Stories by nick blumberg

The Chicago Department of Transportation said Friday that it’s launching a new community engagement effort. It will take the place of the Mayor’s Bicycle Advisory Council, Mayor’s Pedestrian Advisory Council, and the Vision Zero Advocacy Group.

With Tuesday’s successful vote in Chicago and another in St. Louis, organizers say there are now 150 union Starbucks locations around the U.S.

The walk-and-roll rally on Sunday began at Leavitt Street and Eastwood Avenue in Lincoln Square, where 2-year-old Raphael “Rafi” Cardenas was struck and killed by a driver June 2 while he was crossing the street on a scooter. At last report, the driver has not been cited.

The AIDS Garden Chicago, a project many years in the making, is now open to the public. Located just south of Belmont Harbor, the garden’s location has a meaningful place in the history of the city’s queer community.

Amazonians United says Black and Latino workers have been harassed while taking bathroom breaks and that managers have made derogatory and racist comments. The group accuses management of wrongfully firing Rakyle Johnson for sabotaging equipment, despite no proof on video and testimony to the contrary from nearby coworkers.

The Advanced Arts Program has been running for more than 20 years. Before the pandemic, about 150 students were dismissed from their home school in time to travel to the Gallery 37 building for two hours of instruction each day. 

Much of Chicago is defined by its residential buildings, a beautiful mishmash of styles, sizes, and ages. Now, preservationists are calling attention to a style of home known as workers cottages – an original form of affordable housing.

Workers at more than 250 Starbucks locations around the U.S. have filed to join a union, and about 50 have voted in favor of unionization. Organizers and their supporters have accused Starbucks of aggressive “union-busting” tactics, including cutting hours, disciplining, and firing pro-union employees. 

Aurora Mayor and GOP gubernatorial hopeful Richard Irvin supported a successful 2018 effort to shutter the Aurora Election Commission – a move that gives him a role in deciding whether certain candidates stay on city ballots.

WTTW News previously reported that communications company Scientel Solutions and its employees have given more than $135,000 to Richard Irvin’s mayoral campaign, a PAC run by his mayoral campaign manager, and his former private practice law partner Brittany Pedersen’s judicial campaign.

The Amazon facility in downstate Edwardsville where six workers died after the building was struck by a tornado appears to have had major structural flaws, according to a lawsuit and a government engineer’s report released by the plaintiff’s attorney.