A judge in Chicago says the state doesn't have time to reprint the November ballots to fix inaccurate language.

Violent crime in Chicago continues unabated this year, with the latest unofficial statistics showing that there were 316 more shootings in the city through August.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. A new report says the state finished the first three months of its budget year with a mountain of unpaid bills and record payment delays.

He was a good son and friend, a force to be reckoned with on the football field and an aspiring chef who burned a few meals, said the family and friends of an eighth grade boy. That camaraderie and those dreams faded away Thursday after 13-year-old Sameer Conn was fatally struck by a bullet a block away from his Southeast Side home.

In the past year, 97 South Side residents, most of them Black, have found permanent and temporary employment thanks to a relatively new job readiness program.

The city of Chicago wants to join the trend toward banning text messaging while driving.

State Sen. James Meeks, D-15th, brought his message of school funding reform to the Friendly Confines.

A sixth grade boy and a 20-year-old man were shot Wednesday inside a grocery store in the 2500 block of East 106th Street, police said.

Back in 1977 when Jimmie Wright started working at the Chicago Defender, reporters gathered their news from the street and not the Internet, she said, and there was always something new going on in the office. But today, 31 years later, things have changed for the newspaper industry and Wright, 83, a cashier for the Defender, will retire Thursday.

A report released by a non-profit organization concluded that Black and white youth have been treated differently by the criminal justice system over the years, and the mistreatment continues today.

Determined to help Chicagoans become homeowners despite the foreclosure crisis, Mayor Richard M. Daley recently unveiled a new housing program that allows people to pick where they want to live. “This program truly provides a tremendous opportunity for homebuyers, matching them up with homes in which the city has invested, including market rate and affordable units,” Daley said at a news conference announcing the program.

Too many murders and too much hurt. Enough is enough, residents in one West Side community said Saturday during a campaign to take their streets back. Dozens of residents marched down 14th Street and Ridgeway Avenue, in Lawndale, calling for “positivity in the neighborhood, not crime.”

Now that rising cleanup costs have forced the city to rethink its plans for the proposed $1.1 billion Olympic Village, Bronzeville residents are pushing to relocate the project outside the community altogether.

About 1,000 city employees could be laid off and 3,000 vacant positions eliminated under Mayor Richard Daley’s effort to balance the city’s budget. Union leaders briefed on the plan say about 300 members of the Laborers Union Local 1001, whose members work in the Department of Streets and Sanitation, are among those expected to be laid off.

Last week’s presidential debate between Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., helped many Black voters decide who would best represent them in the White House for the next four years.

A second chance is sometimes all that’s needed for someone to get on the right path-and stay there, said the executive director of a local job placement program. Jobs For Youth is a free program that helps young men and women–ages 17 to 24–from lowincome and at-risk homes become part of the economic mainstream.