David Jackson

To address a devastating pattern of elementary-grade absenteeism in Chicago Public Schools and across the state, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Gov. Pat Quinn have thrown their support behind legislation to lower Illinois' compulsory attendance age from 7 to 6 or...

State Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia today introduced legislation to create a task force to "address the truancy and excessive absences epidemic" in Chicago's public elementary schools. The resolution creating the panel would have to be approved by the state...

Mexico's top diplomat in the United States has vowed that his government will redouble efforts to apprehend the growing numbers of criminal suspects who escape across America's borders. "You have my firm commitment that Mexico will never be a safe...

At a 90-minute closed door meeting Thursday, top federal, state and local law enforcement officials laid out their plans for improving the government's faltering efforts to apprehend violent fugitives who cross U.S. borders to evade justice in Illinois....

— For years, Des Plaines police had no idea who committed the grisly 1999 knife murder of United Airlines flight attendant Young Kavila. The slender 30-year-old was nearly beheaded as she tried to fight off an attempted sexual assault in the...

State Sen. Ira Silverstein, D-Chicago, is pushing legislation that would make it illegal in Illinois for a fugitive's family members to harbor or aid the fleeing suspect. Illinois currently is one of 14 states that specifically exempt close relatives...

Citing an ongoing Tribune investigation, Illinois Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin on Monday urged U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to fix breakdowns in America's criminal justice system that allow growing numbers of criminal suspects to flee the country...

The family bank of Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias loaned a pair of Chicago crime figures about $20 million during a 14-month period when Giannoulias was a senior loan officer, according to a Tribune examination that provides new details...

At an emotionally-charged hearing on Chicago’s South Side Saturday, U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush grilled top law enforcement officials about whether they respond forcefully enough when African-American and Hispanic children are reported missing or...

U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush said he will summon top federal and local law enforcement authorities, crime victims and experts to a January summit in Chicago, seeking ways to better protect children from attempted stranger abductions. Rush said he is responding...

After years of frustration, authorities and advocates believed this spring represented their last and best opportunity to reform Illinois' troubled nursing homes. Still, it took tense negotiations and an 11th-hour deal to strike a historic bill that aims...

by Mark Silva Nothing like the Internet. Nothing like a chain-email that goes "viral.'' That's what Obama adviser David Axelrod hopes will happen with an email that he has penned (typed), our friend David Jackson at The Oval notes today.......