Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez said Tuesday she decided weeks ago to charge a Chicago police officer with first-degree murder charges for the shooting of an African-American teen but held off until federal authorities completed their part of the joint investigation. However, after a...
Guests seeking a Bible at Northern Illinois University's campus hotel now must call the front desk after a secular group complained that the sacred scripture had no place in the nightstand. Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, discovered a Bible in a drawer...
As Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke faced his bond hearing Tuesday, several activists gathered a couple of miles away near where Van Dyke shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. Outside a Burger King restaurant in the 4100 block of South Pulaski Road, speakers blasted police Superintendent Garry...
The Chicago Police Department has ordered most of its force into uniform and warned them of potentially longer hours and canceled days off as the city prepares to release a video of Officer Jason Van Dyke fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. The plan is not unprecedented, and similar plans...
Chicago Teachers Union leaders exhorted thousands of members gathered for a rally in Grant Park on Monday to confront the city with the threat of a strike in the face of contract talks that have dragged on for more than a year. "Now it's time for us to act. We've been here before," CTU President...
As every proud Chicagoan can attest, the city bristles at being considered second-best. So some might give a quiet cheer — and a "knew-it-all-along" shrug — at a new study Monday ranking the Kennedy Expressway as the nation's No. 1 traffic bottleneck. The 12-mile stretch of Interstate 90 from south...
Japanese agriculture professor Hiromi Hosono had been visiting dairy farms in the Midwest with colleagues recently and stopped into Chicago, where she decided to do some sightseeing.Hosono, 42, was on her way to an art exhibit early Saturday when she was run over by a trolley in the Loop and killed,...
Welcome to Clout Street: Morning Spin, our weekday feature to catch you up with what's going on in government and politics from Chicago to Springfield. Topspin It's Tuesday, Nov. 24. Chicagoans are waiting to find out when Mayor Rahm Emanuel will release a video showing a Chicago police officer...
The Chicago Police Department filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit over information about a secret cellular tracking system, arguing that some of the information is exempt from being disclosed to the public. CPD defended its secrecy around the use of cell site simulators Monday in front of Judge...
After years of pursuing higher-paying international students and watching in-state enrollment fall, the University of Illinois' flagship campus shifted course this year, increasing financial aid for students from Illinois but also taking the unusual step of accepting lower test scores.An analysis...
A lawsuit filed Monday alleges that a Chicago police officer was speeding and failed to use police lights or a siren while en route to a call on the South Side in 2011 when he was involved in a fatal crash. The victim, Shawn Garrett, 25, was driving east on 69th Street near Indiana Avenue on Jan....
A Wisconsin law that requires abortion providers to get admitting privileges at nearby hospitals is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court panel ruled Monday. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel's 2-1 decision doesn't put the question to rest. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed earlier this...
The 15 speed cameras generating the most fines in Mayor Rahm Emanuel's "Children's Safety Zone" program are located along well-traveled stretches of major Chicago roads where records show no children have been hit by speeders for more than a decade. A Tribune examination of crash data since 2004...
The Emanuel administration's speed cameras issued tens of thousands of improper tickets near parks that were closed or lacked the required warning signs.
When Lasheena Hall opened her mail to find yet another notice that she owed a $100 fine because a camera caught her speeding outside a school, she decided to do something Chicago drivers rarely do. Instead of just writing the checks like hundreds of thousands of others, the 30-year-old single mom...
Mayor Rahm Emanuel's speed camera program improperly issued more than $2.4 million in fines to Chicago drivers, ticketing them when cameras were supposed to be off and when the required warning signs were confusing, obscured or missing, a Tribune investigation has found.
An educator at Chicago area schools for more than four decades, Leon Hendricks championed the cause of underserved, at-risk youth and advocated for equality in education. While working as a teacher, principal and assistant superintendent of schools, he wrote dozens of articles on education, finance,...
Mari Ann Chambers taught first- and second-graders in Oak Park for 39 years. "She was an excellent teacher," said Marian Hartmann, who taught alongside Chambers at Longfellow Elementary School in Oak Park and is now retired. "The children really liked her and she really did a good job teaching."...
A longtime funeral director in the western suburbs, Tom Williams was known not only for his mastery of the technical skills of his profession but also for the care and empathy he provided to families and friends. "Tom had such a gift," said Christine Wedekind, a bereavement minister at St. Catherine...
Mary Jayne Wadden was a Lincoln Park resident who worked on political campaigns for a neighbor, the late Daniel O'Brien, Jr., who was a member of the Illinois Senate and House, a Cook County commissioner and also a ward committeeman. The connection led Wadden to posts with the Commission on Chicago...
Turkey shot down a Russian fighter plane it said had crossed into its territory from Syria on Tuesday, killing at least one of the two pilots and marking the first time in half a century that a NATO member has downed a Russian plane. The long-feared incident highlighted the growing complexity of...
Police on Tuesday arrested two men suspected of shooting five Black Lives Matter demonstrators, while the family of a black man whose death inspired the protests called for an end to demonstrations that have gone on for days outside a Minneapolis police station. No one suffered life-threatening...
Pledging solidarity after the Paris attacks, President Barack Obama promised Tuesday to work with France and other allies to intensify the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State, saying America would not be cowed by the scourge of terrorism. To this point, Obama said, Russia is an "outlier"...
Tunisia’s president declared a 30-day state of emergency across the country and imposed an overnight curfew for the capital after an explosion Tuesday struck a bus carrying members of the presidential guard, killing at least 12 people and wounding 20 others. The government described it as a terrorist...