Stories by Heather Cherone

The variant, known as B.1.1.7, was identified in samples of COVID-19 positive tests taken outside of Chicago and suburban Cook County for the first time, according to a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Public Health.

If the mayor insists on keeping the libraries open, employees should be eligible for the vaccine along with teachers and other front-line essential workers, union leaders, employees and aldermen said.

Four city-run COVD-19 test facilities will be closed from Friday through Wednesday as an arctic blast bears down on the city, officials announced Thursday. The facilities require staff members and volunteers to work outside to test people inside their cars.

The decision by city officials to cancel St. Patrick Day parades in 2020 was one of the first signs that COVID-19 was going to upend every aspect of normal life — and the fact that the parades will not take place this year is more evidence the pandemic is far from over.

Inspectors found 26 people inside a Roseland storefront on Friday who had paid a cover charge in an establishment licensed only for tax preparation services, according to city officials. The illegal club featured a DJ and dancers — but no masks or social distancing, they said.

Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th Ward) announced Tuesday he will no longer serve as Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s City Council floor leader, an indication that tensions between the mayor and a majority of the City Council remain high.

With the move to Phase 4, suburban Cook County joins Chicago under the lowest level of state-imposed restrictions since the beginning of October and before the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic swept the state.

The scheduler will include appointments at mass vaccination sites operated by the city as well as those offered by AMITA Health, Erie Family Health, Innovative Express Care and Rush University Medical Center.

A federal judge ruled that disciplinary action against attorney Keenan Saulter was unnecessary because the Chicago lawyer acknowledged he violated the court order — but had a “good faith basis” to believe that the video was being improperly withheld from the public by city officials.

The absence of an agreement on how best to protect teachers and students from COVID-19 sets the stage for a strike or lockout — the second work stoppage in Chicago schools in 15 months.

Chicago is on track to advance from Tier 1 restrictions to Phase 4 on Sunday, according to state health officials. However, the change won’t result in expanded capacity for indoor dining and drinking at bars and restaurants, Chicago officials announced Friday.

City officials sought to reassure Chicagoans on Saturday they were prepared for a major winter storm to hit the city, which could dump between 5 inches and 9 inches of heavy, wet snow through Sunday.

Negotiations between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union have failed to produce a deal to allow approximately 70,000 Chicago students to return to schools Monday, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in a news conference late Friday night.

“I am optimistic that we will be able to increase capacity soon, but it would be irresponsible and dangerous to rush our reopening and undo the incredible progress we have made as a city,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in a statement.

A commission charged with reviewing Chicago’s more than 500 public monuments as part of a “a racial healing and historical reckoning project” has identified 40 that are problematic for a variety of reasons, the group’s co-chair announced Friday.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said that reversing the spike in carjacking “was top of mind,” as it has continued through the first weeks of 2021, with 166 carjackings through Jan. 22, according to Chicago Police Department data. 

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.

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.

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.

Since March, city inspectors have conducted more than 8,236 investigations and cited 417 businesses for violating COVID-19 regulations, officials said.

Eight more cases of a COVID-19 variant first discovered in the United Kingdom and believed to be more transmissible have been discovered in Chicago and suburban Cook County, state health officials announced Monday.

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.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot vowed to redouble efforts to get the vaccine to those in neighborhoods hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic by earmarking doses for those Black and Latino communities as the state begins the second phase of its vaccination effort.

Aldermen agreed Monday to settle a lawsuit brought by a Chicago man who was shot by police during a traffic stop in February 2015 that officials ruled was unjustified by paying him $525,000 and forgiving approximately $45,000 in debt he owes to the city.