Stories by Erica Gunderson

In Illinois, Gov. J. B. Pritzker says no matter how the Supreme Court eventually rules, abortion is still safe and legal in the state. But that’s not the case everywhere in the Midwest.

A celestial show is coming to Chicago next weekend - on the evening of Sunday, May 15, a lunar eclipse will grace the night skies. Chicago astronomer Joe Guzman says it's a great reason to spend an evening moongazing.

For much of the past couple of decades, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers declined to reveal the conditions of dams in the National Inventory of Dams — which it maintains — citing security concerns stemming from the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

The approach builds off the blueprint in Evanston, a Chicago suburb that became the first in the nation to begin paying reparations last year with a program providing Black residents grants for mortgage payments and home repairs, in acknowledgement of the historic discrimination Black people endured when trying to buy homes.

Things are reverting to the way they were as federal money for COVID care of the uninsured dries up, creating a potential barrier to timely access. But the virus is not contained, even if it’s better controlled. And safety-net hospitals and clinics are seeing sharply higher costs for salaries and other basic operating expenses. 

The Mayor rolls the dice on a casino proposal, will alderpeople buy-in? The abortion bombshell rocks politics. Boeing takes off from Chicago. And the Bears complete the first draft under their new GM.

The Shedd Aquarium recently welcomed a group of lumpsuckers, a fish that’s weird in so many ways, it’s hard to know where to start.

Workers at more than 250 Starbucks locations around the U.S. have filed to join a union, and about 50 have voted in favor of unionization. Organizers and their supporters have accused Starbucks of aggressive “union-busting” tactics, including cutting hours, disciplining, and firing pro-union employees. 

Illinois’ population closely represents the nation as a whole, whether measured by race, age, income or education, U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Chicago), the chair of the Democratic Party of Illinois, wrote to Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison, adding that Illinois not only includes Chicago, but also rural areas devoted to agriculture dotted by small towns.

Residents of seven northeast Illinois counties — McHenry, Lake, Cook, Kendall, DuPage, Will and Grundy — face a medium level of COVID-19 risk, according to the CDC. Dr. Allison Arwady, the commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, said Chicagoans should consider the CDC’s medium level of risk warning as “a yellow light of caution.”

The cards are on the table with the Mayor’s pick for the city’s only casino. How the state handled a COVID-19 outbreak at a veterans home. Plus the state’s DCFS director

Located two miles north of downtown, and about a mile from the lake, Old Town a neighborhood that has undergone a lot of change in the past decade. Residents have fought to preserve historic buildings in the area.

The substantial half-point hike in its benchmark short-term rate that the Federal Reserve announced Wednesday won’t, by itself, have much immediate effect on most Americans’ finances. But additional large hikes are expected to be announced at the Fed’s next two meetings, in June and July, and economists and investors foresee the fastest pace of rate increases since 1989.

Anchored a mile off Navy Pier, Chuoy the Buoy fills a Chicago-sized gap in shoreline monitoring. Swimmers, boaters, anglers, researchers and meteorologists alike will benefit from data collected close to the city’s lakefront.   

Thirty-six residents of the LaSalle Veterans’ Home died in November 2020 as part of a COVID-19 outbreak. A new report from the state’s auditor general finds that IDPH neglected to respond to the outbreak at the state-run facility until for many, it was too late.

After being closed for more than 20 years, a former Catholic school in Greater Grand Crossing is being rebuilt into a new arts incubator for the Rebuild Foundation. Arts Correspondent Angel Idowu takes us to that groundbreaking for an inside look at the city’s newest cultural hub. 

House Republicans are calling for an audit of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. And the agency's own director, Marc Smith, has been held in contempt of court nine times.

Lightfoot’s support for a casino on what is now the Chicago Tribune printing plant and newsroom near Chicago Avenue and Halsted Street will bounce the roulette ball to the Chicago City Council to consider Bally’s plan.

A move to Arlington, Virginia, would put Boeing executives close to officials for their key customer, the Pentagon, and the Federal Aviation Administration, which certifies Boeing passenger planes.

Swarms of gnat-sized midges, which look like mini-mosquitoes, minus the bite, have been reported along the Chicago lakefront. But in this case, “swarm” is relative. 

Chicago Women in Trades helped organize what they say is the regional unions’ first class of all women in 140 years. The Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council’s pre-apprentice program will put participants on the path to becoming a union-card-holding carpenter.

The 1913 Consumers Building at 202 South State St., and its neighbor, the 1915 Century Building, were designed by two of Chicago’s most storied architecture firms. But multiple federal agencies have concluded the towers’ locations just east of the Dirksen Federal Building render the country’s largest federal courthouse vulnerable to attack and pose too much of a security risk to keep.

Supreme Court political fallout. The state joins a lawsuit against the U.S. Postal Service. The fight to preserve historic loop buildings. And a renovated Chicago theater readies for its closeup.

The potential to roll back established abortion rights already has emerged in states with divided political control, including Pennsylvania and Virginia. California and Colorado are pushing to protect abortion access in their constitutions, a stronger step than passing a law. 

The federal lawsuit Illinois joined charges the Postal Service with botching its review of a plan to buy as many as 165,000 new delivery trucks in an effort to modernize its fleet. The contract calls for just 10% of those trucks to be electric vehicles.

The Biden Administration has floated vague proposals to eliminate billions in collective student debt. It could set a limit of anywhere between $10 and $50,000 and apply only to non-wealthy earners. The details have yet to be ironed out, but not everyone is on board with the idea.