Stories by Alexandra Silets

Accusations of witness tampering against former President Donald Trump. Our politics team weighs in on that story and more.

Monday was like Christmas in July at the Field Museum, where staff unpacked crates of newly arrived fossilized meteorites, holding 460-million-year-old secrets.

Consumer prices soared 9.1% compared with a year earlier, the government said Wednesday, the biggest yearly increase since 1981, and up from an 8.6% jump in May. From May to June, prices rose 1.3%, another huge increase, after prices had surged 1% from April to May.

The Highland Park community comes together to heal. Amanda Vinicky has a live report.

Police Superintendent David Brown on Wednesday said 28-year-old Jabari Edwards was arrested in Burlington, Iowa and will face two counts of attempted murder stemming from the June 1 shooting.

Music festivals, beefy burgers, colorful creatures and tasty tacos usher in the weekend. Here are 10 things to do in and around Chicago.

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability in a statement Wednesday said it has learned an officer who was facing a possible termination, has instead resigned from the Chicago Police Department. Due to that, COPA also released its investigatory findings from the July 2020 incident and recommended that Officer Nicholas Jovanovich, Sergeant Kevin Gleeson and Lieutenant Godfrey Cronin all be fired from the department.

More than 30 years ago, a group of Northwestern University medical students started a youth development program with the goal of improving the lives of children living in poverty. New research finds one such program that provided youth with long-term support is associated with reduced poverty in early adult life.

A painfully honest look at the relationship between a husband and wife, and a father and his two sons, the play captures a sense of the generational turmoil in one Pittsburgh family. And, along the way, Wilson subtly presages the more overtly revolutionary era that will unfold in the 1960s.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul on Wednesday urged potential donors and surviving victims to use caution and be on alert for scams related to the July 4 shooting that left seven people dead and dozens more wounded.

Sri Lanka’s prime minister, who said he’ll step down after a new government is installed, says the island nation’s debt-laden economy has “collapsed” as it runs out of money to pay for food, fuel and medicine.

Federal records show that R. Kelly is currently being housed in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago following an extended stay in a New York detention center during his racketeering and sex trafficking trial in that jurisdiction.

Illinois’ Department of Children and Family Services has been struggling to find proper placements, particularly for high-needs youth for whom the agency is having to stand in as a pseudo parent. So much so that some children and teens who have had a stint at a psychiatric hospital are there after they’ve been cleared for release because there’s nowhere for them to go. 

The hearing Tuesday was the seventh for the Jan. 6 committee. Over the past month, the panel has created a narrative of a defeated Trump “detached from reality,” clinging to false claims of voter fraud and working feverishly to reverse his election defeat.

Gun safety, the Jan. 6 hearings, and whether Congress will address abortion federally with members of the Illinois delegation. Trouble at DCFS. The latest COVID variant. And a psychedelic soul band.

The girl drowned Tuesday in the lake waters off Gary, Ind. On Sunday, a 72-year-old man was pulled from the water off Indiana Dunes State Park. 

Since its launch last month, more than 2,100 people have applied for rebates through the city’s Home and Business Protection Program, Chicago officials said Tuesday.

Tuesday’s releases showed parts of the universe seen by other telescopes. But Webb’s sheer power, distant location from Earth and use of the infrared light spectrum showed them in a new light that scientists said was almost as much art as science.

Advocates say recent changes made to the International Swimming Federation’s inclusion policy place an unfair burden on young, gender non-conforming athletes to commit to gender affirming procedures and irreversible treatments before reaching puberty. It’s a decision critics say, could pose health risks for young athletes.

According to Cook County prosecutors, a 22-year-old man fired 19 shots at a crowd of people outside Sean's Rhino Bar & Grill, 10330 S. Western Ave., striking a 31-year-old off-duty Chicago police officer in the back.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Tuesday that he has appointed pediatrician Dr. Sameer Vohra to lead the state health department starting Aug. 1.

If Ald. Ed Burke decides to run for re-election in February 2023, he will do so before being brought to trial on charges he has faced for more than an entire term on the Chicago City Council.

The new variants, labeled BA.4 and BA.5, are offshoots of the omicron strain that has been responsible for nearly all of the virus spread in the U.S. and are even more contagious than their predecessors.

The new figures quantify what scientists, officials and activists have long called the inequity in national climate histories with the rich nations benefiting and the poor ones hurting from the production of greenhouse gas emissions.

Illinois officials head to Washington as the president signs gun safety legislation a week after the Highland Park tragedy. Maternal mortality is on the rise. And the artist behind Netflix’s “Grace and Frankie” series.

Illinois officials were on hand in Washington, D.C. to commemorate President Joe Biden’s recent signing of a bipartisan gun law.