Stories by Heather Cherone

Chicagoans who get vaccinated by the Chicago Department of Public Health starting Saturday will get both a lifesaving inoculation against COVID-19 and also a $100 gift card, city officials announced.

Students at an unidentified Chicago university who traveled over spring break sparked an outbreak of COVID-19 that sickened 158 people, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Thursday.

The two-year, $3.5 million pilot program represents the first time in Chicago’s history that the city’s emergency dispatch system will send someone other than a sworn and armed police officer to a call for help, officials said.

Scoops Dessert Bar is the first restaurant in Chicago to open as part of the city’s Expedited Restaurant Licensing Pilot Program, which is designed to help fill restaurants shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The city’s travel advisory now covers 48 states as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands, officials said Tuesday.

While Mayor Lori Lightfoot contends Chicago is “fiscally bouncing back,” Chicago’s top financial officials made it clear at a hearing Monday that the city’s finances are still mired in the deep hole created by the economic catastrophe of the coronavirus pandemic.

The lawsuit accuses both DoorDash and Grubhub of advertising delivery services from restaurants without their consent, damaging the restaurants’ reputations and forcing them to scramble to resolve complaints.

The mandate is likely to trigger a legal battle with the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 7, which represents the city’s 12,000 rank-and-file officers.

City officials will have to move cautiously to extend the city’s program that earmarks a portion of city contracts for firms owned by Black, Latino and Asian Chicagoans as well as women in the face of hostile courts, officials warned the Chicago City Council.

Ald. Carrie Austin’s resignation as chair of the City Council’s Committee on Contracting and Oversight Equity comes nine days after WTTW News reported that the committee spent more in 2020 than nearly all other City Council committees while meeting only three times.

The parent company of a now-shuttered metal recycler on the North Side will pay a fine as part of an agreement to resolve charges that the firm’s operation violated the Clean Air Act, Environmental Protection Agency officials announced Wednesday.

Chicago officials added four states to the city’s COVID-19 travel advisory on Tuesday as the number of cases continues to spike with the spread of the delta variant of the virus.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday declined to demand that indicted Ald. Carrie Austin (34th Ward) step down as chair of the City Council’s Contracting Oversight and Equity Committee or resign from the City Council. The committee is poised to convene a subject-matter hearing at 1 p.m. Tuesday.

City workers will “absolutely” have to be vaccinated against COVID-19, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Monday, promising a formal announcement in “days.”

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s picks for key city posts during her first two years in office failed to keep pace with the growing number of Latino Chicagoans, according to an analysis by WTTW News.

The order covers all of the employees who work for the office of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle as well as those covered by Cook County Employment Plan, officials said.

The high-profile diplomatic post for Chicago’s famously profane and brusque mayor is sure to be jeered by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party as well as those who believe his handling of the murder of Laquan McDonald should have disqualified him from public office.

Everyone in Chicago, regardless of their vaccination status, must wear a mask indoors starting Friday, Chicago’s top doctor announced Tuesday. The mandate comes amid the city’s fourth surge in COVID-19 infections, driven by the more transmissible delta variant.

Tangtang Zhao, 34, of Chicago, sold 125 authentic Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 vaccination cards to 11 different buyers for approximately $10 per card, according to a statement from the Department of Justice. 

More than 45 days after Ald. Carrie Austin (34th Ward) was indicted on charges of bribery and lying to federal officials, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who picked Austin to lead the Committee on Contracting Oversight and Equity, has yet to call for Austin to relinquish her position. 

Before the pandemic, Chicago finance officials projected that the city would eliminate its longstanding imbalance between revenues and expenditures and reach structural balance in 2023. In all, the pandemic cost the city $1.7 billion, complicating those efforts.

Chicago is facing an uncertain financial future as Mayor Lori Lightfoot prepares to detail how she plans to close a projected budget deficit of $733 million in 2022, budget experts told “Chicago Tonight” on Thursday.

Just over 200 people who attended the four-day music festival have tested positive during the 14 days since the event kicked off in Grant Park on July 29, said Dr. Allison Arwady, the commissioner of the city’s Department of Public Health.

Tension between Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Chicago Police Department exposed by the fatal shooting of Officer Ella French widened Wednesday, as the mayor defended the decision by a high-ranking officer to cut short a ritual meant to honor the fallen officer.

The $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan that advanced Tuesday in the Senate includes $15 billion to replace the lead service lines responsible for contaminating the tap water in approximately 10 million homes across the country.

Promising that Chicago is “turning the corner” on the COVID-19 pandemic, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Wednesday the city faces a projected $733 million budget shortfall in the 2022 fiscal year.