Stories by Paul Caine

Rookie quarterback Justin Fields and the Bears have a Sunday date in Tampa Bay with seven-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady and the Buccaneers. 

Have you ever wanted to get a fish but had no idea where to start? We head to Wicker Park to meet Jamie Dalton, who began creating educational aquarium videos during the pandemic which led her to a new business venture.

Live from Joliet. Plans to spur development near CTA stations. The debate over parental leave time. A local musician on virtual performances. And a Chicagoan whose love of aquariums led to a business.

The city’s Equitable Transit-Oriented Development pilot program awarded micro-grants to 11 projects around Chicago on Wednesday. The funding goes up to $20,000, and technical assistance to get projects off the ground is also included.

Millions more Americans can get a COVID-19 booster and choose a different company’s vaccine for that next shot, federal health officials said Thursday.

Even though Mayor Lori Lightfoot opposed the push led by Ald. Sophia King (4th Ward) and Ald. David Moore (17th Ward) to honor Chicago’s first non-native settler by changing the name of the city’s most well-known roadway, the three gathered Thursday near Buckingham Fountain to celebrate the compromise all three settled on.

The House vote sends the matter to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, where it will now be up to prosecutors in that office to decide whether to present the case to a grand jury for possible criminal charges.

More than 650 people have been infected with salmonella oranienburg nationwide, including 37 people in Illinois, according to federal health officials. 

CPS officials on Thursday announced a five-year graduation rate for its high school students, while the district simultaneously recorded its lowest-ever one-year dropout rate.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s proposal to hike property taxes by $76.5 million cleared a key hurdle Thursday, with the City Council’s Finance Committee advancing the mayor’s $16.7 billion spending plan to the full City Council.

With more than half the world still not vaccinated, the virus will likely keep finding people to infect and replicating inside them for several months or years to come.  And each time a virus makes a copy of itself, a small mutation could occur. 

Supporters of the movement to save Bell Bowl Prairie, a small patch of rare remnant prairie situated within the boundaries of Chicago Rockford International Airport, say they have a simple solution that preserves the prairie and allows the airport to expand: Just move a road.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s proposal to spend $16.7 billion in 2022 faces two critical votes in the coming days, as members of the City Council wrangle behind the scenes on how to spend nearly $2 billion in federal aid while closing massive shortfalls caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was an evening of multiple celebrations Saturday as Chicago’s Ensemble Español Spanish dance company arrived on the stage of the Auditorium Theatre in full regalia to mark the return of live performance in the landmark hall following its pandemic shutdown.

Jack-o’-lanterns, papermaking, a “Frankenstein”-inspired play and a Halloween-themed run usher in the weekend. Here are 10 things to do in and around Chicago.

“A grave tragedy occurred seven years ago. And that tragedy sits with me, as it has, every day and every week for the last seven years,” Rahm Emanuel said during a hearing before the Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday that took place on the seventh anniversary of Laquan McDonald’s murder.

Incarcerated people in Illinois haven’t had the ability to get onto parole since the ‘70s. But a bill in Springfield is working to bring it back, providing parole hearings for inmates who’ve served at least 20 years in prison. 

From a studio on Western Avenue, artist Tony Fitzpatrick creates work that reflects both the beauty of nature and the grit of the city. Fitzpatrick says a recently opened exhibit at the College of DuPage will be his final museum show.

Small-business owners in Illinois are experiencing an unprecedented demand in supplies and goods, but inventory is limited at stores due to supply chain issues nationwide.

Within hours of formal approval, which is expected after the Food and Drug Administration signs off and a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel meets on Nov. 2-3, millions of doses will begin going out to providers across the country, along with the smaller needles needed for injecting young children.

Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Wednesday he did nothing improper but still fell short in his handling of the fatal police shooting of a Black teenager in the city seven years ago.

Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel takes heat on Capitol Hill. Vaccines for younger children. Efforts to return the parole system to Illinois prisons. And artist Tony Fitzpatrick.

But before more people roll up their sleeves, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will consult an expert panel later this week before finalizing official recommendations for who should get boosters and when.

Fraternal Order of Police attorneys argued Cook County Judge Cecilia Horan should step aside because she didn’t disclose that a law firm she previously worked at was involved with the Police Accountability Task Force, which was chaired by Lori Lightfoot prior to her election as Chicago mayor.

U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber appeared to have wanted the trial in Chicago to begin earlier, but he set it for Aug. 1 after one of R. Kelly’s attorneys, Steven Greenberg, said that he another of Kelly’s attorneys will be in trial on other cases through July.

The coronavirus has become the leading cause of death for officers despite law enforcement being among the first groups eligible to receive the vaccine at the end of 2020.