Stories by Eunice Alpasan

Front-line service, care and technical workers are among the 200 workers at Loretto Hospital in Austin who have been on strike since Monday.

Local public health departments are continuing to monitor COVID-19 levels in the area as the U.S. sees a late-summer uptick in test positivity and hospitalizations.

Hospital workers at Loretto Hospital in Austin went to the picket lines Monday after the hospital and its workers union failed to come to an agreement on key bargaining issues such as increased wages and staffing, and adding Juneteenth as a permanent holiday.

Parts of the Chicago area are under excessive heat warnings and heat advisories Thursday with temperatures expected to top out at 96 degrees along with a heat index into the triple digits, according to the National Weather Service.

Communities Partnering 4 Peace led by the Metropolitan Peace Initiatives is one of many violence prevention efforts across the city working to address the sharp increase in gun violence that Chicago, along with other major cities, experienced during the pandemic.

Nearly 200 workers at Loretto Hospital in Austin delivered a 10-day strike notice to management Wednesday over calls to address low wages and unsafe staffing conditions.

A documentary that gives a vivid and harrowing look into the Russian invasion of a Ukrainian city during the opening days of the Russia-Ukraine war will be premiering at the Gene Siskel Film Center on Friday for a limited week-long run.

Three endangered piping plover chicks were released into the wild Wednesday at a protected site at Montrose Beach in an effort to aid in its species recovery. It marks the first time plovers have been released in the state.

Residents on the West side of the city and its surrounding suburbs were hit particularly hard by flooding. Some areas saw as much as 8 inches of rainfall on July 2, leading to flash floods and extensive property damage.

“The goal here is for us to think about how the cumulative impact data can help change policy and operations across city departments,” said Angela Tovar, Chicago’s chief sustainability officer.

This July 4 in Highland Park, one year after seven people were killed and dozens more wounded in a mass shooting, the sounds of marching bands and cheers were replaced by a much more solemn gathering.

Generations of discriminatory lending practices and policies have taken a major toll on Black communities. A 2020 study found that for every $1 of accumulated wealth that White families have, Black families have just one cent.

Art Johnston and Pepe Peña, owners of the iconic gay bar Sidetrack in Northalsted, are the subjects of a new documentary. The film follows their love story — spanning 50 years — and the history of the Sidetrack bar amid the fight for LGBTQ+ rights in Chicago.

Ten years ago, the Chicago Board of Education and former Mayor Rahm Emanuel decided to close nearly 50 public schools, mainly on the South and West sides of the city. Some buildings remain vacant; others are being transformed into community assets.

The business group is proposing a “one table” approach to addressing gun violence with the goal of reducing homicides and shootings by about 80% in 10 years. 

The test kitchen, originally constructed in the early 1970s and housed at the former Johnson Publishing Company Building in the South Loop, was used by Ebony magazine editors to test recipes the magazine would feature in its publication.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a deal Wednesday night to divert a U.S. default on its debt; the bill now heads to the Senate for approval. However, the deal was not without controversy for lawmakers of both political parties.

The Department of Veterans Affairs found Black veterans may be more likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder than their White counterparts. However, an internal VA report shows Black veterans were more often denied benefits for PTSD.

Janice Jackson serves as CEO of Hope Chicago, a two-generation scholarship program that aims to remove financial barriers for thousands of CPS students and their parents by allowing them to attend college debt-free.

An apparent AI-generated photo went viral on social media Monday showing a fake explosion near the Pentagon. Officials confirmed that the image and accompanying reports were fake. Critics pointed to the as an example of the problems that come along with the promise of artificial intelligence technology. 

A Pew Research Center survey found 43% of Latino adults in the U.S. identified as Catholic last year, which is a drop from 2010, when 67% of Latinos identified as Catholic. The survey also found that the share of Latinos who are religiously unaffiliated continues to grow.

With Mayor Brandon Johnson vowing to reopen the city’s shuttered mental health clinics, some advocates are looking at the administration to reinvigorate and reimagine the city’s approach to providing mental health services.

A study by the Kapor Center and the NAACP finds that between 2014 and 2021, there was only a 1% increase in Black representation within technical roles at large tech companies.

The Pan-Asian Voter Empowerment Coalition, a coalition of Asian American organizations from across the Chicago area, will come together in Springfield on Tuesday to advocate for legislation to meet the community’s needs. 

More than 8,000 migrants have arrived in Chicago since last summer when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott first started sending migrants to the city. However, citywide efforts are reaching a tipping point with limited resources and shelters at capacity.

Emergency measures designed to ensure people didn’t lose their health care during the COVID-19 pandemic are now being phased out.