when Invesco bought it for $240 million. Brokers and landlords say many out-of-town investors have “redlined” Chicago, wary of the risk of rising property taxes, the city’s struggles

There is something happening in Chicago, as residents of the Windy City appear to be waking up to the costs of illegal immigration.

A 22-story vintage Loop office tower, the last building designed by Daniel Burnham, has hit the market, and it’s likely to fetch a price that would result in a loss for its owners. A venture led by Chicago-based Golub & Co. has hired Cushman & Wakefield to sell Burnham Center, a 584,000-square-foot building at 111 W. Washington St., a property the venture bought for $80.3 million in 2019.

Report finds “deeper misogyny” within Cook County courts.

Only one candidate presented for the wide-open state’s attorney position: Clayton Harris III, an attorney and lecturer at the University of Chicago who is running with the support of Cook County Board President and party chair Toni Preckwinkle.

Go Green on Racine has been working on the initiative for 10 years, when Granville T. Woods Elementary in the Englewood neighborhood shut its doors in 2013.

Prompted by a Crain’s report on local developer Sterling Bay pitching the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund to become an investor in the Lincoln Yards development, Ald. Gilbert Villegas, 36th, will introduce a resolution at next week’s City Council meeting calling for a hearing in the Committee on Economic, Capital and Technology Development, which he chairs.He said the potential investment prompted him to wonder, “Why aren’t we doing that? Why aren’t some of our pension funds taking a look at investing in projects here in Chicago and creating economic development?”

“At long last, the state of Illinois appears ready to begin a detailed study of whether the proposed One Central megaproject makes financial sense — a study that, depending on the results, could kill off the South Loop proposal once and for all or clear the way for developer Bob Dunn to get the $6.5 billion state subsidy he wants.”

Home prices in Chicago, but not in the suburbs, have been declining all year, a warning sign that working from home and a seemingly intractable crime problem are hurting the city’s real estate market. Chicago is not alone. In five big cities with distinct city-suburban markets and declining prices, city home values are down more than those in the metro area by at least 2 percentage points.

Chicago’s lack of a city charter is a striking feature of its government, both because nearly every peer city has a charter — akin to a city constitution — and because a charter could support other reforms. Joe Ferguson, a former Chicago inspector general and now executive director of charter advocacy group (re)Chicago, explains how a charter could help Chicago and outlines the road map to adoption.

“The rap on Paul Vallas during the mayoral race was that despite calling himself “a lifelong Democrat,” he really was a not-so-closeted conservative Republican running in a city whose overall political slant is well to the political left…. But today he offered his critics a ton of ammunition suggesting that voters were right about him after all, with the announcement that he has taken a position with the Illinois Policy Institute as a policy adviser. The institute is a Chicago-based libertarian think tank that regularly argues for lower taxes, privatized pensions for government workers and school choice. It

The Civic Committee, which has backed other major initiatives like modernization of O’Hare Airport but has largely steered clear of public safety, this month rolled out a plan with an ambitious goal of cutting homicides in the nation’s third-largest city in half from their recent peak within five years. It involves bringing the city, nonprofits and the business community together to boost investment in neglected neighborhoods, create more jobs for people at risk of getting involved in violence and greatly expand violence-prevention efforts.

It takes time for academic work to filter into politics; Friedman’s pro-business radicalism had to wait a decade for Ronald Reagan as the 1970s saw government regulation of evermore areas of the economy. The critiques of capitalism I heard echoing around Booth’s Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired halls ring true: Politicians all-too-frequently boost big business and get a small slice of oligopolistic profits back as donations.

Our Wirepoints column republished.

With the real estate firm under growing pressure to raise money to recapitalize the 53-acre mixed-use campus planned along the Chicago River between Lincoln Park and Bucktown, the pension fund’s investment committee voted during a May 23 meeting to investigate an opportunity to become Sterling Bay’s primary financial partner on the development, according to a video of the public meeting and investor documents obtained by Crain’s.

After slipping into a deep freeze during the pandemic in 2020 and running hot in 2021, the market is cooling somewhere in the range of “just right.” The downtown occupancy rate remains high—94.4% in the first quarter, versus 94.5% a year earlier—but rent growth is slowing, according to the Chicago office of Integra Realty Resources, an appraisal and consulting firm.

In Chicago, more arrivals prompted by the expiration of Title 42, a pandemic-era law that curbed immigration, started overwhelming shelters in April. As city officials looked for more spaces to house the migrants, they directed the overflow to the lobbies of police stations across the city.

“What they are doing is structural violence,” said one organizer.

Jacoby Gunn, a street cleaner and neighborhood peacekeeper with Readi Chicago, peeked into the store Thursday. “I don’t understand why they had to move everything to the back at just this store. … There’s crime everywhere,” Gunn

U of C grad and NYT columnist Bret Stevens gave the school’s commencement speech: “This is a speech about speaking your mind when other people don’t want you to.”

“At the Sun-Times, we don’t think it’s fair for stories about arrests to follow people around forever if they were never convicted or if charges were dropped or expunged. In recognition of the unintended harm that some of our work has caused, we want to be intentional about reviewing these articles and considering whether they should remain part of the searchable internet record.”

Working-class reformer Brandon Johnson is now Chicago’s mayor. The next task, as socialist elected official Anthony Quezada argues in an interview, is to bring more ordinary people into the political process so Johnson can actually pass sweeping reforms.

The Civic Committee of the Commercial Club is pledging to raise tens of millions of dollars and hire thousands of at-risk individuals in a bid to finally curb the epidemic of street crime that has afflicted the city for decades But the group’s five-point program is notably silent on the volatile question of whether Chicago has enough police, a huge subject of recent debate. And it virtually ignores other key players in the city’s crime picture, notably the Cook County State’s Attorney and Cook County Circuit Court, frequently blamed for letting too many criminals go free.

Officials from Choose Chicago announced today that visitation to the city during 2022 was up 60% from 2021 as public health restrictions faded and a surge of leisure travelers poured in during peak tourism months. The total, reported by the city’s official destination marketing group using data from travel research firm DK Shifflet, was roughly 80% of the 2019 figure, when the city boasted a record 60.8 million visitors.

Owning retail space on State Street in the Loop has become so tough that the owner of one big property on the shopping strip is signaling that he’s had enough. After trying unsuccessfully to sell a 171,000-square-foot retail space at State and Madison streets, the owner missed its April and May interest payments on the property’s $49.7 million mortgage.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index rose 1.3% month over month, compared to a 0.3% gain in February. Year over year, the index was up 0.7%. In Chicago, home prices posted a 4% year-over-year gain in March, while prices rose 1.9% month over month.

The city’s new mayor attributes shootings to the ‘trauma’ of disinvestment. “Poverty didn’t go away over the weekend,” Mr. Johnson said. “Communities have been disinvested in and traumatized” and “you are seeing the manifestation of that trauma.” Yes, he actually said that, which goes a long to explaining why gunmen patrol the streets with impunity.

Chicago’s new mayor, Brandon Johnson, is tasking a “working group” that includes his finance team and state legislative and labor representatives with finding long-term funding fixes to ease the city’s pension funding woes.

While office towers sit empty and nearby businesses struggle to pay their bills, residential neighborhoods in America’s biggest cities are bustling again. The pandemic and remote work have done little to dent the overall appeal of cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, foot-traffic and rent data show. But “The increased vibrancy of great urban neighborhoods will never be enough to offset the decline in property-tax revenues caused by remote work and the falling values of commercial office buildings,” one city planner said.

Comment: Event the far left’s Slate recognizes the “doom loop” at work in cities like Chicago.

“We have to be honest about the destruction that we have seen throughout our country over the last three years, particularly in these urban areas that turn their back on our school children and put the interests of school unions ahead of the interest of parents and students,” the governor said Friday.

“I must say thanks for American people who can give a chance for my motherland, for my native country, for these kids, for our parents and for us,” said Vadym Korobenko, a Ukrainian veteran.

On June 30, Mike Flannery, political editor of Fox 32-Chicago, will retire after 50 years on the beat. He sat down with the Sun-Times, where he got his start, to reminisce about his storied career and the “blind spots” of the Chicago mayors he has covered.

A Chicago beach was closed hours after it opened for the summer season when shots were fired during a large brawl on Friday, according to police. The fight broke out among a group of 80 to 100 teenagers at North Avenue Beach around 1:30 p.m., police said.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson won’t say yet whether he intends to leave in place his predecessor’s executive order earmarking a budget surplus for future supplemental pension contributions. He also hasn’t committed to which of the tax proposals he advocated the campaign that brought him to the mayor’s office this month he will pursue first.

Ulta added its voice to the chorus of retailers lamenting a rise in shoplifting by organized gangs. CEO Dave Kimbell said during an earnings call this afternoon that the Bolingbrook-based beauty retailer continues to see inventory shrink, in part from theft.

Mayor Brandon Johnson has created a task force to look for solutions to Chicago’s underfunded pensions, asking the group to address one of the city’s deepest and most intractable financial problems.

“The staggeringly low valuations of the properties show the poor outlook for suburban office buildings that need major investments to compete for tenants. Remote work’s assault on office demand has created a historic amount of vacancy, decimating property values and pushing many landlords to the financial brink.”

Over the next five years, JPMorgan Chase is planning to triple the number of advisers in its Chicago private bank catering to wealthy families and individuals. “We don’t see anything to make us believe that trajectory is going to slow,” one of their bankers said.

The new mayor’s allies lay out their agenda: ‘First We Get the Money.’ The mayor’s pals say a “city budget is a moral document.” Readers can decide what kind of morality lets criminal gangs run wild while shrinking the police force and chasing taxpayers out of the city.

Christopher Deutsch, founder of Lofty Ventures in Chicago: “We are at the precipice of a mass exodus of our best and brightest entrepreneurs and their employees. These vital individuals increasingly are looking to set down roots elsewhere as they seek safer streets, lower taxes and better-functioning local government. Unless we become more competitive, our city is going to lose the very entrepreneurs we desperately need here.

Our Wirepoints column republished.

“If the mayor truly isn’t considering things like a city income tax, a wealth tax, a financial transactions tax or any of the other ideas contained in this report, he ought to say so, loudly and unequivocally.”

According to the latest Census data, New York City lost 468,297 people between April 2020 and July 2022, about 5.3% of its population. That’s more people than live in the city of Miami (449,514). Other big losers include Chicago (81,313), Los Angeles (76,529) and San Francisco (65,522). San Francisco lost a larger share of its population (7.5%) than any other major city. City leaders blame remote work, but can you blame workers for not returning to offices when they face high taxes, high housing costs and declining public order? Chicago logged 41% more crimes last year than

An influx of migrants arriving in several American cities is straining budgets and shelter resources, inflaming political tensions and sparking fights over who should pay to accommodate them.

NPR’s Scott Simon speaks to Dionne Mhoon, the mother of slain Chicago police officer Aréanah Preston, about her daughter and how she’d like her to be remembered.

In “The Betrayal of Academic Ethics” panel discussion at the University of Chicago moderated by Professor Rachel Fulton Brown as part of the Academia’s COVID Failures symposium, Professor Dorian Abbot of UChicago and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University shed light on the erosion of academic freedom and the coordinated suppression campaign targeting dissenting voices during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During her final weeks in office, Lightfoot said the city was “completely tapped out” and declared a state of emergency.

Mayor Brandon Johnson was inaugurated May 15, becoming one of the most radical city leaders in the country. He’s proposed new taxes worth about $800 million, including a financial transactions tax that would make it impossible for CME to do business in Chicago.

“Johnson is off to a credible start [crime and help for migrants], visiting one of those police stations to underline the city’s commitment to helping those in need, and hiring an experienced insider to serve as temporary police superintendent while a review panel vets candidates for the permanent job.However, I should have mentioned a third crisis that’s building: city finances. Johnson’s marks on that are less impressive.”

A Chicago-area man whose life sentence in prison was commuted by then-President Barack Obama in 2015, and who now faces more prison time after being charged with attempted murder, was at one time a darling of Democrats in Congress, who portrayed him as an unjustly targeted victim.