Chicago

It has been a violent year in Chicago, and Christmas weekend offered no respite. "We have a traumatized city," one woman who works with victims' families tells NPR.

Last month, Howard Brookins was raising the alarm about troublemaking urban squirrels. Then one hurled itself at his bicycle — "like a suicide bomber, getting revenge," he told the Chicago Tribune.

Chicago and Cleveland are both cities with real problems. But while their baseball teams played out the World Series, Indians fans and Cubs fans connected and commiserated with each other.

An American Airlines 767 aborted its takeoff because of what airline says was "an engine-related issue." The plane caught fire and passengers were evacuated.

The nation saw an alarming surge in homicides in 2015 — driven largely by hundreds more homicides of black men, who tend to be treated more as perpetrators of violence than as its most likely victims.

Rahm Emanuel promises a "comprehensive solution" for the violence that's killed 500 this year, but neighborhood leaders say his administration is too damaged and his priorities too misplaced.

"It broke my heart seeing this man that should be enjoying retirement still working at this age," Joel Cervantes Macias wrote of seeing Fedencio Sanchez hunched over his street vendor's cart.

The Chicago murder rate rivals the worst years of the 1990s, when the crack cocaine epidemic turned its streets into a virtual war zone. Most shootings are concentrated in the west and south sides.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel says the new Civilian Office on Police Accountability will be independent, but critics say it will still answer to city hall.