Stories by WTTW News

A flood watch and high wind warning is in effect for the Chicago area as temperatures are expected to reach 50 degrees today. WGN's Chief Meteorologist Tom Skilling has the latest details. View the city's Pothole Tracker map.

Northern Illinois University President Douglas Baker discusses rising tuition costs, what universities of the future will look like, and his new position as the university’s president. View a graphic on local universities' rising costs.

It’s the earth’s largest freshwater resource. But what will happen in the next 100 years to the Great Lakes and the Great Water Basin? We talk with Phil Enquist, an Urban Designer, about sustainability, strategies, and about urban design aimed at eliminating waste and to ensure fresh water for future generations. View a slideshow.

We meet the Chicago doctor who claims in a provocative new book that ADHD does not exist. Read a book excerpt.

Wish you could get decision-making down to a science? University of Illinois professor Ali Abbas is a leader in the decision analysis field and has created a social website that breaks down theory and practice for its users to make quality life choices. He joins us. Read an interview.

Maria Nezhdanova is a 13-year-old singer from Sochi, Russia who will join us with a performance in studio. She is currently experiencing American culture as a guest of the Chicago Language Travel Company, and she’ll perform as a special guest for the Old Town School of Folk Music on March 5. Listen to an audio clip of her singing and watch a web extra performance.

We share what some of you had to say about our conversations with Judge Diane Wood and Rabiah Mayas when we read some of your viewer feedback.

A free new app is a fun and easy way to improve your writing. Brothers Ben and Adam Long created a program that aims to simplify your writing in the style of Ernest Hemingway.

A National Labor Relations Board hearing is underway to determine whether or not Northwestern University's football team can form a union. Eddie Arruza has the latest developments from today's hearing.

Legislators gather in Springfield today to hash out plans for moving the state forward. Budget proposals, tax hike remedies and the ever-present pension reform issue hang in the balance as the Republican primary draws near. Is progress being made on these issues in the state capital? Do Illinois governor hopefuls have new ideas for state reform, and will we hear about them before the March 18 primary? We have analysis.

Ice now covers 81 percent of the Great Lakes, the largest amount of ice coverage in the last 35 years. While the ice is bad news for Great Lakes shipping, it’s good news for raising the lakes' recently low water levels. Elizabeth Brackett has the story. Read an article.

We talk with Former Secretary of Energy Steven Chu about climate change, fracking and the future of energy policy. Watch a web extra, extended interview with Chu.

Is too much sitting linked to disabilities later in life? We chat with Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine professor Dorothy Dunlop, who is researching the issue. Read the full study.

Terra-cotta shields and emblems dot the exterior of a historic Chicago factory. Geoffrey Baer reveals the meaning of these marks in this week's edition of Ask Geoffrey.

UIC professors cancel classes and take to the picket lines. Paris Schutz has more on what they hope a strike will accomplish.

Has the War on Drugs failed? Diane Wood, the Chief Judge of U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, will discuss the topic at the "Rethinking the War on Drugs" Symposium on Feb. 20-21 in Chicago. She joins us to talk about the issue. Read an interview with another participant in the event, Angela Caputo of The Chicago Reporter.

As prosecutors wrap up their case against former Chicago cop Steve Mandell, accused in a murder plot, Eddie Arruza brings us up to date on the grizzly details of the case.

We meet a man from the west side of Chicago who is trying to combat the gun violence in his community with a series of short films on YouTube called "Think Before You Shoot." Watch the short films.

We revisit Jay Shefsky's profile of Norma Gatto, a suburban woman who has turned her house into a glass mosaic masterpiece. Watch web extra videos and view a slideshow of artwork.

One of the world’s foremost interpreters of Stephen Sondheim’s work joins us to talk about his latest projects. Director Gary Griffin details his unprecedented plans to stage two musicals at Chicago Shakespeare Theater – Gypsy and Road Show. Read an interview with the theater's creative producer.

This Train Wreck isn’t really a disaster – quite the opposite – but it’s about a disaster: the tragedy that occurred in 1918 near Hammond, Indiana when an empty U.S. Army troop train crashed into a fully-loaded circus train stopped on the tracks.

WGN's Chief Meteorologist Tom Skilling gives us the latest news on the snow and when our weather woes might end. Send us your severe weather photos here and we'll use them in our online slideshow.

Illinois Senate President John Cullerton is projecting a $3 billion shortfall in the next state budget, and he's asking the Republican gubernatorial candidates to step up with ideas to close it. We break down some of the challenges faced by lawmakers.

Unions representing city employees announce a coalition to protect pensions called We Are One Chicago. We discuss the details with Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis and AFSCME's Anders Lindall.

The world’s largest scientific society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, held its annual conference in Chicago this past weekend. Rabiah Mayas, Director of Science and Integrated Strategies at the Museum of Science and Industry, joins us to talk about some of the breaking news in science discussed at the conference.

A new book details the life of one of the most enduring artists in popular music: Mavis Staples. We revisit a conversation with author and Chicago Tribune music critic Greg Kot about his biography, I’ll Take You There: Mavis Staples, The Staple Singers, and the March Up Freedom’s Highway. Read an excerpt.