Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson insists crime is improving in the city despite police data.

At the Economic Club of Chicago recently, Johnson discussed how he is addressing rising crime and the city’s failing schools.

Less than a week after the release of a 2020 letter alleging Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin abused her office, the head of the Chicago Board of Ethics said Monday the board referred the case to the city’s inspector general’s office but that the board can’t do more unless it receives detailed findings from the IG.

Under questioning for days about why the board hasn’t acted on the letter even though it and the city’s Law Department received a copy of it in December 2020, Ethics Board Chairman William Conlon defended the board’s actions while also declining to go into details about any case specifically.

In May, the federal government formally declared an end to the COVID-19 public health emergency.

That same month, the Chicago metropolitan area registered an unemployment rate, seasonally adjusted, below 4%, according to federal government data. The last time that happened in metro Chicago was February 2020, a month before the city announced its first COVID-19 death.

After three decades and several mayors pressuring Springfield, Chicago’s first casino officially opened its doors on Saturday at 8 a.m.

The 111-year-old Medinah Temple, once home to the Shriner’s Circus, then later a Bloomingdale’s furniture store, is now operating as a temporary casino.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is trying to move the city into a new phase of its effort to support migrants — one that relies on temporary “base camps” to relieve police stations and airports that are beyond capacity.

The plan, made public last week by the Sun-Times, looks a bit different than what Johnson initially envisioned for the city’s next steps to help new arrivals.

Child care providers in Cook County were able to stay open during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic due to federal funding, but a new report finds that the region still lacks licensed home-care providers, spots for infants, hours in the evening, and affordable options.

For working families, having a safe affordable place to send their children during the work day is essential, but child care in Cook County continues to be expensive — on average $11,500 per year for a preschool child at a child care center and almost 16,500 a year for an infant, according to the report by Illinois Action for Children — a nonprofit organization that helps refer parents to child care providers in Cook County.

A Crystal Lake police officer broke into tears Monday as she spoke of her disbelief when a specialist from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services allowed a bruised 5-year-old boy to leave the police station with his mother.

That child, AJ Freund, would be dead four months later and his parents, JoAnn Cunningham and Andrew Freund Sr., eventually would be convicted and imprisoned for his death.

The country paused Monday to remember the attacks on September 11, 2001, including here in Chicago.

A number of events were held across the Chicago area to honor the nearly 3,000 victims who died on that tragic day.