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Chicago Public Schools will lay off about 1,000 employees, nearly half of whom are teachers. Officials with the nation’s third-largest school district characterized the layoffs Friday as part of the “normal” yearly staff movement between schools and that they expect most people will be hired for other jobs. CPS has about 1,000 teaching vacancies. …

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The head of the Obama Foundation, as well as local dignitaries, made the formal announcement Wednesday that Jackson Park will officially host the Obama Presidential Center. "The President and First Lady are proud that the Obama Foundation is developing the Obama Presidential Center on the South Side, a community that they call home. Of course we all know the South Side is a historical place with vibrant institutions such as the DuSable Museum, the University of Chicago and the Museum of Science and Industry," Obama Foundation Chairman Marty Nesbitt said. The Obama Foundation executives, Mayor Rahm Emanuel...

Much of the media focus centering on the Republican and Democratic conventions dealt with the contrast between Donald Trump’s “dark vision” of America as opposed to Hillary Clinton’s cheerful, optimistic outlook. For proof of this, the Democrats chose to selectively highlight various statistics which show that, overall, crime rates in the United States remain lower now than they were during the historically high levels seen in the eighties and early nineties. That much is certainly true, but it’s equally accurate to point out that in certain places things have gotten considerably worse over the last several years, primarily in large,...

The confrontation between O'Neal and the officers happened about 7:30 p.m. Thursday after officers tried to stop O'Neal as he drove a Jaguar that had reportedly been stolen in Bolingbrook. As O'Neal drove north in the 7400 block of South Merrill Avenue, he struck a responding police SUV and a parked car, police sources told the Tribune. Two officers opened fire as O'Neal continued into the 7300 block of Merrill. O'Neal then collided with another police SUV, causing significant damage, and fled from the car. A third officer chased him and shot him behind a nearby residence, the sources said....

President Obama and the foundation helping to plot his path after the White House have selected Jackson Park on the South Side of Chicago as the site of his presidential library, ending a debate within his inner circle about the location, a person familiar with the decision said Wednesday. Mr. Obama and his presidential foundation have been deliberating for months over whether to place the library in Jackson Park, which is on a broad expanse of Lake Michigan and borders the Woodlawn neighborhood, or in the Washington Park neighborhood, which is closer to the Obamas’ home in Chicago. …

Chicago's per capita homicide rate climbed over the last decade, and the chances of an African-American being killed in the city spiked drastically, according to a new report. From 2005 to 2015, the city went from 17.3 homicides per 100,000 residents to a rate of about 18.8, according to a report from the Injury Prevention and Research Center at the Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. But the report held particularly troubling news for African-Americans. The rate for blacks in Chicago jumped from 36.1 homicides per 100,000 residents in 2005 to 46.5 a decade later. Other studies have shown steep drops...

CHICAGO (STMW) — Seven people were killed and at least 52 more were wounded in shootings across Chicago between Friday evening and Monday morning, according to Chicago Police.

Thursday, July 14, 2016 Bye Bye Shotguns? An interesting missive out of the Chief of Patrol's Office this week: Commencing the week of 18 July 2016 through 22 July 2016, there will be a District shotgun and ammunition turn-in. The purpose of this weapon turn-in is to collect the shotguns, reconcile the inventory and later repurpose the weapons if necessary. [emphasis added - SCC] There's an attached matrix for every district and unit to bring the shotguns in - and the Districts may not get them back. One of the more versatile weapons in the Department inventory is being removed...

Just four words: Black America, I'm Sorry. Laurella Willis' methods are turning heads on Chicago’s South Side, CBS 2's Audrina Bigos reports. [Snip] [Willis] says she is sorry about "everything that's going on in America." The violence, the anger, the racial tension, all of it. "I don't want to continue to see Black American being oppressed, and held down and killed like animals," Willis said.

A war among criminals rages on in America's third-largest city, with innocent residents caught in the crossfire. Over the holiday weekend, Chicago passed an ominous threshold: So far in 2016, 2,000 people have been victims of gun violence. In all of last year, 2,988 people were victims of gun violence, according to records kept by The Chicago Tribune.

At least 18 people have been shot so far this weekend and six of those victims are dead. One of the shootings happened in the University Village neighborhood early Saturday morning. Two security guards were called to a large outdoor party at a housing complex in the 1300 block of West Hastings. Someone started shooting and a 24-year-old man was shot in the back and killed. The two security guards were wounded.

At least 29 people have been wounded, three fatally, in shootings since midmorning Monday in Chicago, authorities said. At 10:45 p.m., a 21-year-old man died after being shot in the Englewood neighborhood on the South Side, police said. The man was walking in the 5600 block of South May Street when someone in a passing black sedan fired shots, striking him in the left side, police said. The man was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was initially listed in serious condition. He was later pronounced dead, said Officer Hector Alfaro, a police spokesman.

"The Democrats have spent our state into the toilet for 30 years" — Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, speaking to reporters Tuesday in Springfield "Nice sound bite! And he's right about the plumbing situation. Without question, Illinois' financial condition is metaphorically akin to unpleasant substances found deep in the commode, and it's getting worse every day the nearly yearlong budget stalemate continues."

Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel has offered to take charge of a film celebrating Donald Trump's presidential campaign that would air next month at the Republican National Convention, Trump said in a new interview. "He's a very good friend of mine," Trump said about Emanuel in a story posted online Wednesday by The Hollywood Reporter. "He calls me a lot. I call him a lot and we talk. He's very political. Even though he's not political, he's political. He gets it." . . .

Chicago police beefed up patrols for Memorial Day as more than 60 people were shot during the violent three-day holiday weekend. By Monday evening, at least 62 people had been shot across the city since Friday afternoon, including six who were killed. This surpasses the number of people shot during last year's Memorial Day weekend, though Chicago Police News Affairs said murders are down 50 percent compared to last Memorial Day.

Some police officers who have spoken to The Daily Beast blame arduous paperwork required for street stops—Chicago’s version of stop and frisk—for this year’s uptick in gun violence. Fewer street stops mean fewer guns being taken off the street. One officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity blamed this system for the shooting spike, saying his fellow cops want nothing to do with the spider’s web of legalities involved every time they stop someone they think might be a shooter... ...“Chicago is dead,” Simmons said staring blankly at the street, the lights, the cars, the scene. “I got a...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday blamed his dismal showing in a New York Times poll on “40 years” of financial neglect of Chicago’s South and West sides — not on disenchantment with him. One year after the mayor’s second inauguration, 62 percent of those surveyed disapproved of Emanuel’s performance as mayor. Only 25 percent approved of the job the mayor is doing. ... Without mentioning former Mayor Richard M. Daley by name, Emanuel laid the blame squarely on the doorstep of his predecessor and political mentor.

CHICAGO (WLS) - The violence plaguing Chicago did not stop this Mother's Day weekend. At least 49 people were shot and seven died over the last three days in locations all over the city. On Friday, mothers who lost children to violence pleaded for calm over the weekend, but their pleas seemed to fall on deaf ears. Community members spoke out against the violence on a weekend when mothers are supposed to be spending time with their children, not saying goodbye.

President Obama’s hometown is a war zone. The horrendous violence on the streets there has escalated. With warm summer-like weather, gang bangers were especially active, easily surpassing 2015’s Mothers Day carnage (3 killed, 25 wounded) and 2014’s (5 killed, 19 wounded). Meanwhile, the President of the United States ignores the battlefield conditions in the hometown he adopted as his political base. Nearly all of the violence is among young black males, making the rate of death in that particular demographic segment comparable to a serous war zone. A map of the violence this year to date from heyjackss.com shows where...

The people of Chicago are deeply riven by race, class and neighborhood, distrustful of the police, fearful of the growing rate of violent crime and united chiefly in their disapproval of the mayor’s performance and their conviction that the city is headed down the wrong track. These are among findings of a new survey by The New York Times and the Kaiser Family Foundation, which polled residents of a city that has been upended in recent months by revelations of questionable actions by the police, threats of a teachers’ strike, a school funding crisis and an uptick in violence. The...