Chicago News

  • The familiar clip-clop of hooves echoing along Downtown streets may soon become a thing of the past, as the Chicago City Council is one step away from banning horse-drawn carriages.

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  • Aldermen will weigh four appointments that could jumpstart the city’s $100 million Catalyst investment fund, which has yet to make a single investment in the more than three years since it was approved by the Chicago City Council.

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  • Ald. Greg Mitchell (7).


    Aldermen reluctantly approved on Tuesday a tax break to renovate the former City Colleges of Chicago headquarters, blasting the lack of information about how many Black- and Latino-owned firms will be part of the $137 million project.

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  • Legislation that would put an elected board of Chicago residents in charge of the Chicago Police Department stalled Tuesday amid a dispute between Mayor Lori Lightfoot and her hand-picked Public Safety Committee chair over how policy should be set for the police department.

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  • A carriage from the now-shuttered Noble Horse stables rumbles down Wells Street in 2011. [Flickr/David B. Gleason]
    Animal rights activists will try again Wednesday to convince aldermen to ban horse-drawn carriages, 18 months after they fell short in their years-long push to outlaw the popular tourist attraction.

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  • Ald. Anthony Beale (9). [Heather Cherone/The Daily Line]
    A plan to build a massive distribution center for Amazon in Pullman cleared a key city panel on Monday, Ald. Anthony Beale (9) said.

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  • A four-year effort to complete the reforms prompted by the murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald could end Tuesday with a vote by the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety to give an elected board of Chicago residents oversight of the Chicago Police Department.

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    Mayor Lori Lightfoot in her City Hall office. [Madison Hopkins/BGA]

    Nearly 30 years ago, Chicago’s mayor and Commonwealth Edison squared off in a high-stakes battle over how the public utility would operate the city’s power grid.

    Then-Mayor Richard M. Daley was under intense pressure to extract concessions from the company, including assistance for the poor and elderly and assurances Chicago wouldn’t suffer major power outages. To try to get his way, the administration even publicly debated the city taking over the utility’s infrastructure.

  • Mayor Lori Lightfoot endorses former Vice President Joe Biden for president as his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, looks on. [Heather Cherone/The Daily Line]
    Former Vice President Joe Biden is the best Democratic candidate to take on President Donald Trump and defend Chicago residents, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Friday, spurning Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

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  • Cook County Comm. Jeff Tobolski (D-16).


    Cook County Comm. Jeffrey Tobolski (D-16) announced on Friday that he will resign from the Cook County Board of Commissioners — five months after federal investigators raided his suburban office amid a growing corruption investigation.

    “It is about time,” said Cicero Township Committeeperson Blanca Vargas, who controls approximately 21 percent of the vote on the committee that will be formed to pick Tobolski’s replacement.

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    Cresco senior counsel Jim Boland reviews the company's plan for a dispensary at 436 N Clark St. [Alex Nitkin/The Daily Line]

    Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42) excoriated the mayoral-appointed Zoning Board of Appeals as “a joke” on Friday after its members green-lit a proposal for a River North cannabis dispensary over his objections and those of a neighborhood group.

  • Mayor Lori Lightfoot wrote in a Jan. 24 Facebook post that Jill Rose Quinn “has fought for fairness, equality and justice her entire life and her perspective and experience will be invaluable for our courts and our community.” [Facebook]
    Jill Rose Quinn has racked up a powerful list of allies as high-ranking Democrats and LGBT organizing groups rally around her bid to become the first openly transgender judge ever to serve in Illinois.

    But that doesn’t mean she’s stopped working for votes.

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  • Leaders of five cannabis companies are due in City Hall on Friday to ask for permission to open what could be Chicago’s first new dispensaries since the sale of recreational weed became legal this year.

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    Supporters of a planned Emmett Street affordable housing complex say they aren’t worried about a lawsuit filed by a group of Logan Square property owners that aims to block the development.

    The lawsuit, filed by prolific Northwest Side landlord Mark Fishman among others, takes aim at city leaders and the nonprofit Bickerdike Redevelopment Corporation, which plans to begin construction this year on a seven-story, all-affordable complex at 2602-38 N. Emmett St.

  • A law regulating short-term rentals must be strengthened to keep up with Chicago’s growing home-sharing industry and to prevent apartments and homes rented for a short time from creating a nuisance, city officials told aldermen Wednesday.

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