As part of Mental Health Awareness Month, CPS will begin the “Please Stay” initiative, which is focused on suicide prevention and prioritizing the mental health of students dealing with increased levels of anxiety and stress.

The U.S. firearm homicide rate in 2020 was the highest recorded since 1994, according to data published Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Between 2019 and 2020, the overall firearm homicide rate increased by about 35%, according to the new data in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Experts say testing has dropped by 70 to 90% worldwide from the first to the second quarter of this year — the opposite of what they say should be happening with new omicron variants on the rise in places such as the United States and South Africa.

Chicago, Cook County and several surrounding counties have all recently been designated as being at “medium risk” of their residents contracting COVID-19. 

In Illinois, Gov. J. B. Pritzker says no matter how the Supreme Court eventually rules, abortion is still safe and legal in the state. But that’s not the case everywhere in the Midwest.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated housing insecurity, substance abuse, human trafficking, and domestic violence, often leaving women struggling with those issues with virtually no resources to move forward. But the pandemic also sparked an idea for local woman Maria Castro. She found a way to get everyday necessities — plus a touch of inspiration — to women in need.

For much of the past couple of decades, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers declined to reveal the conditions of dams in the National Inventory of Dams — which it maintains — citing security concerns stemming from the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Things are reverting to the way they were as federal money for COVID care of the uninsured dries up, creating a potential barrier to timely access. But the virus is not contained, even if it’s better controlled. And safety-net hospitals and clinics are seeing sharply higher costs for salaries and other basic operating expenses. 

Residents of seven northeast Illinois counties — McHenry, Lake, Cook, Kendall, DuPage, Will and Grundy — face a medium level of COVID-19 risk, according to the CDC. Dr. Allison Arwady, the commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, said Chicagoans should consider the CDC’s medium level of risk warning as “a yellow light of caution.”

Located two miles north of downtown, and about a mile from the lake, Old Town a neighborhood that has undergone a lot of change in the past decade. Residents have fought to preserve historic buildings in the area.

Thirty-six residents of the LaSalle Veterans’ Home died in November 2020 as part of a COVID-19 outbreak. A new report from the state’s auditor general finds that IDPH neglected to respond to the outbreak at the state-run facility until for many, it was too late.

House Republicans are calling for an audit of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. And the agency's own director, Marc Smith, has been held in contempt of court nine times.

The potential to roll back established abortion rights already has emerged in states with divided political control, including Pennsylvania and Virginia. California and Colorado are pushing to protect abortion access in their constitutions, a stronger step than passing a law. 

The draft opinion leaked to Politico and confirmed by the chief justice as genuine calls the Roe decision “egregiously wrong” and would return “the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives” – meaning to Congress and to the states. 

For weeks, much of upstate New York has been in the high-alert orange zone, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention designation that reflects serious community spread. The CDC urges people to mask up in indoor public places, including schools, regardless of vaccination status. But few, if any, local jurisdictions in the region brought back a mask requirement despite rising case counts.

The coordinated effort being announced Tuesday by the LGBTQ Victory Institute and other advocates comes in response to recent actions taken in conservative states. In Texas, for example, Gov. Gregg Abbott has directed state agencies to consider placing transgender children in foster care, though a judge has temporarily blocked such investigations.