After a 20-minute trial, Cook County Judge Donald Panarese Jr. on Wednesday found powerful Illinois union leader Jerry Morrison not guilty of a misdemeanor battery charge against an off-duty Chicago police officer.

Jerry Morrison, executive director of the deep-pocketed, politically influential Service Employees International Union (SEIU), is scheduled to appear in Cook County Court on Wednesday on a charge of misdemeanor battery involving an off-duty Chicago police officer.

Life is a pilgrimage to Chicago Bears co-owner and author Pat McCaskey. It is a pilgrimage, he says, that for some is terminated tragically and unnaturally by abortion.

For free enterprise champion Tom DeWeese, a federal complaint filed last month seeking to wrest control over the locations of proposed affordable housing developments from Chicago’s aldermen is part of an ongoing, orchestrated assault on private property across the country.

A 19-year-old college freshman, David Krupa, could be on the verge of accomplishing what many older, more experienced politicians have failed at over decades: putting a chink in the armor of the Madigan political machine.

A provision in a tentative contract reached between the Acero charter school network and the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) will prohibit the school from collecting and distributing information about the immigration status of students, teachers and families, and restricts access by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to schools except by court order, a CTU lawyer told the Associated Press. The contract, which ended a four-day strike, also includes raises for teachers and staff annually over the next four years and a shorter school year and school day.

The Chicago Police Department (CPD) says it’s adding an “additional shift” to its SWAT force, giving the city around-the-clock protection against acts of terrorism, hostage takings and other public-safety crises demanding a rapid police response.

Democrats have no historic or political grounds to support their campaign rhetoric that Republicans will cast aside insurance coverage for those with pre-existing conditions if they remain in power in Washington, D.C.

The hallucinogenic drug phencyclidine, or PCP, in Laquan McDonald’s system was a significant factor in what eventually led to his 2014 shooting death by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, drug recognition experts say.

Jurors deciding the fate of Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke heard key testimony on the mental state of the teen, high on PCP, who refused commands to drop a knife.

The Chicago Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) recently filed a complaint that accuses Chicago’s SWAT team of having a shortage of manpower that endangers the public and police force.

Jerry Morrison, the politically well-connected and outspoken head of the SEIU, one of the state’s largest public sector unions, is scheduled to appear in the Misdemeanor Section of the Circuit Court of Cook County on October 2 on one charge of battery.

U.S. Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) is expected to announce today that he is backing Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia for Chicago mayor.

In a recent Twitter post, conservative strategist Dan Proft said that “Chicago is poised to go full de Blasio” in reaction to news that Cook County board President Toni Preckwinkle is testing the waters for a run for mayor.

Last week, Frederick “Fritz” Kaegi, who will almost certainly win the election for Cook County assessor in November, criticized outgoing Assessor Joe Berrios for not developing a residential assessment model fairer to lower-income homeowners.

The administration, not the kids, will be the big winner from a new $10 million pilot program aimed at Chicago’s most vulnerable public schools, according to Heather MacDonald, a Manhattan Institute scholar who has written extensively on the nation’s public schools.

The Chicago Police Department (CPD) has organized a “Take Back the Streets” rally at 7 p.m. today on 49th and Cicero, a corner in Archer Heights that has neighbors on a crusade to rid it, and the entire block, of prostitutes and drug dealers.

An investigative report into student-on-student sexual assaults in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) published recently in the Chicago Tribune is another heartbreaking symptom of a school district beyond repair, according to lawmakers and education experts asked for their reactions to the report.

A proposed change in the bylaws of the Cook County Republican Party that would have allowed Democrats to serve as Republican ward committeemen fizzled at a meeting of party officials July 25 and county Republicans lacked a quorum necessary for a vote after nearly 30 committeemen boycotted the meeting.

A proposed initiative that would virtually destroy the Republican Party in Chicago and forfeit any chance of fair oversight of elections in Cook County is slated to go before county Republican committeemen on Wednesday night.