Swashbuckling billionaire Richard Branson hurtled into space aboard his own winged rocket ship Sunday, bringing astro-tourism a step closer to reality and beating out his exceedingly richer rival Jeff Bezos.

Concerns over a homeless encampment clean out in Avondale. Why Latinos are 50% more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. And jiggly gelatin art you have to see to believe. 

Over the past year, a small group of people who are homeless have established a tent encampment in a small Avondale park. Similar encampments are all over Chicago, and as Illinois’ eviction moratorium nears its end, the number of unhoused people is expected to grow.

For many people, the idea of gelatin desserts conjures up images of the jiggly retro novelty that appears at church potlucks and in school lunchboxes. But in Mexican culture, gelatins are not just a sweet treat, but an art form. 

The degenerative brain disease, for which there currently is no cure, takes a terrible toll on both patients and caregivers. By the year 2060, some 3.5 million Latinos are expected to be afflicted with the disease.

U.S. immigration authorities will no longer routinely jail migrants facing deportation if they are pregnant or recently gave birth, reversing a Trump-era immigration policy.

Two days after welcoming three healthy chicks, Chicago’s beloved piping plovers added a fourth hatchling to their growing family, thanks to a little help from wildlife officials.

Twice a day, every day, for more than two weeks, relatives of those who perished or who are still missing have huddled in the Seaview Hotel ballroom, a new daily routine thrust upon them by an unfathomable disaster.

A statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee was hoisted away from its place of prominence and carted off to storage, years after its threatened removal became a rallying point for white supremacists and inspired their violent 2017 rally that left a woman dead and dozens injured.

Zaila Avant-garde, 14, from Harvey, Louisiana is a basketball prodigy who owns three Guinness world records for dribbling multiple balls simultaneously and hopes to one day play in the WNBA or even coach in the NBA. 

A photo snapped by a Field Museum anthropologist in 1947 was labeled “schoolgirl” for 72 years. That student now has a name, and her story is part of a new exhibit about the Marshall Islands. 

A war of words ensues as the mayor and police chief blame the courts for the city’s violence. Joe Biden’s first stop in Illinois as president. The list of alderpeople under indictment grows. And the city pension debt swells.

President Joe Biden told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a Friday phone call that he must “take action” against cybercriminals acting in his country and that the U.S. reserves the right to “defend its people and its critical infrastructure,” the White House said.

The acting head of the Food and Drug Administration on Friday called for a government investigation into highly unusual contacts between some of her agency’s drug reviewers and the maker of a controversial new Alzheimer’s drug.

The Biden administration is erasing more than $55 million in debt for former students of Westwood College, the Marinello Schools of Beauty and the Court Reporting Institute. All three chains have been closed for years after facing accusations of fraud and deception in their advertising.