Approximately 4,500 small businesses on the South and West sides applied for $5,000 emergency grants to help them stay afloat during the coronavirus pandemic, city officials announced Thursday.

Whistleblower Dr. Rick Bright warned on Thursday that the U.S. lacks a plan to produce and fairly distribute a coronavirus vaccine when it becomes available.

The Pritzker administration says the federal government has promised Illinois 600,000 swabs to be used in COVID-19 tests. But this week, Illinois got what appeared to be 23,000 cotton baby swabs — and officials aren’t sure they can be used.

Keeping buses and trains running is costly, but public transit agencies in Chicago have yet to see money from the federal stimulus package that passed in late March.

Ald. George Cardenas, 12th Ward, says he doesn’t agree that Chicago businesses and restaurants should be forced to stay mostly closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The office designed to help aldermen keep tabs on how the city spends tax dollars is set to get a new leader after nearly a year without anyone at the helm.

Illinois has set a new record for the number of coronavirus-related deaths in a single 24-hour period: 192. To date, the 3,792 deaths in Illinois are linked to the virus and 84,698 people have tested positive for it, according to health officials.

After weeks of delay, Chicago’s Department of Streets and Sanitation will begin its street sweeping season on May 18. But residents won’t get tickets for cars parked along cleaning routes as long as the stay-at-home order remains in effect.

The lakefront will not reopen during the third phase of the plan to reopen Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Wednesday during a speech to the Economic Club of Chicago. 

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle backed an effort Wednesday to give property owners a bit of financial “breathing room” by waiving late fees on second-half property tax bills due Aug. 3.

Members of the Illinois General Assembly will meet May 20 for the first time since the coronavirus hit “to conduct the critical work of state government in this unprecedented pandemic.”

Advice from the top U.S. disease control experts on how to safely reopen businesses and institutions during the coronavirus pandemic was more detailed and restrictive than the plan released by the White House last month.

The U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert issued a blunt warning Tuesday that cities and states could “turn back the clock” if they lift coronavirus stay-at-home orders too fast. U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin weighs in.

Over the past year, the 9th Ward alderman has emerged as a staunch critic of Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Now, he says Lightfoot has downplayed the negative impact the pandemic is having on the city’s budget.

Big wedding blowouts aren’t happening, but people are still getting hitched. How some couples are making it happen during the pandemic.

An effort to protect 3,200 affordable homes in Chicago from the worst of the economic crisis created by the coronavirus pandemic advanced Tuesday, with aldermen endorsing a plan to create a $3 million fund.