Since 2017, the number of white nationalist hate groups has increased by 55%, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. What’s behind the resurgence? We ask a former skinhead.

Reginald Merrill will be held in jail on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated battery following his first appearance in court on Tuesday, three days after a shooting that left 7-year-old Natalia Wallace dead and another man injured.

From San Francisco to South Carolina, a spate of shootings claimed the lives of people celebrating or just taking a drive over the Fourth of July weekend. Chicago saw one of its bloodiest holiday weekends in memory.

One of Chicago’s bloodiest holiday weekends in memory ended with 17 people fatally shot, including a 7-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy, and 70 more wounded, despite a concerted effort to quell the violence with an additional 1,200 police officers on the streets.

At least 13 people, including a 7-year-old girl at a family party and a teenage boy, were killed in Chicago over the Fourth of July weekend, police said. At least 59 others were shot and wounded.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the Auburn Gresham neighborhood was considered a hot spot for cases of COVID-19. It has recently become a hot spot for some of the city's increasing violence, too.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot had clear words for bar and restaurant owners who refuse to follow the city’s coronavirus guidelines during the Fourth of July weekend: You will be shut down and you will not reopen soon.

A “perfect storm” is to blame for the surge in homicides during June, which has put the city on pace to record more murders than any year since 2016, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Wednesday.

In the first six months of 2020, there have been 329 murders, matching the total recorded in the first half of 2016 – a year that ended with 762 homicides, according to Chicago Police Department data.

“Business owners throughout Chicago saw their hopes and dreams go up in flames with these fires,” Police Superintendent David Brown said of dozens of arsons that took place during recent protests in Chicago.

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx on Tuesday issued a new policy instructing prosecutors to dismiss cases involving a handful of misdemeanor charges tied to recent protests, including disorderly conduct and curfew violations. 

The video and documents come more than eight months after the encounter between police officers and the former superintendent, who was found asleep behind the wheel of his SUV after a night of drinking. 

“As a dad ... I struggle to make sense of the reckless gun violence that continues to take the lives of our young people throughout the city,” Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown said after 14 people were killed over the weekend.

The Chicago Police Department’s Bureau of Internal Affairs and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability are investigating hundreds of complaints filed against officers for their response to recent protests, records show.

Activists and local leaders called for more state and federal support Sunday as weekend shootings across Chicago left three children dead, including a 10-year-old who was struck by a stray bullet that came through an apartment window. 

Two brothers who admitted helping actor Jussie Smollett stage a racist and homophobic attack in Chicago last year are again willing to help in the case after initially saying they were done cooperating with prosecutors, their attorney said Thursday.