The Latest Breaking News from Cook County

A pilot program announced by Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart and Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias is thought to be the first in the nation offered to inmates at the county jail level.

Corey Ivy, 32, was found in the drivers seat of a parked vehicle in the first block of West Cermak Road around 9:15 p.m., Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.

Jobs can be a source of inspiration, but opportunities are diminishing for young Black people in the Chicago area, Alden Loury writes.

Young Black men are disproportionately affected by housing instability, and youth in foster care or who have experienced the death of a parent or caregiver are also at high risk, a recent Chapin Hall study found.

During Foxx’s two terms, the state’s attorney’s office has vacated more than 200 convictions over allegations of misconduct.

Eileen O’Neill Burke, a retired Illinois Appellate Court judge and a former Cook County assistant state’s attorney, filed more than 13,000 signatures to run as a Democrat for Cook County state’s attorney — the last day candidates had to file petitions for the March primary.

Alex Alvarado, 19, was shot Aug. 20 and remained hospitalized for more than three months. He died Wednesday, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Public officials celebrated at a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new American Blues Theater on the Northwest Side, activists held a vigil for people who have died while detained at Cook County Jail, and construction workers began framing a “winterized base camp” for asylum-seekers in Chicago.

The sheriff’s office said that of the 16 people who died in custody at the jail in 2023, five were overdoses and four were due to natural causes. Two were slain.

The online education tool, “Where Your Money Goes,” calculates the money owed to each school district or other local unit of government in the past two years — showing the increase or decrease from the year before.

A slew of statewide and county candidates filed petitions with the Illinois State Board of Elections and the Cook County clerk’s office on the first day of the week-long filing period to gain a spot on the March 19 primary ballot.