Stories by Amanda Vinicky

 A new state law allows Illinois college athletes to play ball with – and make bank from – businesses, by entering into endorsement deals and doing commercials. 

Supporters are calling it a big win for Chicago’s trees, but say the real work begins now. How the new Urban Forestry Advisory Board will bring together public and private partners to care for and enhancing the city’s urban canopy.

The roadblocks preventing a new deal between the police union and city officials are unchanged since the contract expired on June 30, 2017 — and both sides are dug in and unwilling to compromise.

Patriotic tunes, DJs, outdoor go-karts, a plant swap and summer workouts usher in the holiday weekend. Here are a dozen things to do in and around Chicago.

Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction and opened the way for his immediate release from prison Wednesday, ruling that the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby.

The nationwide Fight For $15 movement pushed the challenges facing Chicago’s lowest-paid workers — who are primarily Black and Latino — to the top of the agenda for city officials.

“To say I’m hurt is an understatement,” said Jackie Wilson, who spent more than three decades in prison following multiple wrongful convictions for the 1982 murder of two Chicago police officers.

A federal judge will not force the city to permit Reserve Management Group, the parent company of General Iron, to operate a metal shredding and recycling operation on Chicago’s Southeast Side.

A man who said he sprayed trees in a Naperville park to protect them after an anxious dog chewed off the bark has been ticketed by authorities.

Donald Trump’s company and his longtime finance chief are expected to be charged Thursday with tax-related crimes stemming from a New York investigation into the former president’s business dealings, people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

Mayor Lightfoot talks crime, City Council and more. Local Congress members on infrastructure and a Jan. 6 commission. And a look at the life and career of Phil Ponce as he retires from regular duty.

After nearly three decades at “Chicago Tonight,” Phil Ponce ends his regular appearances on the program. We reflect on his career in journalism and his leadership role in the WTTW newsroom.

His works have been exported around the world from his studio in Chicago. We catch up with sculptor Richard Hunt before the unveiling of a monument in Bronzeville that was years in the making.

President Joe Biden declared there is an urgent need for a “generational investment” in the nation’s infrastructure, as he looked to sell voters Tuesday on the economic benefits of the $973 billion bipartisan package that still faces an uncertain future in Congress.

Chicago and other major cities are experiencing a “pandemic-spurred surge” in violence that officials are having success in fighting despite a rising number of shootings and homicides, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said during a one-on-one interview Tuesday on “Chicago Tonight.”

Illinois broke a 23-year streak on Tuesday, when credit ratings agency Moody’s upgraded the state’s bond rating for the first time since 1998 – the same year the Chicago Bulls won their last championship.

United said Tuesday that it will buy 200 Boeing Max jets and 70 planes from Europe’s Airbus so that it can replace many of its smallest planes and some of its oldest and have room to grow its fleet.

The more transmissible delta variant is expected to become the dominant coronavirus strain in the U.S., the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. And with half the U.S. still not fully vaccinated, doctors say it could cause a resurgence of COVID-19 in the fall.

What’s up with the mushrooms that appear and then quickly disappear after wet weather? Where do they come from, and where do they go?

The Friday lunchtime series highlighting a rotating lineup of vendors will kick off July 30 and run through Oct. 15 in Daley Plaza.

Talk about a heavy snack. For the first time, astronomers have witnessed a black hole swallowing a neutron star, the most dense object in the universe — all in a split-second gulp.

Congressional leaders and a media advocacy group are urging the Federal Communications Commission to examine how policy decisions and programs have disparately harmed Black Americans and other communities of color.

All 50 states, along with Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., are recording fewer than 15 new cases per day per 100,000 residents and are no longer covered by the travel order, officials said Tuesday.

For our June event, we celebrate Pride Month by highlighting past and current leaders in the LGBTQ movement and the Latino experience within the community. Watch the full discussion.

The slow work of sifting through the remnants of a collapsed Florida condo building stretched into a sixth day Tuesday, as families desperate for progress endured a wrenching wait for answers. 

Major changes to Illinois’ criminal justice system that passed in the wake of George Floyd’s murder will begin to take effect Thursday, including a requirement that officers track and report to the state incidents in which they use a gun on someone. Here’s what else is changing.