The Latest Breaking News from Cook County

The Cook County’s Office of the Independent Inspector General concluded that all the members of the board of the South Cook County Mosquito Abatement District shouldn’t have their appointments renewed.

Judge Charles Burns oversees the Rehabilitative Alternative Program drug court. It helps people beat addiction, find jobs, housing. It’s those who backslide who keep him up at night.

Smollett was found guilty by a Cook County jury last month of five counts of disorderly conduct for lying about a racist and homophobic attack on himself in 2019 near his Streeterville neighborhood home.

The state has averaged 107 deaths per day over the past week, a stretch that saw Cook County lose a total of 425 residents to the virus — the worst week since mid-November 2020.

CHICAGO — Cook County Judge William Raines has been taken off the bench of his felony courtroom after he was caught on a YouTube livestream last week mocking an attorney who had argued before him earlier that day.

Iliana Mora, chief administration officer for Cook County Health’s Ambulatory Services, said the Forest Park facility alone is equipped to give out 1,300 doses a day.

Today’s update is a 5-minute read that will brief you on the day’s biggest stories.

The COVID-19 crisis, and the associated pivot to virtual hearings and livestreams, has exposed plenty of flaws in the judicial system and its practitioners. We’ve seen a lawyer who could not get rid of a cat filter, defendants appearing semi-naked, attorneys smoking cigars and all kinds of shenanigans with the…

CHICAGO — At the end of a year that saw at least 800 homicides in Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot last month wrote to the Cook County chief judge with a request: Judges should immediately stop ordering certain defendants to await trial at home with an electronic-monitoring ankle bracelet.