Former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s nephew Richard J. “R.J.” Vanecko has completed his involuntary-manslaughter sentence for throwing a punch that killed Mount Prospect native David Koschman in 2004.

Maureen P. McIntyre — the McHenry County judge who handled the case after the Illinois Supreme Court decided too many Cook County judges have connections to the Daley family — terminated Vanecko’s probation Friday during a brief hearing in Woodstock.

After twice being cleared by the Chicago Police Department when Daley was mayor, Vanecko pleaded guilty on Jan. 31, 2014, after a Chicago Sun-Times investigation that led to the appointment of a special prosecutor. Now 41, Vanecko was given a 30-month sentence — 60 days in jail, 60 days on home confinement and the rest on probation — for the crime he committed when he was 29. At the time of his conviction, he was living in California.

Earlier this year, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration fired or suspended six police officers involved in a 2011 reinvestigation of Koschman’s death.

White Sox part-owner, publicist Norton dies

Marjorie Ann “Margie” Norton was, above all, a fighter, her mother said.

After enduring a horrific motorcycle accident while studying abroad during her junior year at UCLA, Norton fought her way back to complete college. And despite years of setbacks from a knee transplant she underwent after that accident, she worked for 15 years in Chicago’s public relations and marketing industry before illness forced her to give up her career, her mother said.

Margie Norton was an avid Chicago sports fan and part-owner of the Chicago White Sox, and before she became too ill to attend, she and her mother, Carol “Mickey” Norton, usually could be found in their front-row seat at all Sox games — or second-row courtside at Chicago Bulls games.

Norton died on July 21 of complications from esophageal cancer. She was 53.

Chicago budget still $137.6 million in red

Chicago faces a $137.6 million budget shortfall in 2017 that does not factor in the steep cost of — and the tax increases required — to save the largest of four city employee pension funds. Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration on Friday released a financial analysis that projects the smallest gap in the city’s operating budget since 2007. For the first time, the shortfall was calculated without “separate consideration of pension funds” because “permanent, recurring sources” of revenue have been identified for three of the four funds.

That’s progress, considering the $635 million deficit Emanuel inherited when he took office in 2011 in a budget balanced, in part, with one-time revenues and taxes depressed by the recession.

Special prosecutor to look into Laquan case

A Cook County judge on Friday appointed Patricia Brown Holmes, a former judge who also has served as an assistant U.S. attorney, as the special prosecutor to look into whether more Chicago officers covered up the circumstances that led to the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.

Before announcing that he had selected Brown Holmes, Chief Criminal Court Judge LeRoy Martin Jr. said none of the governmental agencies he was required to contact wanted the job.

Brown Holmes, 55, told reporters she was taking the “grave” responsibility as seriously as when she was appointed trustee of Burr Oak Cemetery — the historic black cemetery forced into bankruptcy after a burial site desecration scandal.

So far, only officer Jason Van Dyke — who is charged with first-degree murder — has been charged in connection with McDonald’s death.

Grant decisions put in youths’ hands

A philanthropic organization founded by Laurene Powell Jobs, wife of the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs, charged a group of young people with figuring out exactly how to divvy up $350,000 in grant money to folks focused on making a positive impact on kids’ lives in Chicago.

Emerson Collective, which Powell Jobs leads, left the task to six college students from across Chicago.

Whole Foods breaks ground in Pullman

The economic “renaissance” that has fought crime with jobs in the Far South Side’s Pullman neighborhood picked up steam Tuesday.

Whole Foods broke ground on a 150,000-square-foot distribution center on a site at 720 E. 111th St. prepared for development with help from an $8.4 million tax increment financing subsidy.

Chicago’s gain was Munster, Indiana’s, loss. It will put 150 people to work serving 70 Whole Foods stores.

• This week’s City Briefing was collected in partnership with the Chicago Sun-Times. For complete versions of the items, check chicago.suntimes.com.