Good morning, Chicago.
Setting the stage for a potential legal fight and protracted turmoil between Chicago’s largest police union and Mayor Brandon Johnson, a City Council committee on Thursday opposed a contract provision that would allow officers accused of serious misconduct to have their cases decided by a third-party behind closed doors.
The committee recommendation rejecting the contract stipulation now heads to a vote next week before the full City Council, which, if it agrees with the committee, would kill a major part of the contract between the union representing rank-and-file officers and Johnson’s administration.
The provision would allow officers accused of misconduct to remove their cases from the Chicago Police Board docket and instead have them decided privately by an outside third-party. It was the most controversial part of the proposed deal as public officials and critics said it subverted police reform efforts and took accusations of police misconduct out of the public eye.
But in a separate vote Thursday, council members on the committee OK’d all the economic benefits included in the contract for rank-and-file officers, including 5% raises this year and next. Read the full story from the Tribune’s Sam Charles and A.D. Quig.
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After weeks of the ward’s alderman asking Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration to remove a West Loop homeless encampment struggling with safety issues, a man was shot and killed Thursday, adding fuel to an already contentious debate.
A sweeping set of recommendations about what Chicago-area transit could look like in the future has been sent to the state legislature, setting the stage for lawmakers to debate potentially thorny issues about funding for public transit and whether the CTA, Metra and Pace should be consolidated into one agency.
The prime suspect in a quadruple homicide of a Romeoville family had a romantic relationship with one of the victims he is believed to have killed in September, Romeoville police said Thursday.
Can a public space feel healthy and equitable?
DePaul University researchers are looking at the built environment and public spaces hoping to answer that question with the help of high-tech wearable eye-tracking glasses. With a camera in the front of the lenses, the glasses record wherever your head points, tracks eye movement, and records locations and heart rates.
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After being rescued by the Alaska SeaLife Center, the 10-pound male northern sea otter received a warm welcome at Shedd Aquarium. He has remained behind the scenes at the aquarium, where animal care and veterinary staff are monitoring and caring for him around the clock.
Three Hinsdale Central High School girl’s basketball coaches resigned Monday resulting in a postponement of the team’s game Tuesday against Proviso West.
For Sunday’s game against the Detroit Lions at Soldier Field, Bears players will wear cleats customized to represent causes near and dear to their heart. And Bears employees will wear their custom sneakers.
Since originating at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles last year, “I’ll Have What She’s Having: The Jewish Deli” has bounced around Jewish educational institutions and history museums across the country.
It was only a matter of time before this ode to a uniquely American Jewish cultural institution made its way here, the land of Kaufman’s, JB’s, Manny’s, and dozens more.
Based on the 1937 book “How Do You Live?” by Genzaburo Yoshino, which was given to Miyazaki in his youth by his mother, “The Boy and the Heron” is a deeply personal project from the animation auteur. Like his other work, it is a fantastical and wildly imaginative film that straddles the spirit and human worlds, with a story rooted in deeply relatable emotion, threaded with an enduring sense of hope for the future despite the harshness of everyday reality.
Events in the holiday spirit continue this weekend, though with “Krampus,” you have to give that spirit a wide latitude.