City briefings: Deal near on Chicago teacher contract?

The Chicago Teachers Union is considering a "serious offer" from Chicago Public Schools, enough to put the proposal before its 40-member Big Bargaining Team on Monday for a vote, union president Karen Lewis says.

Lewis said the "basic framework" of the deal calls for "economic concessions in exchange for enforceable protections of education quality and job security."

"After a period of intense and difficult bargaining," she said in a prepared statement, "the CTU has received a serious offer from Chicago Public Schools."

Indicted cop gets death threats

Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke has been receiving death threats since he was charged with murdering 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, his attorney, Daniel Herbert, said Friday.

"My client is doing OK but to be honest, he is having a very difficult time. It's impacted him quiet a bit," Herbert said after Van Dyke appeared before Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan for a brief hearing.

"He's [Van Dyke] received death threats. His family has received death threats ... He's very concerned about his wife and his children and his own well-being."

Art Institute names new president

The board of the Art Institute of Chicago has named James Rondeau, a curator and scholar who has led two of the museum's 11 curatorial departments during his 18-year tenure with the institution, as its new president.

Rondeau, 46, currently the chair and curator of modern and contemporary art for the institute, will succeed Douglas Druick, who announced in October that he would retire after more than 30 years at the museum.

"James has proved himself one of the most innovative and accomplished curators and museum leaders anywhere," said board chairman Robert M. Levy. "He understands with great insight what makes the Art Institute so powerfully exceptional - the parallel strengths of our founding encyclopedic vision and our remarkable dedication to art of the moment."

Some dashcams lacked audio

Microphones were missing from Chicago Police vehicles 86 of the 1,700 times they were sent to the shop for maintenance on their dashcam systems over an 11-month period, records show.

There were another 29 times that cars didn't have their microphones properly synced to the camera systems, according to police maintenance logs between September 2014 and July 2015.

The newly released records support suspicions that officers have failed to enable the audio on their dashcams - or even discarded their microphones - to avoid having their interactions with citizens recorded.

Schools delay use renovation plan

Officials at the Chicago Public Schools have decided to postpone plans to put a high school into the Little Village elementary school building already shared by Saucedo Scholastic Academy and Telpochcalli School.

Parents, meanwhile, warned the board of education that they will keep fighting any future plans they think hurt any of the schools.

Education chief Janice Jackson confirmed school officials would not pursue a proposal next month that had caught the parents by surprise.

Community members had vocally opposed the plan, saying there wasn't enough space to add more students to an already overcrowded building that boasted strong academics and special programs.

Loyola to punish

student government

Administrators at Loyola University Chicago have decided not to discipline four students involved in a campus demonstration in November that appeared to get out of control.

Instead, administrators announced that the student government of Loyola Chicago "has been found responsible for disruption. The organization will receive educational and developmental sanctions to help strengthen their internal processes and procedures, but they will not be placed on probation of any kind."

One of four students accused of taking a campus demonstration too far labeled the sanctions "ridiculous."

"Our stance is that no one should have been charged in the first place and I'm disappointed by the university's decision to take this unprecedented action," student Liillian Osborne said. "I've never heard of student government [being] tried for something."

The demonstration in support of increased wages and health benefits for food service workers initially took place outside the student center dining hall, but migrated inside the building.

Man dies 5 months after assault

A 64-year-old man died five months after he was assaulted in the East Garfield Park neighborhood on Chicago's West Side.

Lester Weatherspoon died at Wednesday at RML Specialty Hospital in Hinsdale, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

Weatherspoon was beaten on Aug. 30 in the 2700 block of West Harrison, according to Chicago Police and the medical examiner's office.

An autopsy Thursday found he died of complications of blunt force injuries to the head he suffered in an unwitnessed afternoon assault, according to the medical examiner's office. His death was ruled a homicide.

Detectives are continuing to investigate.

• This week's City Briefing was collected in partnership with the Chicago Sun-Times. For complete versions of the items, check chicago.suntimes.com.