Stories by Heather Cherone

The CTA passes and gas cards with Mayor Lori Lightfoot's name would be sent to voters approximately 10 months before the next mayoral election.

Chicago has not always had the most cordial relationship with democracy over decades of machine-style politics. A new book from longtime Chicago political observer Dick Simpson aims to diagnose what’s wrong and offer prescriptions to fix it.

The $46 billion budget Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law Tuesday includes $1.8 billion in largely temporary tax relief, including $50 rebate checks to adult taxpayers, a one-time increase for property owners worth up to $500, and lifting for a year a 1% sales tax on groceries, meaning that shoppers will save $1 on $100 worth of food.

WTTW News is partnering with 22 other newsrooms in the Chicago area to find out how our communities are living through the long-term effects of COVID through a survey and community conversations.

Brianna Gibbs, 28, has been charged with first-degree murder in the Sunday morning killing of 27-year-old Tyrone Pittman following a physical altercation in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood.

A certification and bidding process opened Tuesday for a civil nuclear credit program that is intended to bail out financially distressed owners or operators of nuclear power reactors, the U.S. Department of Energy told The Associated Press exclusively, shortly before the official announcement. 

In the Chicago region, there are scores of ways for people to take part in the global movement not just April 22 but throughout Earth Week and beyond.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued the revised executive order hours after Chicago health and transportation officials told riders a state order required them to keep masking up.

A rule finalized Tuesday will restore key provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act, a bedrock environmental law designed to ensure community safeguards during environmental reviews for a wide range of federal projects and decisions, the White House said.

Cancer cells develop in nearly all prostates as men age, and most prostate cancers are harmless. About 34,000 Americans die from prostate cancer annually, but treating the disease can lead to sexual dysfunction and incontinence.

Down to the wire on a new city ward map, and some alderpeople are starting to speak out against casino locations. Plus, fallout from the RNC’s decision to avoid presidential debates, and the city’s top cop on ghost guns.

Chicago-area birds are nesting and laying eggs earlier than ever before. A mysterious meteor burns up over Papua New Guinea. A fossil could rewrite the history of the evolution of life on Earth. And a disturbing finding about microplastics.

An alderperson comes out against one of the three Chicago Casino finalists; developers plan new apartments for the Magnificent Mile; and a series of ads hopes to showcase Illinois as “the middle of everything.”

Tracie Hall, executive director of the American Library Association, says the books that are being banned in the past year target topics like racism, sexuality and sexual orientation.

The Republican National Committee has unanimously voted to withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that has officially been sponsoring and producing general election presidential debates since 1987. 

A federal judge in Florida struck down the national mask mandate covering airlines and other public transportation Monday, and the Biden administration said the rule would not be enforced while federal agencies decide how to respond to the judge’s order.

Russia bombarded the western city of Lviv and numerous other targets across Ukraine on Monday in what appeared to be an intensified bid to grind down the country’s defenses while building up its own forces for a major ground offensive in the east.

A Chicago native, John Rogers is a longtime friend of former President Barack Obama.

To avert the first ward map referendum since 1992, 41 alderpeople must agree on a map no later than May 19, the deadline for the June 28 primary election ballot to be finalized.

The decision from U.S. Attorney John Lausch comes two months after Van Dyke was released from custody after serving about half of his 81-month sentence handed down by a Cook County judge in 2018.

The bankruptcy filing Sunday in Texas puts civil litigation on hold while the business reorganizes its finances. The filing came a week before a jury in Texas was set to begin considering how much money Jones, who has already lost the defamation lawsuits, should pay the families of Sandy Hook victims.

The lone homicide victim was a 27-year-old man who was found just before 2:30 a.m. Sunday morning in the 8400 block of South Aberdeen Street.

Undaunted by soggy skies, President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, kicked off the first White House Easter Egg Roll since before the coronavirus pandemic on Monday, welcoming some 30,000 kids and adults for the all-day event.

Chicago officials annually take in hundreds of guns through buyback programs. But decades of research shows such programs don’t reduce gun violence, in large part because they don’t result in guns being taken from people who aren’t supposed to have them. 

A pair of friends and business women created 50 kits raising funds to support Black women essential workers in Chicago. Two years later, it has since become a movement that’s expanded beyond the T-shirt it started with.

Police Superintendent David Brown on ghost guns and police reform. Plus, teaching kids to fight for racial equity in this week’s book club. And remembering Harold Washington on his 100th birthday.