Stories by Heather Cherone

A vote to rename 17 miles of Lake Shore Drive for Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, Chicago’s first permanent non-Indigenous settler, was delayed again Wednesday after the Chicago City Council erupted in acrimony over Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s pick to serve as the city’s top attorney.

City Council members are expected to vote on a proposal to rename Lake Shore Drive after Chicago's first non-Indigenous settler, Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, after a parliamentary maneuver delayed the vote last month. We discussion that plan and other city business with four alderpeople.

Chicagoans ages 12 and up who choose to get vaccinated at home will get their shot for free and a $50 gift card from food delivery company GrubHub, officials said.

The delay comes as city officials wait for U.S. Treasury Department officials to decide whether they will give Mayor Lori Lightfoot the green light to use $465 million in federal funds to pay off high-interest debt the city incurred to balance its 2020 and 2021 budgets.

The third time did not prove to be the charm for a proposal to build hundreds of apartments near Higgins Road and Cumberland Avenue. Instead, the City Council’s Zoning Committee voted 11-2 Tuesday to table the plan from GlenStar.

Approximately 26,850 Chicagoans who lost their jobs or found their paychecks scaled back because of the COVID-19 pandemic applied for $137 million in grants designed to stave off a wave of evictions and keep the lights on across Chicago, officials said Monday.

Aldermen are poised to settle a lawsuit alleging that four paramedics were sexually harassed by fellow members of the Chicago Fire Department — three by the same person — and another was retaliated against for reporting that she had been harassed.

A long-stalled plan to put an elected board of Chicago residents in charge of the Chicago Police Department remains mired in limbo after a razor-thin vote Friday.

The U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels will perform from noon to 1 p.m. on Aug. 21 and Aug. 22 after practicing from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Aug. 20. 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot dismissed the announcement Thursday by the Chicago Bears that the team was seriously considering leaving Soldier Field, where they are locked into a lease through 2033. 

Every Illinois resident who has gotten at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine will be eligible to win one of 43 cash prizes — including three million-dollar jackpots — and 20 scholarship awards starting July 8, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Thursday. 

The measure, which would ban the sale of alcohol at stores after midnight, is part of a part of a massive package of initiatives Mayor Lori Lightfoot said was designed to help Chicago businesses recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Black Chicagoans die more than nine years sooner than other Chicagoans, a gap caused by systemic racism that is only growing, according to a report released this week by the Chicago Department of Public Health.

“We don’t want to provide a road map” for others who seek to obtain the city’s data, Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th Ward) said.

Celia Meza has served as the city’s top attorney since December, replacing former Corporation Counsel Mark Flessner, who resigned amid a furor over the mayor’s handling of the revelation that Chicago police officers handcuffed a naked woman during a mistaken raid in February 2019.

Wage theft costs Chicago workers $400 million a year, according to the mayor’s office.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot will introduce a measure Thursday that would ban the sale of alcohol at stores after midnight, dropping her effort to set an earlier cutoff. The mayor called the revised proposal “a reasonable compromise.”

The city’s travel order has been suspended since June 1, when seven states moved from the orange tier to the less-restrictive yellow tier.

As state lawmakers prepare to return to Springfield for a pivotal vote on whether Chicago Public Schools should be run by an elected school board, Mayor Lori Lightfoot asked members of the Illinois House to delay a vote approved by the Illinois Senate.

While celebrating the full reopening of Chicago on Friday morning as the COVID-19 pandemic wanes, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she does not support the push to rename Lake Shore Drive, again calling it an “iconic” name with national recognition.

All businesses will be allowed to operate at full capacity and gatherings of all sizes will be permitted, according to the new rules.

ComEd officials said they were not responsible for the outages on May 6 and May 25 at the Roseland Pumping Station.

Several aldermen are unconvinced that the city should ink a new franchise agreement with ComEd — and Chicago may have other options, officials said.

The state’s top Republicans asked a federal judge Wednesday to appoint an eight-member commission made up of four Democrats and four Republicans to craft the maps with census data.

At least 15 cases of the COVID-19 Delta variant were identified in Chicago through Tuesday, city officials said. 

The 13-member Chicago Ward Advisory Redistricting Commission is charged with drawing a ward map “that is truly reflective of the diversity of Chicago,” organizers said.