New political district maps are spurring lawsuits. Springfield gets down to the wire on an energy bill. Hiccups for Chicago Public Schools students’ first week back. And a tumultuous end to the 20-year Afghanistan War.

At least 50,000 Afghans are expected to be admitted into the United States following the fall of Kabul as part of an “enduring commitment” to help people who aided the American war effort and others who are particularly vulnerable under Taliban rule, the secretary of homeland security said Friday.

Unemployment has been a major issue throughout the pandemic. Stay-at-home orders spurred layoffs — many who lost their jobs had trouble accessing benefits — in part because there was a whole lot of fraud.

Democrats have submitted new redistricting maps. Maps are redrawn every 10 years after the census, but because of late census numbers, this year’s process has been more contentious than others. 

Ald. Jim Gardiner, elected in 2019, has been surrounded by controversy since he took office after defeating former Ald. John Arena. In 2023, he was elected to serve as the 45th Ward’s Democratic committeeperson, making him one of the leaders of the Cook County Democratic Party.

Chicagoans who get vaccinated by the Chicago Department of Public Health starting Saturday will get both a lifesaving inoculation against COVID-19 and also a $100 gift card, city officials announced.

Students at an unidentified Chicago university who traveled over spring break sparked an outbreak of COVID-19 that sickened 158 people, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Thursday.

Legislators have been working toward a measure that would keep two Illinois nuclear plants open. Despite a rash of talks during Tuesday’s special session, there is still no concrete path — and less than two weeks remain until Exelon says it will close the plants.

State legislators this week passed new district maps and rejected an amendment to ethics legislation. Our politics team of Amanda Vinicky, Paris Schutz and Heather Cherone weigh in on that story and more in this week’s roundtable.

The two-year, $3.5 million pilot program represents the first time in Chicago’s history that the city’s emergency dispatch system will send someone other than a sworn and armed police officer to a call for help, officials said.

Imagine getting from Chicago to St. Louis by train in just a couple of hours. That’s the vision of high-speed rail advocates, who want to see an ultrafast train cut across Illinois — and the vision has gotten a boost from Illinois lawmakers.

The nation’s most far-reaching curb on abortions since they were legalized a half-century ago took effect Wednesday in Texas, with the Supreme Court silent on an emergency appeal to put the law on hold.

Democrats have a stranglehold on the Illinois General Assembly, and Tuesday they muscled through legislation that will help the party maintain power for the coming decade despite objections from community organizations and Republicans.

Scoops Dessert Bar is the first restaurant in Chicago to open as part of the city’s Expedited Restaurant Licensing Pilot Program, which is designed to help fill restaurants shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the final five U.S. military transport aircraft lifted off out of Afghanistan, they left behind up to 200 Americans and thousands of desperate Afghans who couldn't get out and now must rely on the Taliban to allow their departure.

Addressing the nation, a defensive President Joe Biden on Tuesday called the U.S. military airlift to extract more than 120,000 Afghans, Americans and other allies to end a 20-year war an “extraordinary success,” though thousands of people looking to leave remain.