Democrats in Congress and the White House rejected a Republican pitch to split President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 rescue plan into smaller chunks on Thursday, with lawmakers appearing primed to muscle the sweeping economic and virus aid forward without GOP help.

President Joe Biden on Thursday ordered government health insurance markets to reopen for a special sign-up window, offering uninsured Americans a haven as the spread of COVID-19 remains dangerously high and vaccines aren’t yet widely available.

A possible teachers strike over safety issues looms as city and state COVID-19 mitigations are being rolled back. Our politics team of Amanda Vinicky and Heather Cherone weighs in on that story and more in this week’s roundtable.

It’s been one year since recreational marijuana became legal in Illinois. Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s senior adviser for cannabis control talks about how Illinois aims to expand access to marijuana dispensary licenses after intense criticism from equity advocates. 

In killing a proposal from one of her City Council allies to allow cannabis to be sold legally downtown and in the Loop, Mayor Lori Lightfoot told reporters “we’re not turning Michigan Avenue into the pot paradise.”

The Chicago City Council’s Latino Caucus on Wednesday rejected a call to charge an independent commission with redrawing the boundaries of Chicago’s 50 wards, saying aldermen are best equipped to ensure that the new map is equitable. 

The Chicago City Council on Wednesday wasted no time in symbolically turning the page on the Trump administration by voting to expand protections for undocumented immigrants that had been stalled by the former president’s crackdown.

In the most ambitious U.S. effort to stave off the worst of climate change, President Joe Biden signed executive orders Wednesday to transform the nation’s heavily fossil-fuel powered economy into a clean-burning one, pausing oil and gas leasing on federal land and targeting subsidies for those industries.

The red brick two-flat in Woodlawn is now protected from demolition and any significant changes to its exterior. The vision is to transform the home into an international heritage pilgrimage site.

A Chicago man has been indicted in connection with the carjacking of an Uber Eats driver in Chicago, another carjacking in Cicero and an attempted carjacking in Oak Park, federal prosecutors announced Wednesday.

Vice President Kamala Harris has spent her career breaking barriers. We discuss the significance of Harris holding the second-highest office in the nation, and what challenges may lie ahead. 

U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian leader Vladimir Putin held their first phone conversation as counterparts Tuesday in a phone call that underscored troubled relations and the delicate balance between the former Cold War foes. 

Two measures that would make it harder to convert some small apartment buildings into single-family homes in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods advanced Tuesday as part of a renewed effort from city officials to boost Chicago’s supply of affordable housing.

President Joe Biden signaled his increasing bullishness on the pace of vaccinations after signing an executive order to boost government purchases from U.S. manufacturers. 

Democrats marched the impeachment case against Donald Trump to the Senate on Monday night for the start of his historic trial, but Republican senators were easing off their criticism of the former president and shunning calls to convict him over the deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol.

An effort by city officials to finish a project to expand cargo operations at O’Hare Airport by borrowing $55.6 million advanced Monday after a monthslong delay prompted by concerns that the effort failed to meet the city’s self-imposed diversity goals.