Stories by Patty Wetli

The CHARM Center, as it’s been dubbed, will open Saturday in South Holland. The free, permanent recycling hub will accept items including electronics, textiles and Styrofoam, many of which are reusable.

A photo exhibit, rum festival and cherry blossoms usher in the weekend. Here are five things to do in and around Chicago.

The board ordered the city to rehire employees that were terminated after they refused to get the vaccine and awarded back pay – plus interest – to those employees who were disciplined because.

Interim Police Supt. Eric Carter offered no reason for his departure, saying only that leading the beleaguered department was his “greatest honor.”

The call comes after Senate Democrats have raised questions about whether the ethical standards of the high court need to be reviewed or change in the wake of a ProPublica report that found Justice Clarence Thomas has gone on several luxury trips involving travel subsidized by GOP megadonor Harlan Crow.

For decades, two schools of thought have clashed on how to best teach children to read, with passionate backers on each side of the so-called reading wars. 

Peak bloom is still a couple weeks away, but the buds are beginning to burst forth in Jackson Park’s Cherry Blossom Grove.

Mayor Lightfoot and indicted 50-year Ald. Ed Burke get standing ovations on their final City Council meetings. Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson visits Springfield. And community members weigh in on a new police superintendent.

From Stevie Wonder and high-fashion models to everyday people, photographer Kwame Brathwaite documented Black culture across the globe. “He’s essentially synonymous with the Black is Beautiful movement,” said Grace Deveney of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot declined to address the City Council at her last meeting as mayor, passing up the chance to begin shaping her legacy as the city’s leader during four of the most tumultuous years in Chicago history.

Commissioners heard comments on a range of issues. There were multiple calls for a new superintendent to come from within the ranks of CPD, and many community members said they wanted someone who will instill a culture of respect for residents.

Ald. Ed Burke, 79, is likely to complete his 54 years as a City Council member without any of the pomp and circumstance that once would have greeted his departure from his beloved City Hall, which he ruled with an iron fist for decades.

Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson, who got his start as an aide to Senate President Don Harmon, traveled to Springfield to declare his election marks a “new day” in Illinois politics – and to serve notice that he would govern boldly as a progressive and supporter of organized labor.

A new short documentary, “Watershed Warriors,” focuses on Friends of the Fox River and the progress the organization has made to reclaim the waterway as a natural resource for the people, wildlife and plants that live within its watershed.

The justices are expected to issue an order on Wednesday in a fast-moving case from Texas in which abortion opponents are seeking to roll back Food and Drug Administration approval of the drug, mifepristone.

In February, the share of health care visits for strep throat or a related diagnosis was nearly 30% higher than during the previous peak in 2017. And preliminary data for early March shows a continued upward trend.

An international team of researchers wrote in the study that clinical trials may be warranted to investigate whether screening guidelines should recommend Black women start screening at younger ages, around 42 instead of 50.

City leaders talk solutions to this weekend’s unrest in the Loop. A warehouse that houses Cook County criminal records dating back to the Chicago Fire. And where the “great resignation” has been felt the most in state government.

In all, fifteen people were arrested in connection with the unrest, which included crowds of young people jumping on CTA buses and fighting. Now downtown residents, city leaders and community organizers are looking for solutions.

Criminal history in Cook County is long and sordid — from Al Capone to Leopold and Loeb to John Wayne Gacy. The historical figures may be long gone, but the physical documents and evidence pertaining to their cases are still around.

According to a new survey, there’s been a shift in the percentage of Americans who believe humans are the primary driver of climate change as opposed to natural changes in the environment.

A new exhibition of his photographs at the Wrightwood 659 gallery in Lincoln Park is an evocative look at gay Black men in Chicago during a pivotal decade — and a window into a community that’s often been overlooked and stereotyped.

The district’s overall budget, which was $9.4 billion in 2023, will be essentially unchanged in 2024, with officials planning to spend an additional $150 million next year, mostly to add instructors in special education classes.

On Tuesday, the FDA changed the terms of the authorizations for those vaccines so that certain individuals could get an additional dose ahead of most others. 

The projections detailed by outgoing Mayor Lori Lightfoot represent a significantly rosier financial picture for Chicago than the forecast released in August, when city officials projected a likely budget gap of $473.8 million in 2024. 

Till’s kidnapping and killing became a catalyst for the civil rights movement when his mother insisted on an open-casket funeral in their hometown of Chicago after his brutalized body was pulled from a river in Mississippi. Jet magazine published photos.