Stories by Erica Gunderson

The Defenders for All Act took effect at the beginning of this year. Since then, the Cook County Public Defenders’ immigration unit says it’s taken on over a dozen cases free of charge — the largest county in the nation to do so.

A Latino Voices, Black Voices crossover conversation on Chicago’s new ward map. A pilot program aimed at defending undocumented immigrants facing deportation. And a local rugby program back in action.

Dr. Alejandro Lugo has taught anthropology and Latinx studies at several colleges, including the University of Illinois. As part of our Last Word series, he gives La Ultima Palabra on the change he says needs to happen to better serve all students.

Chicago City Council members voted 43 to 7 to approve a new ward map this week. The approval came after a monthslong tug-of-war between the council’s Latino and Black Caucuses over the balance of wards. The approved map has 14 wards with a majority of Latino voters — one short of the 15 wards the Latino Caucus had demanded.

At the west suburban Morton high schools, a full-contact team sport born in England has become an unlikely favorite among their largely Latino student body.

The new Chicago ward map garnered enough City Council votes to dodge a referendum, but some community organizations say it reflects the same old problems.

Guest conductor Karina Canellakis led the CSO in “Brio” (by Augusta Read Thomas); Robert Schumann’s lushly beautiful “Piano Concerto in A Minor” (featuring pianist Kirill Gerstein); and finally “Ein Heldenlaben (A Heroic Life),” Richard Strauss’ sweeping, fiercely emotional tone poem.

In Illinois, which lost a seat in redistricting because of its shrinking population, the state's two first-term female representatives — one Democrat, one Republican — were among the 18-member delegation's biggest losers in the state's remapping.

The Chicago Teachers Union will officially have a new leader as vice president Stacy Davis Gates defeated two other challengers to become president of the powerful labor organization.

The Chicago Police Department is beefing up police presence after a new deadly downtown shooting. Meanwhile, the mayor’s new daily curfew of 10 p.m. clears a committee and will be voted on by the full City Council next week.

Even though Lightfoot stacked a special City Council committee with her allies to consider the casino proposal, Ald. Tom Tunney (44th Ward) acknowledged Friday that the mayor did not have enough support to advance the plan to build a casino and resort.

A week after suffering the devastating loss of Monty, one half of Chicago’s beloved piping plover power couple, the city’s birding community has cause for celebration: One of Monty and Rose’s 2021 chicks has been positively ID’d on a beach in Duluth, Minnesota.  

Two people were killed and seven people were wounded in a mass shooting late Thursday blocks from Michigan Avenue amid a continuing surge in violence downtown. Mayor Lori Lightfoot called the incident “an outrageous act of violence.”

A Manhattan judge declared Trump in contempt of court on April 25 and fined him $10,000 per day for not complying with a subpoena in New York’s long-running investigation into his business practices.

The 100-year-old bakery closed at the end of April. Fans looking to own a piece of Chicago history can bid on the sign at auction June 3, with proceeds earmarked for charity.

The 14-3 vote by the Chicago City Council’s Public Safety Committee tees up a showdown over the controversial measure by the full City Council, which is set to meet twice next week on Monday and Wednesday. 

Leaders of a Tennessee abortion clinic calculated driving distances and studied passenger rail routes as they scanned the map for another place to offer services. They chose Carbondale in Illinois — a state that has easy abortion access but is surrounded by more restrictive states in the Midwest and South.

La Casita de Don Pedro is one of many parts of Humboldt Park that reminds people of the neighborhood’s deep Puerto Rican roots. Maintaining that culture is something advocates have been focused on.

We’re live from Humboldt Park. Plus, the Chicago Park District’s new CEO on cleaning up a culture of sexual abuse; behind a new push to protect 30% of Illinois land for preservation and a library gets an artist-in-residence.

For the next two years, The Legler Regional Library in West Garfield Park will be home to artist-in-residence Alexandra Antoine. She’ll work on her own art while also connecting with people in the community. 

Illinois has made a commitment to conserve 30% of the state’s land and water resources by the year 2030. What will it take to reach that target?

Do inmates in Illinois prisons and jails have a right to safety? That’s the central question raised in a new publication written by former Cook County Department of Corrections Warden Nneka Jones Tapia.

The ACLU of Illinois immediately blasted the new Millennium Park policy as “too vague, allows too much discretion and does not recognize the right to protest for those under 18.”

Efforts to rethink the policy and spur development on the South and West sides while preventing long-time residents from being displaced from the Northwest Side are starting to pay off, symbolized by the grand opening set for Friday of an apartment complex near the CTA Blue Line Logan Square station, Housing Commissioner Marisa Novara told WTTW News. 

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability in a statement Thursday said the boy survived the shooting and was hospitalized in serious condition. 

“We’re not asking for an additional anything, just save our teachers” a Chicago Public Schools parent said Tuesday. “We’re not asking for more, we’re just asking for the status quo.”