A one-page order by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued late Friday reinstated the nation’s strictest abortion law, which bans abortions once cardiac activity is detected, usually around six weeks. It makes no exceptions in cases of rape or incest.

The Chicago Department of Water Management is calling on the EPA to make protection of Lake Michigan from industrial pollution a priority after U.S. Steel’s Midwest Plant experienced two leaks in two weeks into a waterway that feeds into the region’s source of drinking water.

“Although we are already into fall, we are expecting a warm weekend and West Nile virus remains a risk until the first hard frost,” Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said in a statement. 

But with a week to go until her declared deadline, Mayor Lori Lightfoot stepped back and said she would not discipline unvaccinated employees. 

When COVID-19 vaccines were first rolling out in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended waiting 14 days between the shots and other immunizations as a precaution. But the agency has since revised its guidelines and says the wait is unnecessary.

For the second time in two weeks, Indiana Dunes National Park has had to close its beaches due to an unknown substance leaking into the water along its Portage shoreline. 

Uptown is one of Chicago’s most diverse communities.  It’s home to a few icons in Chicago’s music scene. But, like many neighborhoods, it also faces gentrification. We talk with community leaders about planned luxury apartments coming to the area and a nonprofit that provides housing for women.

President Joe Biden on Thursday championed COVID-19 vaccination requirements, determined that the roughly 67 million unvaccinated American adults must get the shot even as he acknowledged that mandates weren’t his “first instinct.”

A new Northwestern Medicine study has found increased stress during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with irregularities in menstrual cycles.

Pfizer asked the U.S. government Thursday to allow use of its COVID-19 vaccine in children ages 5 to 11 – and if regulators agree, shots could begin within a matter of weeks.

The order Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman is the first legal blow to the Texas law known as Senate Bill 8, which until now had withstood a wave of early challenges.

The latest legal challenge came as the Biden administration waited for a federal judge in Austin, Texas, to rule on a request to halt the law known as Senate Bill 8, which bans abortions in Texas once cardiac activity is detected, usually around six weeks. 

The policy change, which applies to unvaccinated students and takes effect Saturday, comes after more than 15,500 students were forced to quarantine during the first four weeks of the school year, but only 1.6% tested positive for COVID-19 after being exposed to the virus, according to officials.

The city’s travel advisory now covers 47 states as well as Washington, D.C., Guam and the Virgin Islands, officials said Tuesday.

The Biden administration on Monday reversed a ban on abortion referrals by family planning clinics, lifting a Trump-era restriction as political and legal battles over abortion grow sharper from Texas to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The first Women’s March of the Biden administration headed straight for the steps of the Supreme Court on Saturday, part of nationwide protests that drew thousands to Washington to demand continued access to abortion.