Donald Trump has granted a full pardon to Conrad Black, the disgraced former owner of the Chicago Sun-Times who last year wrote a flattering political biography of the president, his longtime friend. The Canadian-born Black, along with his business partner F. David Radler, was convicted in 2007 and sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison for diverting proceeds from newspaper sales into his own pockets when the money should have gone to investors of Hollinger International Inc., his media empire that included the Sun-Times and The Daily Telegraph of London. Black was released on bond in 2010 to purs ..read more

Pro-pot legislators are still hoping to pass a bill legalizing recreational marijuana by the end of the month, but they are heading back to the negotiating table in hopes of stubbing out a flurry of objections. Opponents of the wide-ranging bill had free rein to voice their displeasure at a lengthy Senate committee hearing in Springfield on Wednesday — and they aired concerns about everything from how law enforcement will measure impairment in drivers to which marijuana offenses should be expunged to whether or not weed causes erectile dysfunction. The latter claim had one of the bill’s sponso ..read more

Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot isn’t wasting any time. She announced a key appointment in her administration on Wednesday that will lead the charge to change Chicago’s reputation for being “a tale of two cities.” Candace Moore, a transplant from Aurora whose mother grew up in  Englewood, will become the city’s first chief equity officer. She will be responsible for shaping an office tasked with uprooting one of the city’s most entrenched problems — inequity in just about every sector, including jobs, housing, economic development and education. It’s work that the 32-year-old Moore seems cut out to ..read more

Todd Stroger just landed a new talk radio gig, and the former Cook County Board president is looking forward to chatting with a regular monthly guest: Toni Preckwinkle. Stroger says that his former bitter rival has agreed to sit down with him to talk politics on WVON. Stroger called their differences “old time stuff now.” Long before Preckwinkle lost her mayoral bid, she beat Stroger in the 2010 Democratic primary. And she continued to vilify him long afterward. “It is a mixed blessing succeeding somebody who is inept,” Preckwinkle told college students two years later. “On one hand, the bar i ..read more

Less than a week after Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s venture capital firm sold Seadog Cruises, a tour guide who made waves when he tried to unionize the company last fall learned he was out of a job. Dean, who worked as a docent the three previous seasons with company, doesn’t believe the explanation he was given that all the company’s positions were full. Now he’s accusing his bosses of illegally getting back at him in response to his very public organizing efforts, including his confrontation of Pritzker which was posted online. “Yes, absolutely, it’s 100 percent in retaliation,” said Dean. “They’ve ..read more

The Chicago Bears take the field with a scripted series of plays for the opening drive. The same could be said of Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot. She has a list of things she wants to get done in the first 100 days: • Keep Chicago safe — and young people occupied — by “flooding the zone” over Memorial Day weekend. • Prepare a budget that’s certain to include painful cuts and tax increases to satisfy a $277 million spike in pension payments and a budget shortfall more “dire” than she anticipated. • Build more affordable housing to stem Chicago’s population losses. • Bring equity to an overly-puniti ..read more

Alabama lawmakers’ vote to outlaw almost all abortions in the state has ignited legal and political battles as conservatives aim to challenge the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. The legislation that would make performing an abortion at any stage of pregnancy, with almost no exceptions, a felony is now in the hands of the governor, who will decide whether to sign it into law. Even supporters anticipate that, if enacted, courts would block the legislation from taking effect as abortion opponents play a long-game legal strategy to try to give states control over ..read more

Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot vowed Wednesday to take a fresh look at the widely-despised parking meter deal and try and find some way to either break the 75-year lease, shorten it or sweeten the sour terms for Chicago taxpayers. Lightfoot said it’s time to try again now that private investors have recouped their initial $1.16 billion investment — and still have 65 years to go on the 75-year lease. “It’s like this burr under your saddle. And it keeps rubbing and rubbing … every time there’s reporting about the windfall of money that they’ve made at a time when we’re in such financial distress,” L ..read more

Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot vowed Wednesday to “blow up all the old concepts about using city government to profit oneself” — and give a starring role in that break-up to Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd). Lightfoot refused to confirm reports she has chosen Waguespack to serve as chairman of the City Council’s Finance Committee, Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) as Budget Committee chairman and Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd) to chair the Zoning Committee. Conversations were fluid and “things could certainly shift,” she said. But she made it clear Waguespack would be batting clean-up in her line-up of committee chairman ..read more

Ald. Proco “Joe” Moreno was charged with insurance fraud and obstruction of justice Wednesday morning in relation to a possible false police report he filed in January. Moreno, whose tenure as 1st Ward alderman ends Monday, was taken into custody on the felony charges Tuesday night, according to Chicago police. In January, Moreno told police his 2006 Audi A6 was stolen. Police pulled over a woman driving the car the next day and she was briefly charged with criminal trespass to a vehicle before the misdemeanor was dropped. The woman later told reporters that she and Moreno were dating on-and-o ..read more