Stories by Associated Press

President Joe Biden declared there is an urgent need for a “generational investment” in the nation’s infrastructure, as he looked to sell voters Tuesday on the economic benefits of the $973 billion bipartisan package that still faces an uncertain future in Congress.

Chicago and other major cities are experiencing a “pandemic-spurred surge” in violence that officials are having success in fighting despite a rising number of shootings and homicides, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said during a one-on-one interview Tuesday on “Chicago Tonight.”

Illinois broke a 23-year streak on Tuesday, when credit ratings agency Moody’s upgraded the state’s bond rating for the first time since 1998 – the same year the Chicago Bulls won their last championship.

United said Tuesday that it will buy 200 Boeing Max jets and 70 planes from Europe’s Airbus so that it can replace many of its smallest planes and some of its oldest and have room to grow its fleet.

The more transmissible delta variant is expected to become the dominant coronavirus strain in the U.S., the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. And with half the U.S. still not fully vaccinated, doctors say it could cause a resurgence of COVID-19 in the fall.

What’s up with the mushrooms that appear and then quickly disappear after wet weather? Where do they come from, and where do they go?

The Friday lunchtime series highlighting a rotating lineup of vendors will kick off July 30 and run through Oct. 15 in Daley Plaza.

Talk about a heavy snack. For the first time, astronomers have witnessed a black hole swallowing a neutron star, the most dense object in the universe — all in a split-second gulp.

Congressional leaders and a media advocacy group are urging the Federal Communications Commission to examine how policy decisions and programs have disparately harmed Black Americans and other communities of color.

All 50 states, along with Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., are recording fewer than 15 new cases per day per 100,000 residents and are no longer covered by the travel order, officials said Tuesday.

For our June event, we celebrate Pride Month by highlighting past and current leaders in the LGBTQ movement and the Latino experience within the community. Watch the full discussion.

The slow work of sifting through the remnants of a collapsed Florida condo building stretched into a sixth day Tuesday, as families desperate for progress endured a wrenching wait for answers. 

Major changes to Illinois’ criminal justice system that passed in the wake of George Floyd’s murder will begin to take effect Thursday, including a requirement that officers track and report to the state incidents in which they use a gun on someone. Here’s what else is changing.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and that’s exactly what Lynn Orman Weiss’ traveling exhibition does, sharing through photos how women have contributed to one of the most influential music genres.

Hours after Mayor Lori Lightfoot blamed the shutdown of the Cook County court system by the COVID-19 pandemic for escalating violence across Chicago’s South and West sides, several aldermen told “Chicago Tonight” that rising inequality and distrust of the police is to blame. 

President Joe Biden is hoping to get the bipartisan infrastructure deal on track by highlighting its expected economic benefits, stressing its $973 billion would include the largest investment in transportation in nearly a century and millions of jobs would be created.

The head of the World Health Organization said the COVID-19 delta variant, first seen in India, is “the most transmissible of the variants identified so far,” and warned it is now spreading in at least 85 countries.

Community organizations and state lawmakers are working to make menstrual products more accessible to Illinoisans who need them. We take a look at the issue in our Firsthand: Living in Poverty series.

Investment groups wager on future demand for senior housing. Crain’s Chicago Business reporter Danny Ecker has details on that story and more.

Included in the bipartisan infrastructure deal reached with President Joe Biden last week is a plan to eliminate the country’s remaining lead pipes and service lines, which for decades have posed a risk for contaminated water in millions of homes and schools.

Police Superintendent David Brown on Monday said investigations remain ongoing into a shooting in the South Shore that left one dead and five injured, and another at Marquette Park that left one dead and 10 injured.

The Chicago Blackhawks have hired a former federal prosecutor to conduct an independent review of allegations that a former player was sexually assaulted by a then-assistant coach in 2010.

Details about Illinois’ new criminal justice law. Catching up with alderpeople after two City Council meetings. What you need to know about the delta variant. How poverty affects women differently.

Illinois residents scrambling to renew their driver’s licenses and identification cards got a five-month reprieve Monday as lines swelled at secretary of state offices across the state.

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability recommended two months ago that Officer Evan Solano have his gun and badge taken from him after the March fatal shooting of a 22-year-old in Portage Park, even as a probe of the killing continues.

Families of the missing visited the scene of the Florida condo building collapse Sunday as rescuers kept digging through the mound of rubble and clinging to hope that someone could yet be alive somewhere under the broken concrete and twisted metal.