Negotiators for Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union headed back to the bargaining table Friday morning as classes were canceled for a seventh day amid optimism on both sides about the progress of talks.

After teachers and support staff rallied downtown on Friday afternoon, CTU leaders in the evening said they don’t have a deal yet to end their weeklong strike but that they’re getting down to the final issues left to be negotiated.

After passing a number of transformational laws last spring — from cementing women’s abortion rights to legalizing recreational pot — the General Assembly returns to action this week under the cloud of an ongoing federal corruption probe and facing pressure from Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot for help in plugging her city’s $838 million budget hole.

Looming over all the action this fall is a series of political corruption scandals that have occupied much of almost the past year from Chicago to the statehouse and touched on a number of high-profile Springfield players, from utility giant ComEd and its army of lobbyists to influential state Sen. Martin Sandoval and the ultimate powerbroker, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan. Whether they are all connected remains unclear, but Chicago Ald. Edward Burke is the only elected official charged with wrongdoing.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s 2020 budget plan contained an eye-opening item when she unveiled it this week: $163 million in additional reimbursements from the state to cover the cost of city ambulance services.

Now, Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office says federal authorities have yet to inform the state they’ve approved their portion of that payment, one of the largest parts of Lightfoot’s plan to close an $838 million shortfall without resorting to a massive property tax hike.

The mayor of Dolton billed the village for more than $12,000 of “work related” expenses over a recent 19-month stretch in which he traveled to Washington, D.C., Boston, Houston, Los Angeles and Honolulu, credit card statements show.

It’s not clear if Mayor Riley Rogers reimbursed the village for any of the spending on the travel between January 2018 and July 2019, and financial records don’t indicate the purpose of any of the trips.

A suburban school district will get $2 million to settle part of a lawsuit with the former parent company of Sears over claims that the bankrupt retailer failed to maintain the promised number of jobs in exchange for tax breaks at its headquarters in Hoffman Estates.

Sears Holdings Corp. will get $5 million out of the agreement, and Community Unit School District 300 in Algonquin still may sue to get past or future compensation from a lucrative but disputed property tax fund, the district’s attorney, Ken Florey, said.