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It’s Tuesday and the penultimate day of the year. Get ready to say goodbye to 2025 with these stories from WTTW News. |
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(WTTW News) |
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Chicago is set to close out 2025 with its fewest number of recorded homicides in more than a decade, even amid a repeated push by the Trump administration to deploy military troops into the city to address what they’ve called a “crime epidemic.”
According to city of Chicago data, there have been 411 homicides recorded between Jan. 1 and Dec. 27, a decline of 30% compared to the same time last year.
The number of shootings (1,850 recorded in 2025) has dropped by 35%, while robberies (down 35%), carjackings (down 50%), aggravated assaults (down 19%) and total violent crime victimizations (down 23%) all saw double-digit year-over-year reductions, according to the city.
More context:
Crime victimizations have been trending downward throughout the year, as Chicago reported historic lows in several individual months. The 20 homicides recorded in April were the fewest for any month in Chicago since February 2015, while also marking the fewest for any April since 1962.
The city’s homicide rate peaked in the 1990s at almost 34 homicides per 100,000 residents, while this year’s rate fell to 14.6, according to a new report from the University of Chicago Crime Lab, which analyzed 2025 violent crime rates.
That rate remains well below other major cities like St. Louis (46.8), Detroit (24.2) and Baltimore (23.1), but remains higher than New York (3.4) and Los Angeles (7.7), according to the report.
Mayor Brandon Johnson and Police Superintendent Larry Snelling have also pointed to critical partnerships among city agencies and the communities they serve as well as improvements in officer wellness.
“When our officers are doing better, they do better for others,” Snelling said at an unrelated press conference Monday.
Johnson on Monday noted that historically, Chicago has been out of sync with national trends in violent crime rates, where other peer cities have seen reductions while Chicago had not. Now, he said, that is no longer the case.
“Clearly we are in a much stronger position because our reduction has been double the reduction in the national trend,” he said Monday. |
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Intuit Art Museum chief curator Alison Amick and independent curator Dana Boutin are co-curators of the “Catalyst: Im/migration and Self-Taught Art in Chicago” exhibit at the Intuit Art Museum. (Eunice Alpasan / WTTW News) |
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Nearly two dozen artists are featured in the Intuit Art Museum’s “Catalyst: Im/migration and Self-Taught Art in Chicago” exhibit, which is being extended through March 22. The museum for self-taught and outsider art is also hosting a “community day,” when the museum is free to the public, on Feb. 7.
The “Catalyst” exhibit, initially unveiled alongside the Intuit Art Museum’s grand re-opening in May, aims to highlight the creative contributions of migrants and immigrants, alongside the rise of self-taught art in Chicago during the 20th century.
The 22 artists sought out for the exhibit offer art that touches on themes of belonging, labor, individual expression, bearing witness to history, assimilation and longing for homeland. The exhibit includes works across a wide range of mediums like drawing, painting, collage, sculpture, printmaking, textiles, ceramics and woodcarving.
“Many of these artists, sometimes their labor practice — their work to earn money — you can see that reflected in the materials that they’re using or their techniques,” said Dana Boutin, independent curator and “Catalyst” exhibit co-curator.
Intuit Art Museum chief curator Alison Amick said she and Boutin spoke with more than 200 people — artists, family members, historians, community figures — to learn more background information and gain a better understanding that would then inform the exhibit.
“What it would mean to be an immigrant or migrant to the city was so unique to a particular individual,” Amick said. “Some of our exhibition labels have reflections from family members, or from the artists, or other writers that really add additional depth to understanding the work.”
The Intuit Art Museum, located at 756 N. Milwaukee Ave. in West Town, is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, and until 8 p.m. on the third Thursday of the month. Admission is $20, but free for members, those 24 and younger and those unable to pay. |
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The Chicago skyline is pictured on Jan, 6, 2020. (Dawid S Swierczek / iStock) |
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Chicago is ready for the national spotlight on New Year’s Eve with “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,” set to broadcast from the riverwalk, Mayor Brandon Johnson said Monday.
But Johnson and Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling warned that officers will be prepared to enforce Chicago’s curfew, which starts at 10 p.m. and applies to everyone 17 years old and younger.
Parents should be certain that they know where their teens are and make sure they have somewhere safe to ring in 2026, Johnson and Snelling said.
Johnson told reporters that experience “enhances our determination” not to allow similar violence to take place, saying that incident “set our city back.”
Snelling said additional officers will be deployed across the city, and on the CTA, to make sure celebrations are safe.
More on “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve”
The festivities will take place along the Chicago Riverwalk at Wacker Drive from Wells Street to Lake Street, with a main stage located at Wacker and Franklin, officials said.
The forecast calls for brutally cold temperatures and the chance of snow Wednesday evening and early Thursday morning.
Grammy Award-winning artist and Chicago native Chance the Rapper, who will be the show’s Chicago co-host, is expected to take the stage for a countdown performance shortly before midnight.
The event is free and open to the public. Starting at 5 p.m., event entrances, located on Wacker Drive at the corner of Wells or Lake Street, will open.
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Back in the Day: Dec. 30, 2015 - 'Historic' Floods in Missouri and Illinois End, Leaving 18 Dead |
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Rain and fog may have blanketed Illinois on Sunday, but it was nothing compared to a horrific flood 10 years ago that left 18 dead in the state and Missouri. On this day 10 years ago, “historic and dangerous” flooding engulfed Missouri following a massive and severe winter storm that wreaked havoc across Southern and Midwestern states. The deluge threatened 19 federal levees, closed Interstate 44 near central Missouri and a stretch of Interstate 70 was shut down in southern Illinois. The Missouri National Guard were called into help with the damage. In Illinois, five people were killed from flooding along the Kankakee, Illinois, Sangamon and Vermilion rivers. Menard Correctional Center, which is near Chester and housed nearly 3,700 incarcerated people, was forced to relocate its population. |
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This Week’s Staff Recommendations |
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Every Tuesday, WTTW News staffers highlight their favorite things in Chicago. Here’s reporter Blair Paddock on their favorite watches on Chicago screens this year.
“Meat” (1976) by Fredrick Wiseman at the Gene Siskel Film Center
Cattle production in the U.S., featuring a salesman in a pinstripe suit and polka dot tie attempting to sell his product to dairy execs: a tube of egg. He has 26 patents on the product, including a starch used to adhere the tube of yolk to the tube of white for ease while slicing.
“Still Life” (2006) by Jia Zhangke at my friend Christian’s House
Searching for spouses throughout what’s left on the Yangzhee River as the construction of the Three Gorges Dam looms.
“All that Heaven Allows” (1955) by Douglas Sirk at the Alamo Drafthouse
My third watch and still no dry eyes. To quote German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder: “Women think in Sirk’s films. Something which has never struck me with other directors… Usually women are always reacting, doing what women are supposed to do, but in Sirk they think. It’s something that has to be seen. It’s great to see women think. It gives one hope.”
“Gosford Park” (2001) by Robert Altman at the Gene Siskel Film Center
Altman seamlessly weaves between the stories of some twenty characters of British aristocrats and their servants. If their intertwining gossip’s not enough to satisfy you — a whodunit ensues! |
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What part of Chicago would you like to explore in the new year? |
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Email DailyChicagoan@wttw.com with your responses and your answers might be published. |
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Newsletter Producer: Josh Terry |
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