A new state law allows Illinois college athletes to play ball with – and make bank from – businesses, by entering into endorsement deals and doing commercials. 

Supporters are calling it a big win for Chicago’s trees, but say the real work begins now. How the new Urban Forestry Advisory Board will bring together public and private partners to care for and enhancing the city’s urban canopy.

The roadblocks preventing a new deal between the police union and city officials are unchanged since the contract expired on June 30, 2017 — and both sides are dug in and unwilling to compromise.

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.”