Want to adopt a sidewalk? It’ll take some muscle and a snow shovel

Chicago homeowners and businesses are required by law to shovel the sidewalks in front of their property, even though the city seldom cracks the whip.

Now, City Hall is using technology to try to keep those sidewalks clear.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration has created a …

Emanuel says he had nothing to do with city sticker decision

Mayor Rahm Emanuel insisted Friday that he played no role in City Clerk Susana Mendoza’s decision to pull a 15-year-old’s city sticker design because of concern it could contain symbols of the Maniac Latin Disciples street gang.

Mendoza has been taking an editorial beating for …

Feds, state, county join anti-crime blitzkrieg in two violent districts

The Chicago Police Department’s plan to target gangs and drug markets in the city’s two most violent police districts is paying early dividends and will now be supplemented by an unprecedented infusion of county, state and federal resources.

In the month since the Englewood and …

Eleven inmates released by county despite immigration detainers have reoffended

Rather than being turned over to immigration authorities, 346 Cook County jail inmates have walked out of jail without delay after posting bond, serving their sentence or having their case dropped in the nearly five months since county commissioners passed a controversial immigration ordinance.

From …

Rahm Emanuel proposes $65 per-gun fee and registry

Illinois handgun owners would be required to register their weapons with the state — and pay a $65-per-gun registration fee — under a mayoral plan proposed Thursday to arm police with the information they need to solve crimes and reduce illegal firearm transfers.

Even as …

Federal Reserve makes contingency plans for summits

The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago said Thursday it has “extensive contingency plans” that would allow its employees to “work from home” or from an “off-site location” in the event that demonstrations turn ugly during the NATO and G-8 summits.

The bank is located at …

Tempers flare, insults fly over Chicago public school closings

Opposing sides on the school closing issue faced off in the lobby of Chicago Board of Education headquarters Thursday, with one local school council member calling a group of ministers pushing for school closings “a bunch of liars” and a minister firing back, “See the results when you don’t educate people properly.”

Teen whose city sticker design was nixed will still get $1,000

City Clerk Susana Mendoza says she will pay $1,000 from her own pocket to a student who initially won a city sticker contest but whose design was pulled because of concerns it could contain gang signs.

Mayor Emanuel: Time to speed up trains to O’Hare, Midway

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Wednesday he’s evaluating plans to shave up to 12 minutes off CTA travel times between downtown and O’Hare Airport and Midway Airport, a goal he views as more attainable than his predecessor’s dream of an express train to O’Hare.

City Clerk yanks stickers over gang sign flap despite mom’s plea

Chicago City Clerk Susana Mendoza is axing the controversial winning design for the 2012-13 city sticker, saying it could be “misconstrued” as including gang signs.

Quinn wants $2 billion in state Medicaid cuts

Gov. Pat Quinn said he plans to cut the state’s Medicaid spending by $2 billion as a painful but necessary way to attack the state’s budget crisis.

He also echoed state House Speaker Michael Madigan’s call for suburban and Downstate school districts to start contributing …

Emanuel, Preckwinkle tout $20 million saved in city-county partnership

Chicago and Cook County will save $20.5 million this year by joining forces on everything from elections, some purchasing and revenue collection to custodial services and workforce development, but the next round of cuts will be tougher, officials said Tuesday.

“It is easy to migrate …

Company accused of racially hostile workplace offers apology

A top ThyssenKrupp Elevator Corp. official apologized Tuesday for the racially hostile work environment that existed at the company’s Westchester office, acknowledged the “distress and hurt” it caused African-Americans and promised “further measures” to sensitize employees and correct past “mistakes.”

Ald. Beale helped trim cab reforms after campaign fund-raiser

An influential alderman was accused Monday of working behind the scenes to soften the blow of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s taxicab industry overhaul five days after principals of an industry trade group hosted a fund-raiser for the alderman.

The Jan. 12 fund-raiser for Ald. Anthony Beale …

The ‘blackface’ workplace: ‘I never felt more alone in my life’

Montrelle Reese said he “never felt more alone in my life” than he did when he worked as a sales representative for the Westchester office of Thyssen-Krupp Elevator. It wasn’t just the frequent use of the n-word by his white co-workers or even the blackface routine at a company meeting, he said. It was the fact that a racially hostile work environment more prevalent in the 1960s was “part of the culture,” he said.