Stories by Matt Masterson

Plans for a new Near South high school were suddenly put on hold Wednesday after Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez abruptly removed the item before the city’s Board of Education voted to approve the district’s budgets for the upcoming fiscal year.

Authored by Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd Ward) and Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th Ward), the measure would give employees of the Department of Finance — not just members of the Chicago Police Department — the authority to order the vehicle blocking the bicycle lane to be ticketed and towed.

The Bring Chicago Home Coalition is calling on Mayor Lori Lightfoot to set up a dedicated revenue source to address homelessness in the city after giving the mayor failing grades in a report card issued Wednesday assessing her progress on addressing the issue during her first three years in office.

Pride celebrations, micheladas, a South Side walking tour and colorful kimonos usher in the weekend. Here are 10 things to do in Chicago.

Illinois is rebranding Asian carp as “copi” in a bid to get people to eat the invasive fish into submission. Fishermen are catching thousands of pounds a day and barely making a dent in the number of carp in waterways like the Illinois River, where it's estimated 20 million to 50 million could be harvested annually.

In 2021, worldwide emissions from making cement for buildings, roads and other infrastructure hit nearly 2.9 billion tons of carbon dioxide, which is more than 7% of the global carbon emissions. Twenty years ago, in 2002, cement emissions were some 1.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide.

At issue is the 18.4 cents-a-gallon federal tax on gas and the 24.4 cents-a-gallon federal tax on diesel fuel. If the gas savings were fully passed along to consumers, people would save roughly 3.6% at the pump when prices are averaging about $5 a gallon nationwide.

Some of the Republicans running for governor join us for a forum. Infants and toddlers are eligible for COVID-19 vaccines. Iconic LGBTQ artists. And a no-kill animal shelter hits a major milestone.

Paula Fasseas, founder and executive chairman of PAWS Chicago, said she started the shelter as a grassroots organization in 1997 after learning that every year more than 42,000 homeless animals were being euthanized in Chicago.

From “Swan Lake” to “Frankenstein” movies to the pop charts, the arts have always been deeply influenced by artists from the LGBTQ community. An about-to-be-released book shines a light on 50 pioneering artists from around the world who made indelible contributions to culture. 

Six candidates are vying for the Republican nomination for governor, to take on incumbent Democrat J.B. Pritzker. The campaign has been marked by a handful of billionaire supporters who have competing interests and are battling not only for the direction of the state, but of the Republican party itself.

Chicago police officers must only engage in foot pursuits under a certain set of circumstances and will be required to continuously re-evaluate the need to continue such a pursuit while it’s in progress, according to a final version of the new policy.

Within days of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control approving vaccine courses for children six-months through 4 years old, area hospitals, pediatricians and health care centers are beginning to put those doses in children’s arms.

More witnesses testified before a select committee of Congress about the Jan. 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol. The fourth day of hearings today focused on the efforts of President Donald Trump and his campaign to pressure state officials in key states to overturn the election results.

The proposal now heads to Wednesday’s meeting of the full Chicago City Council, where its prospects are uncertain at best.

The panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol resumed with a focus on Trump’s efforts to undo Joe Biden’s victory in the most local way — by leaning on officials in key battleground states to reject ballots outright or to submit alternative electors for the final tally in Congress.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s second appointment to the Chicago City Council advanced Monday on a unanimous vote of the City Council’s Rules Committee during a meeting that lasted less than five minutes.

The proposal was prompted by the deaths of three Rogers Park women, who died after temperatures in their apartments rose to dangerous levels during a mid-May heat wave. The revised measure, which is set for a final vote at the full City Council meeting scheduled for Wednesday. 

We all knew that Granddad, the Shedd Aquarium’s long-lived Australian lungfish, was an old-timer. Now, five years after he shuffled off to the big fish tank in the sky, Granddad’s true age has been revealed.

Former state Sen. Tom Cullerton will spend a year in prison after pleading guilty to embezzling funds from a labor union. The DuPage County Democrat was charged in 2019 with one count of conspiracy to embezzle from a labor union and employee benefit plans, 39 counts of embezzlement from a labor union and one count of making false statements. 

The West Rogers Park facility is increasing the size of its food pantry fourfold, doubling the size of its community space and creating a dedicated area for its Intensive Day Program that serves adults with mental health challenges.

Law enforcement authorities had enough officers on the scene of the Uvalde school massacre to have stopped the gunman three minutes after he entered the building, and they never checked a classroom door to see if it was locked, the Texas public safety chief testified.

Pay raises for the federal firefighters had been included in last year’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill, but they had been held up as Biden administration officials studied recruitment and retention data to decide where to deliver them.

The cereal and plant-based meat companies will remain headquartered in Battle Creek, Michigan, where Kellogg was founded in 1906. The snack company will be headquartered in Chicago with a campus in Battle Creek, Michigan. 

Chicago police said there were 44 separate shootings between 6 p.m. Friday and 11:59 p.m. Monday night. That included five people wounded in a mass shooting Friday night and an 18-year-old killed Monday afternoon.

Factors out of most people’s reach have caused everything from high gas prices to shortages of products like baby formula and tampons. But there is another shortage that we can do something about: it’s the supply of blood that hospitals and their patients depend on daily.