Stories by Heather Cherone

Illinois will enter the next phase of its reopening plan Friday, and is on track to fully reopen June 11, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Thursday. Here’s what you should know about the “bridge” phase.

The attorney for the 11th Ward alderman who is the grandson of former Mayor Richard J. Daley said he was eager “to get to trial and clear Mr. Thompson’s name as soon as that is possible.” 

U.S. Attorney John Lausch was hospitalized Saturday after suffering from stroke-like symptoms, according to the spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of Illinois. Lausch, 51, returned to work on Monday, his spokesperson said.

Ald. David Moore (17th Ward) is one of three Chicago elected officials running for secretary of state in 2022.

The Enjoy Illinois campaign targets residents of Illinois’ border states and seeks to capitalize on what officials say is an increasing desire from those weary of the pandemic to travel by car.

Although five Democrats are already jockeying to replace Secretary of State Jesse White, Ald. Walter Burnett (27th Ward) told WTTW News he will not run to replace his political godfather. 

Chicago’s top doctor says cases of COVID-19 are now concentrated among young, Black Chicagoans who live on the city’s South Side.

The second-longest serving alderman on the City Council missed the deadline to pay a $5,000 fine to resolve charges that she accepted $48,500 in excessive campaign contributions. The Chicago Board of Ethics voted unanimously Monday to refer the matter to the city’s Law Department.

Vaccination clinics will open in office buildings in downtown Chicago and across the state as officials continue to get as many people vaccinated against COVID-19 as quickly as possible. The vaccines will allow the city to put “the pandemic in the rearview mirror,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Monday.

City officials agreed Friday to conduct an environmental justice assessment of the proposed shredding operation before issuing the final permit the facility needs to start operating. 

In all, 3,168 cases involving the variant, known as B.1.1.7, have been found in samples of COVID-19 positive tests from Illinois since Jan. 15, officials said.

The boil order was in place for approximately 20 hours in parts of Beverly, Morgan Park and Mount Greenwood, officials said.

With the state’s economy recovering faster than expected, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the state could afford to fully fund the state’s education system.

Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown has not acted on the recommendation of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability that the officer who shot and killed Anthony Alvarez in Portage Park be stripped of his police powers during the ongoing probe.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot has vowed to “force a reckoning” on the issue of pensions, which she called “the biggest problem” facing Chicago’s finances.

Just 3.5% of the approximately 5,500 residential search warrants served by Chicago police officers between 2017 and 2020 targeted white Chicagoans, according to a new report from the inspector general’s office.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who campaigned on a promise to root out corruption in City Hall, has repeatedly called for Ald. Ed Burke, the other indicted member of the Chicago City Council, to step down. But on Wednesday she stopped short of calling on the 11th Ward alderman to resign.

The former 22nd Ward alderman pleaded not guilty Wednesday after being indicted on charges that he drained more than $38,000 from the bank account of the City Council’s Progressive Reform Caucus and used those funds to pay for trips, jewelry, iPhones and tickets to sporting events.

As the COVID-19 pandemic eases, a plan takes shape for a number of Chicago events this summer and fall, the “latest step in our mission to fully restore a sense of normalcy within our city,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said.

The 113th edition of the Chicago Auto Show will be the first convention to return to Chicago since the pandemic began in March 2020, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Tuesday, and it marks a major step toward normalcy after a harrowing year.

Concerned that a surge in violence that begin in 2020 will turn into a bloody summer, aldermen urged city officials to spend the city’s $1.9 billion share of the latest federal COVID-19 relief package on efforts to stop shootings and murders by funding mental health services and job programs.

The Hoosier State is the only state to be added to the most restrictive level of city’s COVID-19 travel order, which was updated Tuesday.

Renaming 17 miles of Lake Shore Drive for Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, Chicago’s first permanent non-Indigenous settler, would be a massive undertaking without precedent in the city’s history, city officials told aldermen Thursday.

The next round of grants, set to open this month, could provide residents with 15 months of rental assistance to cover past-due rent from the previous 12 months and three additional months.

In all, 2,069 cases involving the variant, known as B.1.1.7, have been found in samples of COVID-19 positive tests from Illinois since Jan. 15, officials said.

For the first time in 30 years, the city is soliciting new proposals for its electric utility. It is a clear indication that the city’s relationship with the scandal-plagued utility is at an all-time low and perhaps nearing the breaking point.