Stories by Heather Cherone

Chicago bars and restaurants will be allowed to serve a limited number of indoor diners for the first time in three months starting June 26, city officials announced Friday.

New rules requiring nonprofit organizations to register as lobbyists will not take effect until Jan. 1, 2021 amid an outcry about the impact of the new regulations and delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

As she celebrated the planned reopening next week of the lakefront trail and the 606, Mayor Lori Lightfoot called on Gov. J.B. Pritzker to allow restaurants to reopen to indoor diners “sooner rather later.”

The 5-4 decision means that nearly 20,000 young people in Illinois who have legal status thanks to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program launched by former President Barack Obama will not face the threat of deportation.

The Chicago City Council on Wednesday recognized Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in the United States, but stopped short of making June 19 an official city holiday.

Aldermen signed off on Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to spend $1.13 billion in federal funds designed to help the city cover the cost of responding to the coronavirus pandemic.

An ordinance that would terminate the $33 million contract between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Police Department failed to advance Wednesday, but supporters of the measure vowed to continue their campaign.

Scooters will soon return to Chicago streets as part of a second pilot program despite the coronavirus pandemic and an initial run that ended with “mixed results,” city officials announced.

A new Illinois law is designed to considerably expand the number of voters who cast their ballot in the 2020 presidential election by mail. Gov. J.B. Pritzker called it perhaps “the safest method to cast a ballot in November.”

Chicago’s most famous empty hole is set to get new life, in the latest massive development that will alter Chicago’s skyline in the midst of a global pandemic.

Chicagoans who lost their jobs or found their paychecks scaled back because of the coronavirus pandemic would be protected from evictions for an additional two months after the state’s ban ends under a proposal from Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

Companies that win multimillion-dollar tax incentives to bring industrial jobs to Chicago could be stripped of those benefits if they “betray the public’s trust” under a plan set to be considered Wednesday by the Chicago City Council.

The family of a 55-year-old Chicago man who died five hours after paramedics were called to his West Garfield Park home but left without treating him should be paid $200,000, city lawyers recommended.

Chicago will not create a commission to study whether — and how — the city should pay reparations to Chicagoans who are the descendants of enslaved African Americans after Mayor Lori Lightfoot objected to the long-in-the-works effort.

The Chicago City Council violated the Open Meetings Act by holding an online conference call with Mayor Lori Lightfoot in the wake of unrest that swept the city following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, according to a lawsuit filed Friday.

Nine days after Chicago began reopening — and after days of massive protests against police brutality and unrest — the rate of confirmed cases of the coronavirus is still dropping, city health officials said Friday.

A plan to fast-track applications from restaurants and cafes to serve customers outdoors cleared a key city panel Thursday, as city officials vowed to do everything possible to help restaurants stay afloat amid the pandemic.

More than a dozen officers lounged, slept and snacked in the burglarized South Side office of U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush in the early hours of June 1 as unrest swept the city, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Thursday.

The final cost to hire 100 private security guards to patrol the South and West sides to protect businesses from a second weekend of looting and damage that never materialized was $400,000, Chicago officials said.

Aldermen on Wednesday endorsed Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to use federal money to create a $20 million fund to offer grants to Chicagoans struggling to pay their rent and mortgages because of the pandemic.

Chicagoans who did not get financial help from the federal government during the coronavirus pandemic can apply for $1,000 grants from the city, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced Wednesday.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot will ask aldermen to approve an ordinance designed to minimize the number of evictions across the city as the coronavirus pandemic eases, officials said.

The dire financial picture for Chicago comes after Mayor Lori Lightfoot insisted through mid-April that the city was well-prepared to weather the economic storm whipped up by COVID-19.

The Chicago City Council is one step away from creating a commission to study whether — and how — the city should pay reparations to Chicagoans who are the descendants of enslaved African Americans.

City officials announced Saturday they were prepared to spend as much as $1.2 million to hire 100 private security guards to patrol the South and West sides to protect businesses from a second weekend of looting and damage.

As peaceful protests entered their ninth day in Chicago, the police department announced it had arrested 1,258 people in three days during the unrest that swept the city after the death of George Floyd.