Stories by Associated Press

 A holiday that is spreading across the U.S. and beyond, Juneteenth is considered the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States. Here’s a look at the holiday and its history.

Investigators have largely cleared Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn for how it dealt with a Chicago woman accused of cutting a baby from his mother’s womb and claiming him as her own.

The U.S. is sending 1,000 more troops to the Middle East as tensions in the Persian Gulf mounted over Iran’s announcement it will not comply with the international agreement that keeps it from making nuclear weapons. 

The Supreme Court decided Monday against a high-stakes, election-year case about the competing rights of gay and lesbian couples and merchants who refuse to provide services for same-sex weddings.

A Chicago police spokeswoman said that Bryshere Gray, who plays a younger brother of Jussie Smollett’s character on the Chicago-based Fox TV show, was pulled over Thursday.

Regional leaders are scheduled to meet in Chicago next month to discuss a plan devised by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for preventing invasive Asian carp from reaching Lake Michigan. 

A new study shoots down the notion that medical marijuana laws can prevent opioid overdose deaths, challenging a favorite talking point of legal pot advocates.

An infant boy who was cut from a Chicago woman’s womb with a butcher knife died Friday at a hospital where he had been in grave condition since the April attack that killed his mother, family spokeswomen said.

Three weeks after Facebook refused to remove a doctored video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slurring her words, Mark Zuckerberg is getting a taste of his own medicine.

President Donald Trump announced the news on Twitter. He says Sarah Sanders will be returning to her home state of Arkansas and has not immediately named a successor.

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel says Kellyanne Conway has become a “repeat offender” of the Hatch Act by disparaging Democratic presidential candidates while speaking in her official capacity during television interviews and on social media.

An analysis of 44,000 American women found those who reported sleeping at night in a room with a television on or a light were more likely to gain at least 11 pounds over about five years than those who slept in darkness.

When dog owners go through a stressful period, they’re not alone in feeling the pressure — their dogs feel it too, a new study suggests.

Animal Recovery Mission said its new video shows workers abusing adult cows behind the scenes at Fair Oaks Farms at a milking carousel at the popular agritourism destination about 70 miles south of Chicago.

Pope Francis on Wednesday deemed the Rev. Augustine Tolton, the first known black Roman Catholic priest in the United States, to be “venerable,” positioning the former slave for possible sainthood.

“In a time when too many states across the nation are taking a step backward, Illinois is taking a giant step forward for women’s health. In this state, we trust women,” said Gov. J.B. Pritzker at a bill signing ceremony Wednesday in Chicago. 

A Chicago woman and her adult daughter were formally charged Wednesday in the killing of a pregnant teenager whose baby was cut from her womb with a butcher knife.

Plans to build Barack Obama’s $500 million presidential center on Chicago’s lakefront can move forward, a federal judge said Tuesday in dismissing an advocacy group’s lawsuit objecting to the use of historic public parkland.

The Chicago-based company has 4,550 unfilled orders for the Max but stopped deliveries after regulators around the world grounded the plane following crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people.

Three former employees of a large northwestern Indiana dairy have been charged with animal cruelty following the release of undercover video showing workers kicking and throwing young calves, officials said Monday.

Even if you rely more on sight and smell to size up foods, you might be surprised by the risks and practices around food spoilage.

Free-agent closer Craig Kimbrel has agreed to a three-year contract with the Cubs in a big move to strengthen Chicago’s bullpen.

The auction would recover money owed secured creditors filmmaker George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, whose Capital V Holdings loaned $12 million to Johnson Publishing.

The city of Chicago has released two 911 calls made after “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett claimed he was the victim of a racist, homophobic attack.

“You are the pride of our nation, you are the glory of our republic and we thank you from the bottom of our heart,” President Trump said, of the “warriors” of an “epic battle” engaged in the ultimate fight of good against evil.

Animal Recovery Mission says an investigator for the animal rights group secretly recorded footage that shows the “daily mistreatment of the resident farm animals” at Indiana’s Fair Oaks Farms.