CHICAGO (CHICAGO URBAN DAILY)— The petitions are filed, and Mayor Brandon Johnson’s reelection bid is officially on.
Johnson wheeled 33,000 signatures into Chicago Board of Elections headquarters, collected by 2,500 volunteers down to the wire. Candidates need only 12,500 valid signatures to make the ballot — but campaigns gather far more to survive challenges to signature authenticity. The filing deadline is 5 p.m. Monday, October 26, with petition challenges starting the next day. Johnson says he won’t be challenging anyone else’s petitions.
But getting on the ballot is the easy part. The headwinds are brutal.
A recent NORC poll puts Johnson’s approval rating at just 22%, with 53% of Chicago voters disapproving of his job performance. Among likely voters, 59% expressed enthusiasm for Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias as a potential candidate, compared with 32% for Johnson. His labor coalition has already fractured with the loss of support from the Service Employees International Union.
And the money race isn’t close. Johnson is trailing with a cash balance of just $379,471. His biggest challenger, Giannoulias, has approximately $19 million.
Yet his team believes millions of dollars in investments, lower crime, and kept campaign promises will convince voters to let him keep the job. His reelection message? “Cranes are up and crime is down.”
Sixteen candidates had already declared when the petition filing period opened Monday, October 19. The election is February 23, 2027.
Stay tuned to Chicago Urban Daily as the mayor’s race takes shape.
Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.
CHICAGO (CHICAGO URBAN DAILY)— The ink on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s 2027 budget wasn’t even dry before the knives came out.
Johnson unveiled his $17.6 billion spending plan Wednesday to close an $882 million gap — reviving the corporate head tax as the “Equitable Employer Tax” ($25 a month per employee at firms with 125-plus workers, worth about $101 million), jacking the lease and cloud-computing tax from 15% to 20% (another $234 million), nearly doubling the sports-betting levy, and borrowing $480 million to pay off police-related legal settlements.
City Council response? Ice cold.
“Many of the revenue items that the mayor is proposing are probably dead on arrival,” said Finance Committee chairwoman Ald. Pat Dowell. “This basically says to me that our budget season is going to be difficult this year again.”
Ald. Scott Waguespack said it was “very troubling to see an administration move forward in this fashion again where they’re just doubling down.” Ald. Marty Quinn called the head tax “a tax on growth and it’s non-starter.” And the mayor lost two of his biggest labor allies — SEIU Locals 1 and 73 pulled their support and endorsed his challenger, Alexi Giannoulias.
Down on the street, small business owners say the pain lands on them, not the corporations. Joe Angelastri has run his business at Six Corners since 1978 — the City Newsstand, plus a café he added in 2011. “Every year it gets a little bit harder,” he told FOX 32. His five Chicago employees fall below the head-tax threshold, but the lease-tax hike hits him directly. “If they push us too hard, we’ll try things like working out of the suburbs or something so we don’t have to pay the taxes.”
Ald. Gilbert Villegas agrees the burden rolls downhill: “Microsoft, Google, they do not absorb that. They pass it down. And ultimately, it’s going to be regular people.”
Johnson counters that “every Chicagoan receives their fair share,” paid for “by asking wealthy corporations to pay their fair share.” The council, the small businesses, and now his own unions are saying otherwise.
Stay tuned to Chicago Urban Daily as budget season gets ugly.
Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.
CHICAGO (CHICAGO URBAN DAILY)— The budget fight at City Hall just turned into a street fight between the city’s future casino and the council — and Bally’s came out swinging.
The aldermen’s alternative budget cleared the Finance Committee Tuesday on a 22-13 vote, with $6.8 million in licensing-fee revenue from legalizing video gaming terminals — the state’s biggest source of gaming tax dollars, currently banned inside Chicago city limits by ordinance. Ald. Anthony Beale’s legalization ordinance already cleared the Licensing Committee in September.
Bally’s, building its $2 billion casino in River West for an opening next September, says the move would be a disaster for the city’s bottom line.
“To incorporate unregulated, independently-managed VGTs as a budget line item will result in a loss of substantial new revenue for the City, and will create significant job losses at the Bally’s Chicago Casino,” said Bally’s Vice President for Government Relations Elizabeth Suever. “Even if this proposal were to pass as is, it would generate $0 revenue in FY 2026 for the City.”
In a separate statement, the company warned the council that VGTs would cause a yearly total tax loss of $260 million from Bally’s Chicago Casino — roughly $70 million in tax revenue a year gone from Chicago’s books, not counting the $4 million annual Host Community Agreement payment Bally’s says it would likely forgo if it re-opens the deal. It also predicted the loss of 750 to 1,050 union jobs.
Mayor Brandon Johnson has opposed legalizing VGTs, saying they wouldn’t generate substantial revenue. Beale, who included the $4 million deduction in his revenue estimate, clearly disagrees.
With a December 31 deadline to pass a balanced budget, the gloves are officially off.
Stay tuned to Chicago Urban Daily as the budget battle heats up.
Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.
CHICAGO (CHICAGO URBAN DAILY)— Today is budget day at City Hall — and Mayor Brandon Johnson is walking into the City Council chamber with the one tax aldermen told him not to bring.
Johnson delivers his 2027 budget address today, laying out a $17.6 billion spending plan built around a revived corporate head tax — this time rebranded as the “Equitable Employer Tax.” The proposal would charge $25 a month per employee for businesses with more than 125 workers, generating a projected $101 million a year. Only about 2.8% of registered corporations would pay it, per the mayor’s office, and employers in socio-economically disadvantaged census tracts could apply for a full rebate.
He’s also pushing a third increase in the tax on equipment rentals and cloud computing — already the highest in the nation — and nearly doubling the sports betting tax from 10.25% to 20%.
Here’s the problem: 29 aldermen drew a line in the sand last month — no property tax hike, no head tax, no counting on Springfield money that doesn’t exist yet. Johnson is following two of those three. The head tax, his opponents have declared dead on arrival.
“We’re losing our democracy,” Johnson said this month, pointing to corporations he says are making more money than ever while working people stand in food lines. His question to the council: “Will the corporate-aligned caucus have the collective courage to choose the interests and priorities of Chicagoans?”
The $882.4 million gap for 2027 is real, and every seat in that chamber is on the ballot next year. This fight just became the re-election campaign.
Stay tuned to Chicago Urban Daily as the council reacts.
Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.
SENATOBIA, Miss. — The pressure is building, and now the nation’s oldest civil rights legal organization is standing in the room.
The NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) has issued a formal statement calling for justice in the police killing of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley and demanding the release of “any available body-worn camera and surveillance footage” from the June 14, 2026 shooting in a Senatobia Walmart parking lot.
“Our hearts go out to the family of Kohen Wiley following this unconscionable loss,” said Jin Hee Lee, LDF’s Director of Strategic Initiatives. “We firmly echo the increasingly urgent calls for justice and transparency. A child was taken from his family through brutal police violence, and his family and the larger community deserve answers.”
The statement lands one day after Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced her office had found the shooting “justified” — and one day after Amir Shakur, Samaria Rice of the Tamir Rice Foundation, Rodney Floyd of the Justice for George Floyd Committee, and Freedom First International filed an emergency media public-records request demanding ALL of the footage — bodycam, dashcam, and Walmart surveillance — with a statutory response deadline of Thursday, October 29.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety has confirmed to the Mississippi Free Press that surveillance footage “will be released to media organizations in short order via public records requests.”
Read that carefully. “Short order” is not a date. And surveillance footage alone is not all of it — it is not the bodycam, and it is not the dashcam. The coalition’s filing demands every angle, unredacted, by October 29.
The family’s attorney, Ben Crump, has made the same demand in plain terms: “If the footage supports the state’s decision, release it.”
Sgt. Hunter Foster, the officer identified as the subject of the investigation, remains on administrative leave. Neither Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, nor Latoya Ferrell has ever been charged with a crime.
The clock is running. Nine days remain. Release the tape.
Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.
CHICAGO (CHICAGO URBAN DAILY)— The message from Amir Shakur and Samaria Rice to the City of Senatobia is simple, and it comes with a deadline: you have seven days to release the video. One day after Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch declared the police shooting that killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley “justified,” Shakur and Rice — joined by Rodney Floyd, brother of George Floyd and Chairman of the Justice for George Floyd Committee, The Tamir Rice Foundation, and Freedom First International — filed an expedited media public records request demanding the release of ALL body-worn camera, dashboard camera, and surveillance footage from the June 14, 2026 shooting, so the public can see for itself what happened and a real investigation can begin.
Here’s what the state wants you to accept on faith. On June 14, Senatobia police answered a shoplifting call at a Walmart — a call alleging a pack of diapers had been taken. Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, and Latoya Ferrell left the store with the baby, got into their car, and began to leave. Officers drew their weapons. By the family’s account, the mother lifted her son up to show the officers a child was in that car. An officer fired into the vehicle anyway. Kohen, one year old, was killed in his mother’s arms. Ferrell was wounded. Neither woman has been charged with shoplifting or any other crime.
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation says the car drove toward officers. The mother says that’s not true. And here is the part that should outrage every American: to this day, the state has released NONE of the video — not the bodycam, not the dashcam, not the Walmart parking lot surveillance that would settle the question in seconds.
So the coalition’s request goes straight at the evidence: every camera angle, the 911 calls, the radio transmissions, the incident reports, the use-of-force records. And it carries a formal spoliation warning — a legal notice ordering the City of Senatobia, its police department, the MBI, and the Attorney General’s office to preserve every file, every audit trail, every byte of metadata. Do not delete. Do not overwrite. Do not “rotate” anything into oblivion.
Mississippi law, Miss. Code Ann. § 25-61-5, gives the agencies seven working days to respond. The deadline is October 29, 2026.
Samaria Rice knows exactly what it means when officials ask a grieving family to wait and trust. She has lived it since 2014, when Cleveland police killed her 12-year-old son, Tamir. Now she stands with Kohen’s family, making the same demand she has made for over a decade: show the people what happened.
And Rodney Floyd knows that same road. His brother, George Floyd, was murdered by Minneapolis police in 2020, and as Chairman of the Justice for George Floyd Committee he has carried the demand for accountability across this country ever since. Now the Floyd family stands with Kohen’s family in Senatobia — two families, one demand: release the footage.
The Attorney General has closed her review. But a ruling without the video is just a press release. The tape exists. The law is clear. Release it.
Stay tuned to Chicago Urban Daily News as this story develops. Media and community tips on this case: amirshakurspeaks@gmail.com.
Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.
WATCH: Amir A.H Shakur, Community Justice Statement | Kohen Wiley
CHICAGO (CHICAGO URBAN DAILY)— Wednesday night’s chaos at State and Lake didn’t stay in the Loop. It walked straight into City Hall.
Even before the crowd thinned, the old argument was back: does Chicago need tougher curfew tools to break up teen takeovers before they turn violent? Several aldermen are pushing for stronger measures after past incidents that left people injured and property damaged. One proposed update would let officers issue a 30-minute warning for crowds to disperse before enforcement — while requiring officers to ask a young person’s age and reason for being out before writing a citation. Fox News Digital reached out to Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office for comment.
This is familiar ground, and that’s the problem. Ald. Brian Hopkins’ downtown “snap curfew” ordinance — the tool that would have let police disperse large unsupervised gatherings faster — was vetoed by Johnson, and the council failed to override it. Ald. Raymond Lopez’s bid to hold parents financially accountable when their kids join takeovers died in committee, voted down 32-16 and never advancing.
So here we are again: another Wednesday night, another curfew enforcement order, another round of statements. The aldermen say the city needs new tools. The mayor’s office hasn’t answered. And downtown’s workers, cops, and neighbors are left waiting on an ordinance that never seems to arrive.
Stay tuned to Chicago Urban Daily as this fight plays out at City Hall.
Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.
CHICAGO (CHICAGO URBAN DAILY)— The Freedom and Justice Journal has turned its lens on one of the darkest chapters of the 2026 U.S.-Iran war: the bombing of the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, Iran.
On February 28, 2026 — the opening day of the American-Israeli military campaign against Iran — a U.S. strike hit the school while children sat in their classrooms. More than 120 students, ages 6 to 13, were killed alongside 26 teachers. The death toll stands near 180, with nearly a hundred more wounded.
In the latest episode, co-hosts Amir A.H. Shakur and international journalist Satish Sekar walk through what the investigations have uncovered. A Pentagon probe, ordered by CENTCOM chief Brad Cooper, found the school was hit because of flawed intelligence and outdated targeting data — the building sat on the grounds of a former IRGC naval facility, converted into a school more than a decade ago. The site had brightly painted walls, children’s murals, a sports field, even an active website. None of it reached the targeting database.
And now, Bloomberg reports the Pentagon intends to sit on its internal report until after the U.S. midterm elections — holding the truth until after Americans vote.
The United Nations called the strike “a grave assault on children, on education, and on the future of an entire community.” A surviving student, Fatemeh-Zahra Sheikh-Abadi, wrote to Iran’s foreign minister this month with one plea: don’t let my friends be forgotten.
The Freedom and Justice Journal refuses to let them be.
Stay tuned to Chicago Urban Daily for continuing coverage of the fight for accountability.
Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.
Watch the full episode: Tragedy in Minab: The Freedom and Justice Journal
Satish Sekar — co-host of The Freedom and Justice Journal — is the author of ‘Trials and Tribulations: Innocence Matters?’, with a foreword by Edward Fitzgerald QC. His work on wrongful convictions and the fight to prove innocence is at the heart of what the Journal stands for.
CHICAGO (CHICAGO URBAN DAILY)— The latest campaign money numbers just dropped, and they’re a gut punch for City Hall.
Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias reported a staggering $19.15 million in campaign cash through September 30, according to filings with the Illinois State Board of Elections. Mayor Brandon Johnson — who just announced he intends to seek a second term — reported $379,471.
That’s not a gap. That’s a canyon.
And the trend is worse for the incumbent: Johnson’s account has bled out all year, from $813,125 in the first quarter to $631,309 in the second to under $380,000 now.
Giannoulias isn’t the only one out-raising the mayor. John Kelly reported $2.52 million. State Comptroller Susana Mendoza has $1.73 million. Joe Holberg sits at $1.06 million. Even Congressman Mike Quigley ($343,482) is in the mayor’s neighborhood — and that’s not where an incumbent wants to live with the February 23, 2027 election closing in.
Now let’s keep it real: money isn’t votes. A war chest buys staff, ads, and airtime — it doesn’t buy love from voters. But in a race this crowded, showing up with fifty times the incumbent’s cash is a statement.
Johnson won in 2023 as the underdog. He’s got four months to prove he can do it again.
Stay tuned to Chicago Urban Daily as the money race — and the real race — goes loud.
Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.
CHICAGO (CHICAGO URBAN DAILY)— The clock is ticking on City Hall’s biggest fight of the year. Mayor Brandon Johnson unveils his 2027 budget proposal on October 21 — and he’s staring down an $882 million gap.
The Tribune reports Johnson spent the last week huddling with groups of aldermen, hunting for ways to close a hole that big without breaking his promises. His answer, once again: make big corporations pay. The mayor is hinting at higher taxes on cloud computing software and social media companies — and daring the council’s corporate-aligned bloc to say no.
“What remains to be seen is whether the corporate-aligned caucus will have the collective courage to choose the interests and priorities of Chicagoans,” Johnson said.
He’s also asking aldermen to lean on Springfield for a bigger slice of state tax revenue — a move that puts part of Chicago’s budget fight in the legislature’s lap.
Here’s the reality: an $882 million deficit doesn’t close itself, and every option on the table — corporate taxes, state help, cuts nobody wants to name — has an enemy at City Hall. With a mayoral election landing in February, this budget isn’t just math. It’s the opening argument of the campaign.
October 21. Mark it. The numbers drop, and the real fight begins.
Stay tuned to Chicago Urban Daily as budget season goes loud.
Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.
