Stories by Heather Cherone

Chicago’s top doctor says cases of COVID-19 are now concentrated among young, Black Chicagoans who live on the city’s South Side.

The second-longest serving alderman on the City Council missed the deadline to pay a $5,000 fine to resolve charges that she accepted $48,500 in excessive campaign contributions. The Chicago Board of Ethics voted unanimously Monday to refer the matter to the city’s Law Department.

Vaccination clinics will open in office buildings in downtown Chicago and across the state as officials continue to get as many people vaccinated against COVID-19 as quickly as possible. The vaccines will allow the city to put “the pandemic in the rearview mirror,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Monday.

City officials agreed Friday to conduct an environmental justice assessment of the proposed shredding operation before issuing the final permit the facility needs to start operating. 

In all, 3,168 cases involving the variant, known as B.1.1.7, have been found in samples of COVID-19 positive tests from Illinois since Jan. 15, officials said.

The boil order was in place for approximately 20 hours in parts of Beverly, Morgan Park and Mount Greenwood, officials said.

With the state’s economy recovering faster than expected, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the state could afford to fully fund the state’s education system.

Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown has not acted on the recommendation of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability that the officer who shot and killed Anthony Alvarez in Portage Park be stripped of his police powers during the ongoing probe.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot has vowed to “force a reckoning” on the issue of pensions, which she called “the biggest problem” facing Chicago’s finances.

Just 3.5% of the approximately 5,500 residential search warrants served by Chicago police officers between 2017 and 2020 targeted white Chicagoans, according to a new report from the inspector general’s office.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who campaigned on a promise to root out corruption in City Hall, has repeatedly called for Ald. Ed Burke, the other indicted member of the Chicago City Council, to step down. But on Wednesday she stopped short of calling on the 11th Ward alderman to resign.

The former 22nd Ward alderman pleaded not guilty Wednesday after being indicted on charges that he drained more than $38,000 from the bank account of the City Council’s Progressive Reform Caucus and used those funds to pay for trips, jewelry, iPhones and tickets to sporting events.

As the COVID-19 pandemic eases, a plan takes shape for a number of Chicago events this summer and fall, the “latest step in our mission to fully restore a sense of normalcy within our city,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said.

The 113th edition of the Chicago Auto Show will be the first convention to return to Chicago since the pandemic began in March 2020, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Tuesday, and it marks a major step toward normalcy after a harrowing year.

Concerned that a surge in violence that begin in 2020 will turn into a bloody summer, aldermen urged city officials to spend the city’s $1.9 billion share of the latest federal COVID-19 relief package on efforts to stop shootings and murders by funding mental health services and job programs.

The Hoosier State is the only state to be added to the most restrictive level of city’s COVID-19 travel order, which was updated Tuesday.

Renaming 17 miles of Lake Shore Drive for Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, Chicago’s first permanent non-Indigenous settler, would be a massive undertaking without precedent in the city’s history, city officials told aldermen Thursday.

The next round of grants, set to open this month, could provide residents with 15 months of rental assistance to cover past-due rent from the previous 12 months and three additional months.

In all, 2,069 cases involving the variant, known as B.1.1.7, have been found in samples of COVID-19 positive tests from Illinois since Jan. 15, officials said.

For the first time in 30 years, the city is soliciting new proposals for its electric utility. It is a clear indication that the city’s relationship with the scandal-plagued utility is at an all-time low and perhaps nearing the breaking point.

The former 22nd Ward alderman was indicted Thursday for draining the bank account of the City Council’s Progressive Reform Caucus and using those funds to pay for trips, jewelry, iPhones and tickets to sporting events.

The grandson of former Mayor Richard J. Daley, who has served as the 11th Ward alderman since 2015, was indicted Thursday on seven charges that he lied to federal bank regulators and filed false tax returns in connection with a federal probe of a Bridgeport bank that failed in 2017.

There is evidence that officers committed dozens of acts of misconduct during the botched raid of Anjanette Young’s home in February 2019, leaders of the city agency responsible for investigating misconduct by members of the Chicago Police Department announced Thursday.

The United Center will be allowed to operate at 25% of its normal capacity, allowing fans of the Chicago Blackhawks and Chicago Bulls to cheer on the teams in person.

An effort to test whether the city’s affordable housing crisis can be eased by permitting basement, attic and coach house dwellings in five areas of the city will start Saturday, ending a 64-year ban on tiny homes in Chicago.

Chicagoans who are vaccinated against COVID-19 could get a “Vax Pass” allowing them to attend summer events and concerts like Lollapalooza, Chicago’s top doctor said Tuesday.