Stories by WTTW News

WTTW News reporters are spread out across Milwaukee covering the 2024 Republican National Convention and the Illinois delegation. 

Trump’s forward-looking speech marks the climax and conclusion of a massive four-day Republican pep rally that drew thousands of conservative activists and elected officials to swing-state Wisconsin as voters weigh an election that currently features two deeply unpopular candidates. 

“I would rather have had Milwaukee Police Department, who know the people of this community, to have at least had an opportunity to address this situation before people who have no ties to this community and don’t care nothing about our extended family members.”

Tucker Carlson, Hulk Hogan and, of course, Donald Trump are set to take the stage on the final night of the Republican National Convention. We’re live from Milwaukee.

With time racing toward the party convention next month, Democratic unease is growing at the White House and within the campaign at a fraught moment for the president and his party.

“Dysfunction has seeped into their party,” U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood said. “I think their convention is going to be much different than this convention, in terms of the unity of what we’ve seen here. The chaos, the dysfunction and what’s going to happen in Chicago, I think could be really, really problematic.”

For the entirety of the Republican National Convention, a five-piece band has filled the arena with musical interludes. The keyboardist makes his home in southern Illinois.

U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood called on Illinois Republicans to get out the vote for congressional candidates hoping to increase the state’s GOP representation from the current three seats they currently occupy.

Republican nominee former President Donald Trump has said he will only accept the results of the Nov. 5 general election if “everything is honest.”

Over the course of his career, Dennis Quaid has been known as a film star, acting in everything from “The Parent Trap” to “The Right Stuff.” Now, he’s taking to the stage for a special one-night-only concert happening Friday, July 19 at the Athenaeum Center,

The board this week disclosed that the remainder of its 2024 meetings will be moved to other locations after the regular board room sustained water damage when a pipe burst at a nearby business just before the board’s June meeting.

In a ruling Thursday, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a motion for an administrative stay filed by a group of Republican-led states seeking to invalidate the administration’s entire student loan forgiveness program.

Phenomenal: That is an adjective that I use very sparingly. But it is the only way to describe the multitalented brilliance of Adam LaSalle and Matthew McGloin, the two wildly gifted performers in “2 Pianos 4 Hands.”

Bob Newhart, best remembered now as the star of two hit television shows of the 1970s and 1980s that bore his name, launched his career as a standup comic in the late 1950s.

If it appeared in a movie, sports game or meme, chances are it’s been made into a bobblehead. And if it’s a bobblehead, it’s likely exhibited on one of the dozens of wooden bookshelves inside the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum.

Day 3 of the RNC is in the books. National security and foreign policy were in the spotlight — as was former President Donald Trump’s running mate, who closed out tonight’s proceedings.

WTTW News reporters are spread out across Milwaukee covering the 2024 Republican National Convention and the Illinois delegation. The third day of the convention will feature a speech by vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance. 

The 39-year-old Ohio senator is a relative political unknown. In his first primetime speech since becoming the nominee for vice president, Vance spoke of growing up poor in Kentucky and Ohio, his mother addicted to drugs and his father absent, and how he later joined the military and went on to the highest levels of U.S. politics.

Brookfield Zoo Chicago is planning an expansion that, over the next 15 years, will see traditional exhibit spaces transformed into multi-species “eco-regions” designed to mimic natural environments.

President Joe Biden, 81, tested positive following his first event in Las Vegas, where he was expected to later speak at the UnidosUS annual conference. 

Among the “Never Trumpers” who spoke was former Illinois Republican congressman and longtime Trump critic Joe Walsh, who called on attendees to vote for any Democratic candidate who can keep the former president from a second term in office.

“We will adhere to the Republican platform, we are a party of the people and freedom,” Illinois Republican Party Chair Kathy Salvi said, declining to say whether she personally supports a national abortion ban. 

It’s Day 3 of the Republican National Convention. We’re live from Milwaukee, where Trump’s vice president pick, J.D. Vance, is set to take the stage — that and more on what to expect.

U.S. Rep. Mary Miller (R-Illinois) said excessive regulations are hurting agriculture, blaming the so-called “communist environmental movement, the ‘Green Bad Deal’ that Donald Trump has called out as a sham issue. And I want to tell you as a farmer, we love CO2 – and trees and plants love it too. They have demonized the miracle molecule that causes things to grow.”

“Well, I'll tell you your blue funk is over,” newly elected chair of the Illinois Republican Party Kathy Salvi said. “We're going to make Illinois red again.”

WTTW News examined some of the claims made during the second day of the RNC, looked at criminal justice research and spoke to an expert about how research supports — or doesn’t — the campaign rhetoric.