Two bills in the Illinois General Assembly would expand eligibility for the earned income tax credit. As part of our Firsthand initiative exploring poverty in Chicago, we take a look at the credit, and what it could mean for low-income households.

President Joe Biden will lay out the first part of his multitrillion-dollar economic recovery package this week, focusing on rebuilding roads, bridges and other infrastructure, followed by a separate plan later in April addressing child and health care.

Influential State Rep. Camille Lilly, a Loretto Hospital executive, is roped into the fallout over COVID-19 vaccines administered by the West Side safety net hospital. Crain’s Chicago Business editor Ann Dwyer takes us behind the headline of that story and more.

The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made an impassioned plea to Americans on Monday not to let their guard down in the fight against COVID-19, saying she has a recurring feeling “of impending doom.”

Vaccination eligibility expands in Chicago. President Biden is expected to unveil his infrastructure plan — what’s in it for Illinois? New buyers for the Tribune emerge. We explore powerline fishing.

City officials announced Monday they will open a vaccination site for union workers—the first of its type in the nation, they say—designed to administer 1,200 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine per day.

Federal officials announced Monday a mass vaccination site will be opening in Gary, Indiana, as they warned of rising coronavirus cases across the country and urged residents to wear masks, social distance and limit travel.

A joint World Health Organization-China study on the origins of COVID-19 says that transmission of the virus from bats to humans through another animal is the most likely scenario and that a lab leak is “extremely unlikely,” according to a draft copy obtained by The Associated Press. 

One man is dead and another is in custody following a police shooting early Monday morning on the city’s Southwest Side.

Approximately 84% of all Chicagoans are now eligible for the vaccine, as Chicago enters the third phase of the vaccination effort that began in mid-December. 

A year after COVID-19 upended life for millions of Americans, there are troubling signs that the coronavirus may have also slowed progress against another deadly health threat: smoking.

Evanston makes history by passing a reparations ordinance for Black residents. A “professional troublemaker” joins us for this week’s Black Voices Book Club. Remembering broadcaster Bill Campbell.

Evanston has become the first city in the country to offer reparations for Black residents. Last week, aldermen voted to distribute $10 million over the next 10 years, using tax money from the sale of recreational marijuana. We discuss the local and national outlook.

From jumping out of airplanes to zip-lining through the jungle, Luvvie Ajayi Jones has become an expert at challenging fear — but not all of her daring adventures involve leaving the ground. She tells us about her new book, “Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual.”

In this 1981 clip from “The Week in Review,” Bill Campbell, who was then in his third year as editorial director at WLS, talks with host Joel Weisman about his signature on-location editorials and deriving meaning from his work.