Stories by Abena Bediako

U.S. Census data shows more than half of home care workers in the Chicago metro area are not U.S. citizens.

The patients range from 40 to 80 years old and reside on the Northwest and South sides. The patients’ symptoms began in late July or early August, according to the Chicago Department of Public Health.

Former Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy Sean Grayson faces first-degree murder and other charges in Sonya Massey’s killing.

President Donald Trump has taken control of D.C.’s law enforcement and ordered National Guard troops to deploy onto the streets of the nation’s capital, arguing the extraordinary moves are necessary to curb an urgent public safety crisis.

Chicago taxpayers have already paid $1.46 million to defend the lawsuit that accuses the CPD of making more than 1.5 million traffic stops between 2016 and 2023 based on dubious evidence of minor violations that took direct aim at Black and Latino Chicagoans but spared White Chicagoans, according to records obtained by WTTW News.

How to address Chicago Public Schools’ budget problem. And outrage over the closure of an Uptown hospital.

Federal funding cuts and allegations of mismanagement prompted the closures of most operations at Weiss Memorial Hospital in Uptown, while Oak Park’s West Suburban Medical Center is facing a similar fate.

CPS officials are faced with closing a whopping $734 million deficit by the end of the month. There is little wiggle room to cut costs or bring in revenue.

After touting Chicago's significant and sustained drop in crime, Mayor Brandon Johnson accused the president of “spreading misinformation.”

A bright moon will make it harder than usual to see the meteors as they streak across the night sky. But experts say it’s still worth a try.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick agreed to allow Chicago and 33 other cities and counties, including Los Angeles, Denver, Boston and Baltimore, to join the lawsuit that claimed the Trump administration was unlawfully trying to force local officials to help federal immigration agents conduct deportation efforts.

Of 439 positions in the Chicago Police Department charged with implementing the consent decree, 207 positions, or 47%, were empty seven months into 2025, according to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by WTTW News. CPD officials failed to account for another 226 positions.

The Texas representatives, who are entering their second week of their quorum break, stood with U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin in Chicago Monday, days after a pair of bomb threats were called in to their St. Charles hotel.

With U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, Comptroller Susana Mendoza and others not seeking reelection in 2026, robust fields are growing in the Democratic primaries for the open seats. But on the Republican side, it’s a ghost town in primary races for statewide offices so far.

Recent suggestions by U.S. President Donald Trump that there will be some “swapping of territories” — and media reports that it would involve Ukrainian troops leaving the Donetsk region where they have fought for years defending every inch of land — have stirred confusion and rejection among the soldiers.

The company that brought the internet to the masses in the 1990s and early 2000s recently posted a notice on its website saying that it “routinely evaluates its products and has decided to discontinue Dial-up Internet” on Sept. 30, ending more than three decades of operations.

President Donald Trump said Monday that he’s deploying the National Guard across Washington and taking over the city’s police department in the hopes of reducing crime, even as the city’s mayor has noted that crime is falling in the nation’s capital.

Texas Democrats hightail it to Illinois to stymie a redistricting effort. And Chicago Public Schools grapples with its fiscal crisis as a budget deadline approaches.

Walter Burnett, who represented parts of the West Side and the West Loop for 30 years on the Chicago City Council, retired July 31.

James Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13 who helped turn a failed moon mission into a triumph of on-the-fly can-do engineering, has died. He was 97. Lovell died Thursday in Lake Forest.

Chicago’s bungalows may be modest in size, but that doesn’t keep their owners from having grand ambitions when it comes to gardening.

Most of the funding went to organizations outside the Chicago metro area. Nonprofit outlets received 30% of the money. The vast majority of news organizations in Illinois are for-profit.

President Donald Trump signed the tax increase into law last month as part of his signature spending bill.

Any changes in the conduct of a national census, which is the biggest non-military undertaking by the federal government, would require alterations to the Census Act and approval from Congress, which has oversight responsibilities, and there likely would be a fierce fight.

Kristi Noem, whose office oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), visited suburban Lombard on Friday to criticize Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, whom he claimed have “worked so hard to protect these dangerous criminals” through their refusal to cooperate with ICE officials.

The district's goal is to continue to provide Chicagoans with cooling options to the extent possible, even as many of its lifeguards head back to school.