Every Saturday morning, Daily Chicagoan gives you a quick rundown of the WTTW News coverage you need to know. Here are five essential stories that will inform you a bit more about our city.

1.) Judge Won’t Allow Chicagoans Who Sued CPD for Targeting Black, Latino Drivers to Intervene in Consent Decree Court Case

Chicago Police Department Headquarters, 3510 S. Michigan Ave. (Michael Izquierdo / WTTW News)

Five Chicagoans who accused the Chicago Police Department of targeting Black and Latino drivers with a massive campaign of traffic stops will not be allowed to intervene in the federal effort to require CPD to change the way it trains, supervises and disciplines officers, a judge ruled. The lawsuit accuses CPD officers of making more than 1.5 million traffic stops between 2016 and 2023 based on dubious evidence of minor violations that took direct aim at Black and Latino Chicagoans but spared White Chicagoans.

2.) Ald. Jim Gardiner Agrees to Pay $157K to Settle Lawsuit Claiming He Violated First Amendment

Ald. Jim Gardiner (45th Ward) on the floor of the Chicago City Council. (WTTW News)

Ald. Jim Gardiner (45th Ward) agreed to pay $157,500 to settle a lawsuit claiming he violated the First Amendment by blocking six critics from his official Facebook page in 2021, court records show. The six plaintiffs will each get $4,000, with the remaining $133,500 covering their legal fees, according to a copy of the settlement agreement obtained by WTTW News. Adele Nichols, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, said the settlement was the largest reached in a case related to a public official’s regulation of a social media page.

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3.) Bill Aims to Reduce Requirements for Name Changes in Illinois

Illinois lawmakers are considering easing legal requirements for changing one’s name. (Photo illustration by Atmika Iyer / Medill Illinois News Bureau)

Illinois lawmakers in early January could consider easing requirements for residents to change their names, a move proponents say will reduce risks for victims of domestic abuse, transgender residents and others. The measure must clear the full Senate in the first week of January to reach Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk, otherwise it must go through the entire legislative process again after a new General Assembly convenes Jan. 8. The bill would eliminate an existing requirement to publish name changes with a local newspaper. It would also reduce the state residency requirement of people wanting to change their name from six months to three months. 

4.) Not Ready for Christmas To Be Over? Griffin MSI Has More Than 50 Christmas Trees to Keep Your Spirits Bright

(Heidi Peters / Griffin Museum of Science and Industry)

Holiday celebrations seem to end as soon as they begin, and if you’re the type to pout when Dec. 26 rolls around, there’s no need to fret. The Griffin Museum of Science and Industry’s “Christmas Around the World” and “Holidays of Light” exhibits are still here to keep your Christmas spirit alive. The annual exhibit started in 1942 with a single tree that was newly decorated for 12 days to represent the nations fighting alongside the U.S. during World War II. The exhibit runs through Jan. 6.

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5.) A History-Making Probe Achieved the Closest-Ever Approach to the Sun

The Parker Solar Probe will zoomed by the sun during a record-breaking flyby, coming within 3.8 million miles of the solar surface during humanity’s closest approach to a star. (NASA / Johns Hopkins APL via CNN Newsource)

The Parker Solar Probe zoomed by the sun on Tuesday during a record-breaking flyby, coming within 3.8 million miles of the solar surface during humanity’s closest approach to a star. The mission operations team, located at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, was able to confirm the success of the flyby Friday morning after receiving a signal from the spacecraft just before midnight on Thursday. Now, the team members will await more detailed data from Parker about the spacecraft’s status that’s expected to return to Earth on Jan. 1. The uncrewed spacecraft flew at 430,000 miles per hour, which is fast enough to reach Tokyo from Washington, DC, in under a minute, according to NASA.

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Newsletter Producer: Josh Terry