The Latest Breaking News from Cook County

The medical examiner’s office has already confirmed 1,599 opioid overdose deaths for 2022, and it expects 400 to 500 of its pending cases will also be listed as death by opioid toxicity.

The remains have been sent to the Cook County medical examiner’s office to determine a cause of death and identification.

Today’s update is a 5-minute read that will brief you on the day’s biggest stories.

After the Cook County Board of Review granted appeals to businesses downtown, the property tax burden shifted to Pilsen residents who fear they could lose their homes and businesses.

CHICAGO — The Illinois criminal justice system is set for a major makeover beginning Sunday, replacing a cash-bail structure with one that requires judges to more carefully weigh who among the accused should be held in custody before trial without using money as a factor.

A judge deemed a provision of the SAFE-T Act unconstitutional as part of a lawsuit involving 64 other counties, but reform will move ahead as planned in Chicago and its immediate suburbs.

The current system discriminates against Black and Latino residents, often resulting in loss of a family’s home over a minuscule amount of unpaid property taxes.

A confirmation of a leather carp in the Kankakee River, a “well-built” buck in a Cook County forest preserve, sale of Theodore Roosevelt’s Smith & Wesson and wild black carp confirmed in the Mississippi River basin are among the notes from around Chicago outdoors and beyond.

The lawsuit alleges that the tax sales process disproportionally causes minority families to lose their homes without compensating them for their property.

CHICAGO — Close observers of R. Kelly’s Cook County cases might have had a touch of deja vu Tuesday during the singer’s latest hearing.

Nikodem Zaremba, 27, was taken to Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, where he died, the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.