Stories by Matt Masterson

Chicago police on Tuesday morning announced that two boys and a girl have been charged with armed robbery. The boys also each face an additional count of armed robbery stemming from a separate incident Monday.

Election officials rule on whether Donald Trump can be on the Illinois ballot. CPS students walk out in support of Gaza cease-fire. And an effort to ban natural gas in new Chicago homes.

It is an absolute knockout — both literally and figuratively. And that is the most concise way to describe “Champion,” the physically, emotionally and musically stunning work now on the Lyric Opera stage, writes WTTW News theater critic Hedy Weiss.

Chita Rivera first gained wide notice in 1957 as Anita in the original production of ”West Side Story” and was still dancing on Broadway with her trademark energy a half-century later in 2015’s “The Visit.”

The U.S. National Science Foundation awarded the grant to Current Innovation NFP, a nonprofit “innovation hub” whose mission is to “solve pressing water challenges caused by climate change and pollution.” 

Students from Ogden International High School and Walter Payton College Preparatory High School marched to City Hall, carrying signs and chanting slogans such as “Viva Vida Palestina” and “our tax dollars are being used to commit war crimes.”

The West Side gallery is in line with work the Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project has been doing for over a decade: connecting teaching artists and scholars to incarcerated students through classes, workshops and lectures.

The Illinois State Board of Elections on Tuesday voted to reject attempts to knock former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden off the ballot. The bipartisan board was unanimous in each of the rulings.

A border deal had been in the works for months and seemed to be nearing completion in the Senate before it began to fall apart, largely because Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump doesn’t want it to happen.

In a sentencing memo filed Monday, the government asked a federal judge to sentence Mapes to between 51 and 63 months in prison following his conviction last August on charges of making false declarations and attempted obstruction of justice.

Freshwater mussels can be a river system’s best friend, but they’re missing from long stretches of the Chicago River. Here’s a look at one effort to reintroduce them.

Whether the officer who shot and killed 13-year-old Adam Toledo is publicly held accountable for the teen’s death depends on whether the Chicago City Council votes this week to reaffirm their rejection of an effort to upend the system used for 60 years to punish officers.

Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Chicago), herself the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants, weighs in on the situation in Washington and efforts to address immigration.

The latest on whether the city will evict migrants from city-run shelters. Congress members look to strike a deal to clamp down on border crossings. And a look at how exactly Cook County calculates property taxes. 

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Rick Telander certainly waxes poetic when lamenting the fates of our oft-underperforming sports franchises. But now he’s turned his literary and wordsmith abilities to poetry in a new book called “Sweet Dreams: Poems and Paintings for the Child Abed.”

For the latest “Black Voices: A WTTW News Community Conversation,” Brandis Friedman met with leaders and researchers to discuss their push to memorialize the Illinois Black Panther Party and include its history in the National Register of Historic Places.

The Illinois Department of Human Services is partnering with Google to launch a new centralized portal for children’s mental health care, state officials announced Monday.

Mayor Brandon Johnson did not lift the requirement that migrants leave city-run shelters in 60 days — instead, the nearly 14,200 men, women and children in city shelters will have longer to find more permanent housing.

Election officials should vote Tuesday to allow President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump to run in Illinois’ presidential primary contest, hearing officers and the state election board’s top lawyer recommend.

If you find the process of filing your taxes too confusing, there are plenty of free resources to help you get through it. Here are some things you need to know. 

Property tax bills for Cook County residents are available online at cookcountytreasurer.com and should hit mailboxes this week.

In a message posted on its webpage, Innovations High School informed students that classes would be canceled Monday and then resume Tuesday.

According to Chicago Police Department data, 13 people were shot across the city between 6 p.m. Friday and 11:59 p.m. Sunday.

“Route 66 was the first great American road trip,” said Amy Webb with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The trust is crowdsourcing Americans’ stories, memories and photos of the famous road that connected the Midwest to the West.

Even though the overall U.S. population is aging, “we’re seeing a movement of cancer diagnosis into younger folks, despite the fact that there are more people that are in the older populations,” said Dr. William Dahut, chief scientific officer for the American Cancer Society.

The Local Journalism Task Force found that about one-third of Illinois counties have either no source of local news or a single source.