Good afternoon, Chicago.
A settlement agreement has been reached in the first federal lawsuit alleging phony arrests by ex-Chicago police Sgt. Ronald Watts and his team, a milestone that could have implications for the more than 150 other Watts-related cases.
Ben Baker sued Watts and the city in 2016, alleging Watts and his team pinned bogus cases on him — and in one instance, his partner, Clarissa Glenn — in retaliation for refusing to pay Watts a $1,000 bribe. Baker spent about 10 years in prison before his conviction was thrown out.
Attorneys for the city reached a deal to settle with Baker and Glenn last month that is pending approval by the City Council, according to court records. The agreed-on payout has not been disclosed, but only payouts above $100,000 must be approved by aldermen.
Here’s what else is happening today. And remember, for the latest breaking news in Chicago, visit chicagotribune.com/latest-headlines and sign up to get our alerts on all your devices.
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A year after Powderhorn project, nature rebounding at Chicago’s only nature preserve
The habitat improvement project dedicated in October 2023 resulted from $1.2 million provided by the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Great Lakes Commission Regional Partnership. Read more here.
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Top Workplaces 2024: Employees are the unhappiest they’ve been in years — and workplaces are responding
Employee happiness has declined steadily since 2020, and is now even lower than it was during the darkest days of the pandemic. The one exception was the first quarter of this year, when workplace happiness edged up slightly before resuming its downward trend, according to a report from BambooHR, an HR software and services company with data from more than 1,600 companies. Read more here.
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Chicago Bears are banking on new OC Thomas Brown’s ‘juice’ and ‘energy’ to help save their season. No pressure, right?
The Bears are praying that Brown’s charisma and infectious “juice” can, at the very least, give them a short-term lift in the fight to save their season. Read more here.
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Column: Bit by bit, from ‘Moonlight’ to ‘Mufasa,’ editor Joi McMillon is putting it together
In a 2017 interview with the Los Angeles Times, the Academy Award-nominated co-editor of director Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight” acknowledged a trick of her filmmaking trade: slipping audio from one take of a particular shot into the mouth of the same actor, photographed from behind, in a different and better take of the same shot. Sometimes, the editor said, “directors don’t even notice.” Read more here.
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President Joe Biden meets South Korean and Japanese leaders amid growing worries about North Korea
The meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru comes as North Korea has deployed thousands of troops to Russia to help Moscow try to claw back land in the Kursk border region that Ukraine seized earlier this year. Read more here.
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