Illinois banned capital punishment in 2011, but a state resident now faces a possible death sentence in a first-of-its-kind murder trial since that ban took effect. A Northwestern law professor explains how that’s possible.

An infant boy who was cut from a Chicago woman’s womb with a butcher knife died Friday at a hospital where he had been in grave condition since the April attack that killed his mother, family spokeswomen said.

Reporters are allowed into the courtroom where Brendt Christensen is on trial, but electronic devices are not. Read the court transcript of Wednesday’s stunning opening arguments.

Intimate details about R. Kelly are uncovered in a new book. Jim DeRogatis, the reporter who’s been following the singer for years, discusses “Soulless: The Case Against R. Kelly.”

A Chicago woman and her adult daughter were formally charged Wednesday in the killing of a pregnant teenager whose baby was cut from her womb with a butcher knife.

“Brendt Christensen is responsible for the death of Yingying Zhang,” federal defender George Taseff told a packed court Wednesday inside the Peoria federal courthouse. Despite the admission, Christensen is not changing his not guilty plea. 

Plans to build Barack Obama’s $500 million presidential center on Chicago’s lakefront can move forward, a federal judge said Tuesday in dismissing an advocacy group’s lawsuit objecting to the use of historic public parkland.

The federal lawsuit claims university social workers should have done more to address the “homicidal ideations” of Brendt Christensen, who is charged in the kidnapping and death of Yingying Zhang.

Terrance Finley, 24, was charged Tuesday with reckless homicide and aggravated DUI after he allegedly drove into an Auburn Gresham neighborhood restaurant, killing a 35-year-old woman.

Did the Chicago police union instruct cops not to police during the violent Memorial Day weekend? Mayor Lori Lightfoot clarifies a rumor she says she heard in this wide-ranging, one-on-one interview.

Attorneys for the man charged with the kidnapping and death of a Chinese scholar at the University of Illinois are demanding access to mental health treatment records from his girlfriend, who wore a wire for federal investigators.

Sunday marks the two-year anniversary of Yingying Zhang’s disappearance. Her kidnapping has left a mark on the University of Illinois campus as the trial of the man accused of her killing gets underway.

A bicyclist was struck by a CTA bus in the 400 block of North Wells Street on Thursday morning, according to the Chicago Police Department.

The R&B superstar pleaded not guilty to several new criminal charges relating to a 16-year-old victim he allegedly sexually abused between 2009 and 2010.

The city of Chicago has released two 911 calls made after “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett claimed he was the victim of a racist, homophobic attack.

For years, Jeffrey Batio promised investors a revolutionary 3-in-1 laptop device. Prosecutors say it was all a lie that allowed him to defraud investors out of millions of dollars.