Stories by Marissa Nelson

Southwest border crossings are on track to reach the highest level in the last 20 years, according to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. We discuss what’s happening at the border and how the Biden administration is addressing it.

A ghost kitchen on Chicago’s North Side is renting out kitchen space to multiple restaurants for delivery-only orders, but the traffic-heavy business model is agitating the ward’s alderman and some neighbors.

How do you tell the story of a musical genius whose operas are among the most beloved works in the Italian opera canon? If you are Hershey Felder, you create something unabashedly in the grand opera style that also manages to be hugely accessible for audiences still distanced from live performance by COVID-19.

A worker shot and killed two colleagues at a supermarket distribution center near Milwaukee before crashing his vehicle during a police pursuit and then killing himself, a union official and police said Wednesday.

Americans will be getting extra time to prepare their taxes. The Internal Revenue Service says it’s delaying the traditional tax filing deadline from April 15 until May 17.

Officials will open new appointments at the county’s five mass vaccination sites for the residents who are newly eligible at noon Friday. More than 68% of individuals 65 and older in suburban Cook County have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, officials said.

The murder of eight people Tuesday at three spas in the Atlanta area constitute a hate crime, and former President Donald Trump’s “hateful rhetoric” is partly to blame for the violence, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Wednesday.

The next phase of Chicago’s vaccination effort will allow all essential workers and those with underlying health conditions to get doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced Wednesday.

A white gunman accused of killing eight people, most of them of women of Asian descent, at three Atlanta-area massage parlors was charged with murder Wednesday in an attack that sent terror through the Asian American community that’s increasingly been targeted during the coronavirus pandemic.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Wednesday condemned a mass shooting a day earlier in Georgia that left eight people dead, most of them women of Asian descent.

Watch the March 17, 2021 full episode of “Chicago Tonight.”

Chicago Public Schools officials say they've offered COVID-19 vaccine opportunities to all employees and hope to get everyone vaccinated by the end of the month, as the district hits the one-year mark since the pandemic forced the suspension of in-person learning across Illinois.

March Madness arrives as vaccinations increase in the U.S. and the death toll from COVID-19 has dropped, but health experts note that many seniors and other at-risk people still haven’t been vaccinated. 

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged Americans to get vaccinated to help curb the COVID-19 pandemic, calling it “safe” and “something that works.” 

Wearing a mask. Staying home. Getting the vaccine. These are the methods that are likely top of mind when it comes to preventing the spread of the coronavirus. But there’s another tool too — and it’s in the air.

In a letter to parents and families Tuesday, Chicago Public Schools officials said their target goal is to bring back high school students on April 19, the first day of the fourth quarter of this academic year. But the teachers union says no agreement has been made for that date or any other.

Ma Rainey made history as the “mother of blues.” Her music and her story are highlighted in the film “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” which depicts a recording session in 1920s Chicago. Not too far from Chicago, Academy Awards history is being made by a native of Gary, Indiana.

Echoing statements made by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the state’s comptroller says stimulus funds will first go toward paying back the billions Illinois borrowed from the Federal Reserve early in the pandemic last year.

This time last year, hospitals were bracing for the unknown as COVID-19 accelerated its spread across the U.S. We got an exclusive look inside Illinois’ largest private health system as hospital professionals reflect on a year unlike any other.

Chicago is looking forward to live theater again as vaccines roll out and infection rates remain low. Here’s what you can expect — and when.

Detectives are seeking to identify two male subjects in relation to the non-fatal shooting of a 32-year-old off-duty Chicago police officer on Monday afternoon in the Calumet Heights neighborhood.

Comments this week by Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., underscored that immigration remains a complex problem for the two parties to tackle successfully, even with Donald Trump no longer in the White House. Local members of Congress weigh in on this and more. 

New evidence that it may be safe for schools to seat students 3 feet apart — half of the previous recommended distance — could offer a way to return more of the nation’s children to classrooms with limited space.

Cornelius Carr, 18, was charged with vehicular hijacking and armed robbery after he allegedly called a ride-hailing service with the sole intent of carjacking the driver who arrived to pick him up.

Watch the March 16, 2021 full episode of “Chicago Tonight.”

The Chicago Department of Public Health has requested additional information from General Iron’s parent company regarding the “cumulative impact” of its proposed Southside Recycling facility.