Stories by Amanda Vinicky

“These races often fly under the radar but these are the two most important races on our ballot in November,” said lawyer Trisha Rich, who is on the board of the abortion rights group Personal PAC. “And even though that might sound like an overstatement, it’s not.”

A coalition of progressive groups has been working for nearly a year to prevent Mayor Lori Lightfoot from being re-elected by uniting behind a single candidate. Nothing in the Lightfoot’s spending plan is likely to alter that determination — and may give them more ammunition to use against the mayor.

The high stakes races for Illinois Supreme Court seats. An interview with the mayor of Highland Park three months after the Fourth of July shooting. One-on-one with Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. And private booting companies push to expand.

It has been three months since seven people were killed and 48 others were injured in a shooting at Highland Park's Fourth of July Parade.

A vote on a measure that would strip members of the Chicago City Council of their authority to ban commercial property owners from hiring a firms to patrol their parking lots and swiftly immobilize cars that are parked there illegally was delayed. A familiar lobbyist and campaign cash factor into the debate. 

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx believes the federal pardons send a message across the country, “... that we need to move towards decriminalization and ultimately vacating convictions like we have done here in Illinois” 

Some organizations and governments are changing how they observe the holiday, if at all, while many still gather for the annual parade.

One of the legal system’s goals should be finding ways to reintegrate people back into society after they have completed their sentences, says Patrick O’Brien. 

Three months after he was seriously wounded during the Fourth of July mass shooting in Highland Park, 8-year-old Cooper Roberts has returned to school, his family said in a statement Monday.

At least three new cases of misconduct have emerged since the release of a report alleging systemic abuse within women’s professional soccer, US Soccer Federation president Cindy Parlow Cone said. 

Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke, Douglas W. Diamond and Philip Dybvig won the Nobel Prize in economic sciences for their research into bank failures.

According to Defense Department data, suicides among active-duty service members increased by more than 40% between 2015 and 2020. The numbers jumped by 15% in 2020 alone.

Kenyan runners Benson Kipruto and Ruth Chepngetich won the Bank of America Chicago Marathon on Sunday, while Emily Sisson finished second and set a record for an American woman.

Ask Isabel Olive, the singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who performs as Half Gringa, about her stage name and you’ll get an understanding of where her music comes from, too.

In a new production adapted from Eve Ewing’s collection of poetry, the Steppenwolf for Young Adults program explores 1919’s legacy. The playwright, J. Nicole Brooks, says she has been a longtime fan of Ewing’s work.

Slow and Low: Chicago Lowrider Festival, a celebration of lowrider culture, community and art is returning next weekend at Navy Pier. 

A quinceañera is all about the details. A family-run business in Little Village has been playing a part in the quinceañeras of area girls for years.

Following up on our series, Permanent Punishment, a look at the legal routes to clearing a criminal record. Young Steppenwolf artists remember the tragedy that touched off the Chicago race riots of 1919. And nailing art.

Applications are now open for a guaranteed income program in Cook County. The Low-rider Festival drives back to town. And trying on quinceañera dresses.

The Haitian American Museum of Chicago, in collaboration with the North Lawndale Pop Up Spot and Crossing Borders Music, are hosting an upcoming traveling exhibit kicking off Oct. 16 in North Lawndale.

Through the month of October, a series of events called “Journey Chicago” is taking place at cultural heritage centers across the city and suburbs. 

The guaranteed income pilot program, known as Cook County Promise, began accepting applications this week. Funded by the American Rescue Plan Act, the program will pay 3,250 residents of Cook County $500 a month for two years.

The Paper Prisons Initiative estimates more than 500,000 people are eligible to have their records cleared. But advocates say that’s not happening for many of them. It’s an issue that disproportionately affects Black people, particularly in the Chicago area, says Aisha Edwards, executive director of Cabrini Green Legal Aid.

The protests erupted Sept. 17, after the burial of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman who had died in the custody of Iran’s feared morality police. Amini had been detained for an alleged violation of strict Islamic dress codes for women. Since then, protests spread across the country and were met by a fierce crackdown.

Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the Supreme Court and its newest justice, said before the term began that she was “ready to work.” She made that clear during arguments in the opening cases.

Gubernatorial candidates sling mud in their first televised debate. No property tax hikes in Mayor Lightfoot’s election year budget. Homeless advocates press Lightfoot for more funding. And the White Sox head into an offseason full of questions.