Stories by Matt Masterson

Chicago has recorded 332 homicides through the first six months of 2021, according to the Chicago Police Department. Though that figure is just below the 338 homicides in the first half of 2020, it still marks the second deadliest six-month stretch to start a year since 1999.

Calling Donald H. Rumsfeld energetic was like calling the Pacific wide. When others would rest, he would run. While others sat, he stood. But try as he might, at the pinnacle of his career as defense secretary he could not outmaneuver the ruinous politics of the Iraq war.

Members of the Chicago City Council are in the early stages of drafting new ward boundaries, but so too are community members hoping to supplant a map drawn by alderpeople. We check in on the drafting process.

The process to draw a new ward map begins. What’s in store for post-pandemic theater? The new editorial page editor for the Tribune. A new law allows college athletes to be paid for endorsements.

The special meeting set for Friday is the second time this year that aldermen have called an emergency meeting of the Chicago City Council over Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s objections. Our Spotlight Politics team weighs in.

Broadway shows are planning their long-awaited return to Chicago. Theater critic Chris Jones has the latest, plus an update on his new role on the editorial pages of the Chicago Tribune.

Chicago’s lakefront is often referred to as one of the city’s crown jewels, and as with many valuable things, it’s been the subject of frequent high-profile political and legal fights. A new history of the lakefront traces more than 150 years of nearly nonstop litigation.

About 46% of the United States’ population is fully vaccinated, but many countries have much lower rates. What the U.S. and other countries are doing to promote vaccine equity across the world.

 A new state law allows Illinois college athletes to play ball with – and make bank from – businesses, by entering into endorsement deals and doing commercials. 

Supporters are calling it a big win for Chicago’s trees, but say the real work begins now. How the new Urban Forestry Advisory Board will bring together public and private partners to care for and enhancing the city’s urban canopy.

The roadblocks preventing a new deal between the police union and city officials are unchanged since the contract expired on June 30, 2017 — and both sides are dug in and unwilling to compromise.

Patriotic tunes, DJs, outdoor go-karts, a plant swap and summer workouts usher in the holiday weekend. Here are a dozen things to do in and around Chicago.

Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction and opened the way for his immediate release from prison Wednesday, ruling that the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby.

The nationwide Fight For $15 movement pushed the challenges facing Chicago’s lowest-paid workers — who are primarily Black and Latino — to the top of the agenda for city officials.

“To say I’m hurt is an understatement,” said Jackie Wilson, who spent more than three decades in prison following multiple wrongful convictions for the 1982 murder of two Chicago police officers.

A federal judge will not force the city to permit Reserve Management Group, the parent company of General Iron, to operate a metal shredding and recycling operation on Chicago’s Southeast Side.

A man who said he sprayed trees in a Naperville park to protect them after an anxious dog chewed off the bark has been ticketed by authorities.

Donald Trump’s company and his longtime finance chief are expected to be charged Thursday with tax-related crimes stemming from a New York investigation into the former president’s business dealings, people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

Mayor Lightfoot talks crime, City Council and more. Local Congress members on infrastructure and a Jan. 6 commission. And a look at the life and career of Phil Ponce as he retires from regular duty.

After nearly three decades at “Chicago Tonight,” Phil Ponce ends his regular appearances on the program. We reflect on his career in journalism and his leadership role in the WTTW newsroom.

His works have been exported around the world from his studio in Chicago. We catch up with sculptor Richard Hunt before the unveiling of a monument in Bronzeville that was years in the making.

President Joe Biden declared there is an urgent need for a “generational investment” in the nation’s infrastructure, as he looked to sell voters Tuesday on the economic benefits of the $973 billion bipartisan package that still faces an uncertain future in Congress.

Chicago and other major cities are experiencing a “pandemic-spurred surge” in violence that officials are having success in fighting despite a rising number of shootings and homicides, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said during a one-on-one interview Tuesday on “Chicago Tonight.”

Illinois broke a 23-year streak on Tuesday, when credit ratings agency Moody’s upgraded the state’s bond rating for the first time since 1998 – the same year the Chicago Bulls won their last championship.

United said Tuesday that it will buy 200 Boeing Max jets and 70 planes from Europe’s Airbus so that it can replace many of its smallest planes and some of its oldest and have room to grow its fleet.

The more transmissible delta variant is expected to become the dominant coronavirus strain in the U.S., the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. And with half the U.S. still not fully vaccinated, doctors say it could cause a resurgence of COVID-19 in the fall.