Stories by Amanda Vinicky

Chicago has a reputation as the City of Big Shoulders. For rough-and-tumble politics. And for having a lot of crime, despite strict gun laws. But what are those laws? WTTW News explains.

The Prairie Band Potawatomi are now headquartered in northeast Kansas. But they once had a reservation in what is now DeKalb County, a reservation that officials now agree was illegally sold out from under them in 1850.

David Kwong is a magician who also constructs crossword puzzles. As he puts it, “I combine the two nerdiest hobbies into one.” In his one-man show “The Enigmatist,” Kwong asserts that the disciplines of puzzle-making and magic-making share DNA.

“We aren’t rising to the occasion,” said Doug Schenkelberg, executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. He called the survey results “disheartening but not surprising.”

Chicago police learn new tactics to handle mass protests ahead of the DNC. And could the president’s new border policy mitigate migrants coming to the city?

After Saturday, the Field Museum’s newest dinosaur fossil will be off display until fall while staff works on building a permanent exhibit for the Chicago Archaeopteryx.

Paris will be hosting the Olympic Games this summer, but if you are in search of what might easily be dubbed the Olympics of French classical music, you have no need to purchase an airline ticket. Simply head to Orchestra Hall, writes WTTW News theater critic Hedy Weiss.

The NASCAR Chicago Street Race will take place July 6-7. Setting up and tearing down for the race is expected to take 19 days.

An Illinois appellate court this week ruled that Chicago Public Schools did not violate a moratorium on school closures when it voted down charter renewals for a pair of South Side high schools.

People marched the streets in Bronzeville to demand that elected officials and law enforcement authorities do more to resolve missing persons and murder cases. Black girls and women are overrepresented in missing persons cases in Chicago, according to reports.

The nominees cover a diverse range of cuisine and chef experience, a recent shift following turbulent, pandemic-era years for the James Beard Foundation. The most-anticipated categories include awards for outstanding restaurateur, chef and restaurant.

Chicago’s Latino lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer communities are embracing the city’s progress toward equality, while recognizing there’s still work to be done. Particularly when it comes to providing safe and welcoming environments for today’s LGBTQ+ youth.

Members of the first wave of cicadas have done their thing: They came, they molted, they screamed, they bred, and now they’re dying.

Officials say more than half of the migrants forced to leave city shelters immediately returned. How Latino communities are celebrating Pride. And meet the first Mexican-born woman to travel to space.

The acknowledgement that approximately 500 people returned to city shelters after living there for at least two months raises new questions about plans by officials to start evicting families with school-age children from city shelters on Monday.

Many kids dream of blasting off into space one day — and Katya Echazarreta was no exception. As the first Mexican-born woman to travel to space, she is dedicated to showing other women the sky’s the limit when it comes to reaching their goals.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly ruled there was enough evidence for a jury to conclude “that the city had a custom or policy of condoning racial harassment and discrimination at (the Water Department) as well as inaction in the face of a risk of potential constitutional violations.”

The Chicago City Council is poised to fill two long-vacant seats on the city's Board of Ethics after Mayor Brandon Johnson faced months of criticism from good-government advocates.

The proposal, based on a unanimous recommendation by the Chicago Board of Ethics, now heads to a final vote at the City Council meeting set for June 12.

Rosa Escareño, Chicago Park District general superintendent and CEO, announced an $8 million investment in broadband infrastructure that will provide free, public internet service at 60 of the city’s parks on the South and West sides.

The Chicago Police Department held an open training session at McCormick Place, where police demonstrated for media the different measures and strategies the department is planning to deploy during the August convention.

Ronald “Ronnieman” Johnson, 25, was shot and killed by Officer George Hernandez in the early morning hours of Oct. 12, 2014, near 53rd Street and King Drive.

As young soldiers, they waded ashore in Normandy through gunfire to battle the Nazis. On Thursday, a dwindling number of World War II veterans were joined by a new generation of leaders to honor the dead, the living and the fight for democracy in moving commemorations on and around those same beaches where they landed exactly 80 years ago on D-Day.

The City Council’s Finance Committee is set to consider the proposed settlement, which calls for taxpayers to pay $21 million and the city’s insurance company to pay $29 million.

With rising overtime costing the city more each year, records show the Chicago Police Department paid a high price for overtime for shifts meant to curb violence before ending its strategic deployment initiative. The city did not explain how it judged the effectiveness of the plan it recently ended.

Evanston’s groundbreaking reparations program is facing a legal challenge. And Major League Baseball makes a historic move by adding Negro Leagues stats to its records.