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teachers union leaders resumed negotiations on a contract that appeared close to being resolved over the weekend before the union announced both sides were too far apart to prevent the district's first strike in 25 years.
• The walkout in the nation's third-largest school district posed a tricky test for Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his city, as parents and school officials begin the task of trying to ensure nearly 400,000 students are kept safe.
• School officials said they will open more than 140 schools between 8:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. so children can eat lunch and breakfast in a district where many students receive free meals. The district asked community organizations to provide additional programs for students, and a number of churches, libraries and other groups plan to offer day camps and other activities. But it's not clear how many families will send their children to the added programs.
• Police Chief Garry McCarthy said he was deploying police officers to those sites to ensure kids' safety but also to "deal with any protests that teachers may, in fact, have" while protecting their rights. He also was taking officers off desk duties and redeploying them to the streets to deal with potential protests -- and thousands of students who could be on the streets.
• Emanuel said he will work to end the strike quickly.
• ___

• TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) -- The U.S. government has halted flights home for Mexicans caught entering the country illegally in the deadly summer heat of Arizona's deserts, a money-saving move that ends a seven-year experiment that cost taxpayers nearly $100 million.
• More than 125,000 passengers were flown deep into Mexico for free since 2004 in an effort that initially met with skepticism from Mexican government officials and migrants, but was gradually embraced as a way to help people back on their feet and save lives.
• The Border Patrol hailed it as a way to discourage people from trying their luck again, and it appears to have kept many away -- at least for a short time.
• But with Border Patrol arrests at 40-year lows and fresh evidence suggesting more people may be heading south of the border than north, officials struggled to fill the planes and found the costs increasingly difficult to justify. Flights carrying up to 146 people were cut to once from twice daily last year.

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