Walter Burnett, Jr.

Months of argument and anguish over Mayor Rahm Emanuel's push for sweeping school closings came to a climax Wednesday as his hand-picked Board of Education voted to shut 49 elementary schools and transfer thousands of children to new classroom settings....

After the Chicago School Board meeting Wednesday, many of the aldermen who argued unsuccessfully to keep schools in their wards open said they were disappointed with the process. Ald. Deborah Graham, 29th, said she went to testify at the school board...

Months of argument and anguish over Mayor Rahm Emanuel's push for sweeping school closings came to a climax Wednesday as his hand-picked Board of Education voted to shut 49 elementary schools and transfer thousands of children to new classroom settings....

Pressured for months by teachers, community leaders and aldermen, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's hand-picked school board is nonetheless expected on Wednesday to approve closing all but a few of the 53 elementary schools the administration wants to shut down....

Aldermen, have your heads stopped spinning over all the details in that McCormick Place/Navy Pier megadeal announced Thursday? If so, we have some questions for you. No, not about that megadeal. About the last megadeal. The one on revising the parking...

A group of aldermen today called for hearings on whether Taste of Chicago should be restructured or even eliminated in the face of years of financial losses. Ald. Robert Fioretti, a sponsor of the non-binding resolution, suggested Taste may have run...

Pardoned former gang member Wallace “Gator” Bradley told aldermen today he wants the right to own a handgun, even though he once had felony convictions on his record. Bradley, who in recent decades has set up shop as a self-professed “...

Indicted former state Rep. Derrick Smith was on his way Tuesday to writing a new chapter in Illinois political notoriety by regaining his House seat just months after being impeached and expelled over his arrest on federal bribery charges. Smith declared...

Chicago aldermen are sharing their opinions on Wednesday on the teachers' strike. The council members are doing their best to avoid taking sides, but are hoping the two parties are putting the interest of the kids first. “I think that if everybody...

When Chicago aldermen floated a proposal in 1987 to boost their city pensions dramatically, Mayor Harold Washington's administration dismissed it as an arrogant ploy that lacked even a cursory cost analysis. Three years later, the proposal still didn't...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel's plan to charge Taste of Chicago attendees for premium seating to see musical acts in Grant Park and for the chance to eat special meals prepared by prominent Chicago chefs cleared a City Council committee today. Department of...

Gov. Pat Quinn and other leading Democrats called today for the resignation of a state lawmaker from Chicago who won a House primary one week after being arrested on federal bribery charges. The growing pressure on state Rep. Derrick Smith contrasts with...