Stories by Amanda Vinicky

Illinois was supposed to be the national model when government leaders pledged they’d use the 2020 legalization of marijuana to right the wrongs of the war on drugs that disproportionately harmed Black and Latino communities. Nearly three years later, those poised to benefit say they’re still stymied.

The beloved duo live on in limestone, their instantly recognizable images carved into a block of the rock wall that separates the dunes from an adjacent paved path. They now join the thousands of modern-day “petroglyphs” that date back to at least the 1930s.

The Chicago Police Department has begun the process of encrypting its dispatch channels to avoid disruptions from outside the police system. But some are calling into question the need for the change, and cite potential issues of transparency.

Why CPD wants to encrypt radio communications and what it says about transparency. Equity in the state’s cannabis industry. The mother of slain teen Hadiya Pendleton on new efforts to end gun violence. And paintings from Puerto Rico.

One in 20 tap water samples taken from thousands of Chicagoans found lead levels at or above federal limits, according to a recent analysis by the Guardian. It also found that nine of the top 10 ZIP codes with the largest percentages of high test results were in neighborhoods with majority Black and Latino residents.

Nine years after Hadiya Pendleton’s death, her mother, Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton, is still fighting to end gun violence. She founded Hadiya’s Promise – a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending gun violence through education.

The artwork is on loan from a museum in the town of Ponce on the southern coast. Now, Chicago’s National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture in Humboldt Park is the temporary home to a small but significant exhibit.

The unanimous Supreme Court decision, released Sept. 22, resolves a 7-year-old lawsuit brought by Charles Green, who was sentenced to life in prison at age 16 after being convicted in a 1985 quadruple murder. Green was released in 2009, and wants to prove his innocence.

The volatile trading comes a day after a broad sell-off sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average into a bear market, joining other major U.S. indexes.

The legislation would clarify and expand parts of the 1887 Electoral Count Act, which, along with the Constitution, governs how states and Congress certify electors and declare presidential winners. 

Zack Park, 34, has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder stemming from the Saturday afternoon killing of 18-year-old John Park inside their family’s North Park neighborhood home.

A federal jury in Chicago convicted Ji Chaoqun, 31, of conspiracy to act as an agent of China’s Ministry of State Security without notifying the U.S. attorney general, acting as a spy in the U.S., and lying on a government form about his contacts with foreign agencies.

Understanding the workers’ rights amendment on the November ballot in Illinois. The impact of a 100-year-old power plant on the shores of Lake Michigan. And local reaction to the unrest in Iran.

Among the choices voters will have to make on Nov. 8 is whether to add a new amendment to the Illinois constitution that would give workers the “fundamental right to organize and to bargain collectively” while at the same time forbidding any law that interferes with that ability.

Northern Indiana Public Service Company is retiring the 130-acre Michigan City Generating Station, which has been burning coal for electricity for nearly a century. The company is also cleaning up decades of coal ash byproduct. But advocates say plans to leave some coal ash on the site puts groundwater and Lake Michigan in danger of contamination. 

A NASA spacecraft rammed an asteroid at blistering speed Monday in an unprecedented dress rehearsal for the day a killer rock menaces Earth.

There’s good news for those apartment hunting in downtown Chicago as record-high prices begin to cool off. And airline passengers will have more power and goodwill under a new federal proposal that would force fees to be disclosed.

Kolmar Park was originally named for the street it is on, Kolmar Avenue. After learning of Gertrud Kolmar’s life and work, a local campaign was spearheaded to have the park rededicated in honor of the poet who died during the Holocaust.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of health care experts, is recommending that adults under 65 get screened for anxiety.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she was determined to chart a “bright and lasting” future for LaSalle Street between Washington Street and Jackson Boulevard, an area of the city she said had been permanently altered by the shifts triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.1%, becoming the last of the major U.S. stock indexes to fall into what’s known as a bear market. The S&P 500 closed 1% lower and the Nasdaq dropped 0.6%.

During a press conference Monday afternoon, Police Superintendent David Brown said the man was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries after he was shot inside the police department’s Homan Square facility Monday morning.

Ian was forecast to hit the western tip of Cuba as a major hurricane and then become an even stronger Category 4 with top winds of 140 mph over warm Gulf of Mexico waters before striking Florida. As of Monday, Tampa and St. Petersburg appeared to be among the most likely targets for their first direct hit by a major hurricane since 1921.

The protests were triggered by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in a hospital three days after being apprehended by the morality police in Tehran and taken to a “re-education center” for not abiding by the state’s hijab rules.

The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed Josiah Brown was pronounced dead at Lurie Children’s Hospital at 10:16 a.m. Sunday, nearly a week after he was allegedly pushed into Lake Michigan.

Chicago police said 38 people were shot in 27 separate shooting incidents between 6 p.m. Friday evening and 11:59 p.m. Sunday night. That included an 18-year-old killed Saturday afternoon and two men killed at a North Lawndale home Sunday.