Patriotic tunes, DJs, outdoor go-karts, a plant swap and summer workouts usher in the holiday weekend. Here are a dozen things to do in and around Chicago.

Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction and opened the way for his immediate release from prison Wednesday, ruling that the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby.

The nationwide Fight For $15 movement pushed the challenges facing Chicago’s lowest-paid workers — who are primarily Black and Latino — to the top of the agenda for city officials.

“To say I’m hurt is an understatement,” said Jackie Wilson, who spent more than three decades in prison following multiple wrongful convictions for the 1982 murder of two Chicago police officers.

A federal judge will not force the city to permit Reserve Management Group, the parent company of General Iron, to operate a metal shredding and recycling operation on Chicago’s Southeast Side.

A man who said he sprayed trees in a Naperville park to protect them after an anxious dog chewed off the bark has been ticketed by authorities.

Donald Trump’s company and his longtime finance chief are expected to be charged Thursday with tax-related crimes stemming from a New York investigation into the former president’s business dealings, people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

Mayor Lightfoot talks crime, City Council and more. Local Congress members on infrastructure and a Jan. 6 commission. And a look at the life and career of Phil Ponce as he retires from regular duty.

After nearly three decades at “Chicago Tonight,” Phil Ponce ends his regular appearances on the program. We reflect on his career in journalism and his leadership role in the WTTW newsroom.

His works have been exported around the world from his studio in Chicago. We catch up with sculptor Richard Hunt before the unveiling of a monument in Bronzeville that was years in the making.

President Joe Biden declared there is an urgent need for a “generational investment” in the nation’s infrastructure, as he looked to sell voters Tuesday on the economic benefits of the $973 billion bipartisan package that still faces an uncertain future in Congress.

Chicago and other major cities are experiencing a “pandemic-spurred surge” in violence that officials are having success in fighting despite a rising number of shootings and homicides, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said during a one-on-one interview Tuesday on “Chicago Tonight.”

Illinois broke a 23-year streak on Tuesday, when credit ratings agency Moody’s upgraded the state’s bond rating for the first time since 1998 – the same year the Chicago Bulls won their last championship.

United said Tuesday that it will buy 200 Boeing Max jets and 70 planes from Europe’s Airbus so that it can replace many of its smallest planes and some of its oldest and have room to grow its fleet.

The more transmissible delta variant is expected to become the dominant coronavirus strain in the U.S., the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. And with half the U.S. still not fully vaccinated, doctors say it could cause a resurgence of COVID-19 in the fall.