The Watchdogs
Investigations of government, politicians, education, business and issues affecting taxpayers and consumers.
The schools target Black, Brown, low-income students with their recruiting, offering promises of future economic stability that’s rarely fulfilled. Instead, students are left saddled with debt, in low-paying jobs that pay them what high school grads make, a WBEZ investigation has found.
Each of the candidate stretched the truth to various degrees, according to an Associated Press fact check.
Those agencies are expected to see big declines in the number of cases federal prosecutors approve in the 2024 fiscal year that ends Sept. 30, according to a federal court tracking program affiliated with Syracuse University.
Nancy Adduci, former director of the Cook County state’s attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit, had said she found nothing wrong with the prosecution of Kevin Jackson for the murder of another man at a West Side gas station in 2001.
Ex-state Sen. Annazette Collins told the judge that she “let the voters down” and is “determined to never be in this situation again.”
In a Sun-Times test, a parked car got dangerously hot in minutes, a reminder that leaving pets or children in a car, even briefly, can quickly turn deadly.
While the Sway Bar faced no noticeable consequences from Mayor Nick Caiafa, who doubles as the northwest suburb’s liquor commissioner, he insists he’s not going easy on the business.
The Chicago Illusions building gets a tax break because it has two apartments — even though it appears those units are used as part of the business.
Iman Bambooyani admitted to jet-setting across the country with four women and paying them thousands of dollars for sex. He’s now agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors.
The inspector general’s office urged Johnson to create a task force aimed at “preventing, identifying, and eliminating extremist and anti-government activities and associations within CPD.”
Napoleon Harris III, chairman of the Illinois Senate’s Insurance Committee for several years, recently became an “investor” with insurance brokers in Chicago’s southwest suburbs. He denies any conflict of interest.
The legislation would protect homeowners from long-term listing agreements, like those peddled by MV Realty, making them unenforceable.
The document includes 675 gang factions department members are forbidden from joining – but no hate or extremist groups. A police spokesperson indicated such groups will be identified on a case-by-case basis.
The transit workers union wants the agency to stop using the $15.80-an-hour apprentices on crews who scrub exteriors of L cars using an acid-based cleaner.
The south suburb paid more than $200,000 to O.A.K.K. Construction Co., a Summit business whose president Alex Nitchoff awaits sentencing after pleading guilty in January to bribing a Cook County assessor’s office employee for property tax breaks.
Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans has referred misconduct accusations against Judge Kathy Flanagan to the Judicial Inquiry Board, which will decide whether to file charges. Flanagan is the acting presiding judge of the Law Division.
Syed Shaukat Ahmed’s companies were paid more than $30 million by the federal government to provide free COVID-19 test kits to Medicare recipients. He has been charged with health care fraud.
In one case, the CHA revoked a rent voucher for a woman accused of getting fraudulent loans through the Paycheck Protection Program that a broker on Facebook offered to arrange. And six fired Illinois state workers also said they kicked back some of their loans. But the people arranging them escaped punishment.
Johnson is “mayor 24-7,” a spokesman says. “Appearances matter.” Most of his spending went to a South Side makeup artist, and a West Side barbershop was paid $4,000.
A city ordinance that codifies a 2011 executive order barring mayors from taking campaign cash would “bolster public confidence in the integrity of Chicago government,” the director of the city’s board of ethics said.