Millionaire businessman Willie Wilson said Tuesday he will announce April 11 whether or not to reprise his 2019 mayoral campaign against Lori Lightfoot, but his $1.2 million gas giveaway was not a vote-buying prelude to it. Listen to the full conversation here on The Fran Spielman Show.

Sun-Times entertainment critic Richard Roeper joins City Hall reporter and film enthusiast Fran Spielman to discuss his picks for this year's Academy Awards.

Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez is furious at Lightfoot for granting a tavern license to the Giant Penny Whistle, defying a moratorium along a three-block stretch of Blue Island Avenue. Sigcho-Lopez joined the Pilsen Neighbors Community Council in suing to nullify the license.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot “has a personality that a lot of folks don’t like” and it’s getting in the way of solving Chicago’s intransigent problems of violent crime and public education, the chairman of the Illinois Black Caucus told the Chicago Sun-Times.

State Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Chicago, said he will decide soon after the scheduled April 8 close of the spring legislative session whether to challenge Lightfoot in the race for Chicago mayor now less than one year away.

A non-profit’s ambitious, $1 billion plan to send thousands of inner-city students and their parents to college or trade school is, ultimately about stopping the unrelenting gang violence plaguing Chicago, former Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson said Friday.

After leaving her pressure-cooker job last year, Jackson signed on at CEO of Hope Chicago, the non-profit founded by Pete Kadens and Ted Koenig to fully fund post-secondary education for two generations of needy kids.

Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine could raise gas prices by 50 cents a gallon, infuriating an already angry electorate and making a “hard hand” for Democrats even worse in this year’s elections.

That’s the tough-love bottom line from former Obama presidential adviser-turned-CNN commentator David Axelrod, director and co-founder of the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics.

Jurors Monday took about three-and-a-half hours to find Thompson guilty of two counts of lying to regulators and five counts of filing false federal income tax returns. State law requires Thompson to resign his seat on the City Council. Sun-Times investigative reporter Tim Novak, columnist Mark Brown, and federal courts reporter Jon Seidel discuss the conviction and what this means for the Daley family legacy.

Jonathan Jackson, a son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, on Monday kicked off his congressional campaign in the crowded Democratic primary to replace Rep. Bobby Rush for Illinois' 1st Congressional District.

In declaring his candidacy, Jonathan Jackson talked about having traveled the world with his father, seeing greatness and about being “in the room” where it happened.

During the wide-ranging interview with the Sun-Times, Jonathan Jackson fondly recalled some of those first-person experiences.

Cultural Affairs and Special Events Commissioner Erin Harkey acknowledged that Taste of Chicago was once the city’s premier food and fun festival spanning ten days that included the all-important July 4th weekend and the July 3rd fireworks show. But, that was before a tidal wave of police retirements left a demoralized and overworked Chicago Police Department with more than 1,000 vacancies as it struggles to tame an unrelenting crime wave that saw homicides surge last year to levels not seen in a quarter century. Against that backdrop, it’s difficult to justify a ten-day summer showcase in Grant Park that requires siphoning officers from neighborhood police districts to protect to avoid what happened in 2008.

Little Village Ald. Mike Rodriguez (22nd) on Thursday applauded the extraordinary level of community cooperation that led police to the two people charged with the murder of 8-year-old Melissa Ortega.

“What you had was community members all around the area communicating with police. You had people calling 911. You had people turning over their video willfully. This was a crime that was solved because neighbors stepped up and worked with the police,” Rodriguez said.