City briefings: Chicago awaits results of teacher strike vote
Thousands of Chicago public school teachers voted last week whether to go on strike.
The results have yet to be revealed. If at least 75 percent of Chicago Teachers Union members approved after the three-day voting period, the 27,000 members would position themselves to legally walk off the job in several months.
Union President Karen Lewis has said she'd like to avoid a repeat of the 2012 teachers strike that ground the country's third-largest school system to a halt, forcing parents to scramble for child care during seven days of missed classes. That year, nearly 90 percent of teachers voted to strike.
Field Museum hit with $900,000 theft
The Field Museum has put new security measures in place after an employee in the membership department swindled the museum out of more than $900,000 in cash over seven years.
The museum revealed the $903,284 theft - discovered in April 2014 - in its 2014 Form 990 filed with the Internal Revenue Service.
The employee hasn't been charged yet with a crime. But the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office are investigating the theft, according to Ray DeThorne, the museum's chief marketing officer.
State tests show city students struggle
Just one in five Chicago Public Schools students can do enough math to get into college, results released from the first-ever round of tougher, new tests show.
CPS students overall fared somewhat better in reading and writing - one in about four students in grades three through eight and in high school performed at the pace experts say they'll need for a post-secondary education.
But 18 entire schools - 13 CPS high schools, two charter high schools, a charter elementary and two CPS grade schools - reported a zero percentage of students proficient in math, fifteen in reading.
McDonald relative says police culture racist
A great uncle of Laquan McDonald on Friday said a "corrupt" system and the aftermath of the handling of the teenager's police-related shooting death was "America's and Chicago's chickens coming home to roost."
"Laquan was a big boy, but he was a teddy bear," said Marvin Hunter, pastor of the Grace Memorial Baptist Church.
When Chicago Police initially said that McDonald lunged at officers at the scene before Officer Jason Van Dyke opened fire, Hunter said relatives immediately doubted the account of the shooting.
Hunter called for a change in what he said is a systematic racist culture that led to McDonald's death.
$1 million bond in teen's murder
A South Side Chicago teen was ordered held on a $1 million bond after he and a 17-year-old were charged with fatally shooting a teenager last November in the Little Village neighborhood on the Southwest Side.
Jacob Morales, 18, and the 17-year-old male are charged with first-degree murder for the Nov. 28, 2014, shooting, a statement from police said.
At about 11 p.m., Morales and his accomplice approached 18-year-old Oscar Garcia in the 3600 block of West 25th Street, police and the Cook County medical examiner's office said. One of the suspects then pulled out a handgun and fired shots, striking Garcia under the right eye.
Judge reviews fitness in car bomb case
The trial of a Hillside man accused of trying to blow up a downtown bar with a car bomb may be delayed as a federal judge decides whether he's mentally fit.
On Thursday, Adel Daoud, 22, walked into U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman's downtown Chicago courtroom smiling and waving.
The lawyers agreed to discuss a competency hearing after Daoud wrote a letter to the judge saying Americans are mostly "brainwashed" and that his case is "quite literally me vs. The United States of America."
• This week's City Briefing was collected in partnership with the Chicago Sun-Times. For complete versions of the items, check chicago.suntimes.com.