The Latest Breaking News from Cook County

CHICAGO — In a split verdict after a hotly contested trial, a federal jury in Chicago on Wednesday convicted disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly on child pornography charges for videotaping himself sexually abusing his then-14-year-old goddaughter decades ago.

One hundred small businesses in Cook County can receive grants of $10,000 each through Comcast’s RISE Investment Fund. Applications open Oct. 3 and close Oct. 16.

Governmental agencies and nonprofits are exempt from Cook County property taxes. But if they lease out part of their property to a for-profit business, that business is supposed to pay. Too often, those taxes go uncollected.

The internal investigation was sparked by a Sun-Times report on an FBI investigation into a bribery scheme at the Cook County Board of Review.

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

The university never told county officials it was leasing to a preschool — which could be on the hook for over $800,000 in property taxes. So the bills went to a past tenant — which refused to pay the county over $400,000 in taxes but was allowed to renew its…

Fioretti plans to make public safety a key issue in the campaign.

Four people are seeking custody of 7-year-old Estelle Schaefer, known as Stella, in the trial before Cook County Judge Stephanie Miller. Mack and her onetime boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer, are charged in federal court with plotting the overseas murder of Mack’s mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack.

“Despite Jim Crow and the challenges that Black people faced, people who worked on the railroad had an opportunity to build a better life,” Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said during an event at the Pullman National Monument and State Historic Site.

The fatal attacks included a shooting early Sunday outside a bar in the Loop, and a man who was found with a gunshot wound in Old Town on the Near North Side.

Wait times are “appalling,” one board members says with a quarter of the jobs at the safety net health system open and staff morale low.