The Board of Education next week will vote on whether to replace Aramark with seven other vendor companies to provide custodial and professional services for district schools.

As questions about age resurface in the presidential race, what you should know about brain health. Johnson moves to end the city’s controversial ShotSpotter contract. And a Chicago-area baker shows us how she makes hundreds of paczki at home.

“Aging is not a uniform phenomenon that happens equally,” said Jay Olshansky, professor of public health at the University of Illinois Chicago.

The evening roll call proved tight, with Speaker Mike Johnson’s threadbare GOP majority unable to handle many defectors or absences in the face of staunch Democratic opposition to impeaching Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the first Cabinet secretary facing charges in nearly 150 years.

Chicago will stop using the ShotSpotter technology by Sept. 22 — one month after the Democratic National Convention takes place in Chicago and after the summer months that are often the most violent period of the year, Mayor Brandon Johnson announced.

Illinois’ assault weapons ban passed after a July 4, 2022, mass shooting in suburban Highland Park. The law banned the sale of AR-15s and scores of other guns beginning in January 2023. People who previously owned guns subject to the law are allowed to keep them, but the weapons must be registered.

The unions are calling Tuesday’s protests a national day of action. It is not a strike — federal law makes it difficult for airline unions to conduct legal strikes.

Millions of people deal with COVID-19 symptoms long after their initial infections. Two new studies give a better look at the burden from this health problem that doctors say often goes under the radar.

Of the 1,189 creatures listed by the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, more than one in five are threatened. They include species from all sorts of animal groups — whales, sharks, elephants, wild cats, raptors, birds and insects, among others.

During a hearing Tuesday, Fitzgerald’s attorney Dan Webb argued that the case would have to go to trial later this year in order for Fitzgerald to have any chance of getting a job during the next coaching cycle ahead of the 2025 college football season.

The paczki many Polish Americans grew up eating, made with plum, rose or raspberry fillings, aren’t the only kind available these days. We take a look at the Fat Tuesday tradition. 

Aster Hasle, a conservation scientist at the Field Museum, said, “Our role in the Midwest is to build that population back up. There is a lot that we can do here to provide habitat that’s going to help.”

Under a new proposal introduced last week in Springfield, all tipped workers in the state would have to be paid the equivalent of the Illinois’ regular minimum wage through a combination of wages and tips. If the tips fall short, their employers would have to make up the difference.

A WTTW News analysis finds the city has spent just 29% of the COVID-19 relief money meant to transform Chicago. The push to eliminate subminimum wage expands to Illinois. And why you can’t buy cars on Sundays. 

His lawyers have indicated they will file an emergency appeal with the court, just four days after the justices heard Trump’s separate appeal to remain on the presidential ballot despite attempts to kick him off because of his efforts following his election loss in 2020.