Stories by Andrea Guthmann

More money for migrants, increased access to preschool, a break on grocery bills and a prescription for how the state could wipe out medical debt — those are some of the spending plans in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s nearly $53 billion state budget.

There was a charge in the air at Schubas Tavern on Saturday night. Maybe it was the singer with the electric chair tattooed on his chest. Brigitte Calls Me Baby played its first sold-out hometown show.

The illegal building, intended as an archive for the neighboring landmarked National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture, has been at the center of controversy since 2022.

Prosecutors over the past few years have been slowly, but steadily, expanding the notion of who can be held accountable for a mass shooting.

The drug’s approval came despite some concerns by FDA scientists about the company’s results, including whether women with certain medical conditions would understand that they shouldn’t take the drug.

The justices ruled a day before the Super Tuesday primaries that states, without action from Congress first, cannot invoke a post-Civil War constitutional provision to keep presidential candidates from appearing on ballots.

Statewide, 88% of judicial and state legislative primaries feature either a single candidate or no one running at all. This is the highest number of uncompetitive primaries for those seats in at least 20 years, according to a Capitol News Illinois analysis of data going back to 2004.

Illinois shoppers would save a dollar when they buy $100 worth of groceries under Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s proposal to eliminate a state sales tax on groceries.

The Chicago Police Department has fully met just 6% of the consent decree’s requirements, according to the most recent report by the team monitoring CPD’s progress.

Chicago is a city of firsts — everything from the first Ferris wheel to the first brownie and the world’s very first skyscraper. WTTW News explains.

Starting Monday, voters in Chicago will have more places to cast their ballots ahead of the Illinois primary election on March 19.

A new bill in the General Assembly would seek to remove the roughly $200,000 cap on payments to exonerees that maxes out at the 14-year mark, replacing it with a payout of $50,000 per year, capped at just over $2 million.

A bill pending in the General Assembly would give back roughly 1,500 acres of park land in DeKalb County to the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation. That tribe once occupied much of the Great Lakes region but was forcibly removed in the 19th century.

Tammy McCann recently previewed a one-woman show dedicated to the life and work of gospel legend Mahalia Jackson. McCann will soon head to New York to once again pay homage to the queen of gospel.

“Message in a Bottle,” which runs through Sunday at the Cadillac Palace Theatre, is simply a phenomenal production that should not be missed, writes WTTW News theater critic Hedy Weiss.

The spotlight shines brightly these days on Chicago band Brigitte Calls Me Baby. The group just had its national TV debut on “CBS Saturday Morning,” and the influential public radio station WXPN called the band “future rock royalty.”

For the last in our series on invasive species that can be mistaken for natives, here’s one of the trickiest: phragmites, also known as common reed.

Trump is ruled ineligible in Illinois but will stay on the ballot. And all signs point to the Bears drafting a superstar prospect with the first overall pick.

There are still more than 20,000 hospitalizations and more than 2,000 deaths each week due to the coronavirus, according to the CDC. And people 65 and older have the highest hospitalization and death rates.

It’s official, Chicago: February 2024 was the warmest in 153 years of recording keeping.

Most people have some degree of immunity to the coronavirus from past vaccinations or from infections. And many people are not following the five-day isolation guidance anyway, some experts say.

Walgreens will begin dispensing the medication within a week at some locations in several states, including Illinois.

Students at the University of Illinois Chicago are conducting the survey as part of a capstone project, which focuses on getting rider feedback on the UIC Halsted Blue Line station, Roosevelt Red Line station and the Clark/Division Red Line station.

Illinois signed a contract for $640,000 for a report that could help legislators determine the value of the state’s recently defunct private school scholarship program, but a lack of data makes its findings “inconclusive.”

In 2017, poet and author Erika L. Sánchez published her first novel, “I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter.” Now, Hollywood is calling, with a book-to-film adaptation with award-winning actress America Ferrera on board to make her big-screen directing debut.

Illinois’ insurance code prohibits discrimination, but state Rep. Will Guzzardi said there’s a difference between impact and intent. Even if insurance agents aren’t doing it maliciously, Guzzardi said, algorithms end up perpetuating inequities and punishing people of color and low-income drivers.