Stories by Patty Wetli

As beach season winds down in Chicago, the Shedd Aquarium is hosting a series of weekend cleanups to clear the shoreline of a summer’s worth of litter and debris.

Unemployment has been a major issue throughout the pandemic. Stay-at-home orders spurred layoffs — many who lost their jobs had trouble accessing benefits — in part because there was a whole lot of fraud.

A one-on-one discussion with Julie Rodgers, the first openly gay chaplain at Wheaton College who is featured in the Netflix documentary, “Pray Away.” She’s also the author of the new book “Outlove: A Queer Christian Survival Story.”

Animal shelters across the city are seeing an increase this year in the number of pets coming through their doors. What’s behind that trend — and how shelters are trying to keep pets in homes.

Democrats have submitted new redistricting maps. Maps are redrawn every 10 years after the census, but because of late census numbers, this year’s process has been more contentious than others. 

Des Plaines is a diverse suburb just north of O’Hare Airport. It has a high vaccination rate but is still facing an uptick in COVID-19 cases. It’s also looking forward to the reopening of a historic theater, and the expansion of one of its major employers.

Some pandemic unemployment benefits are ending. State lawmakers on the latest round of map drawing. Des Plaines is this week’s In Your Neighborhood stop. Escaping conversion therapy. And more.

Ald. Jim Gardiner, elected in 2019, has been surrounded by controversy since he took office after defeating former Ald. John Arena. In 2023, he was elected to serve as the 45th Ward’s Democratic committeeperson, making him one of the leaders of the Cook County Democratic Party.

People who don’t study mammals for a living may be surprised to learn there’s more than one kind of skunk — and scientists affiliated with the Field Museum have uncovered members that had been hiding in plain sight.

A woman reluctantly took the witness stand against R. Kelly on Thursday to recount how he struck up a relationship with her in 2006 when she was 15, but dodged a prosecutor’s questions about when they first had sex.

A Chicago police lieutenant on Thursday became the fourth member of the department to appear in court on felony charges in recent weeks, with prosecutors accusing him of shoving his flashlight into the buttocks of a teenage carjacking suspect, but over his clothes.

Chicagoans who get vaccinated by the Chicago Department of Public Health starting Saturday will get both a lifesaving inoculation against COVID-19 and also a $100 gift card, city officials announced.

Students at an unidentified Chicago university who traveled over spring break sparked an outbreak of COVID-19 that sickened 158 people, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Thursday.

A stunned U.S. East Coast woke up Thursday to a rising death toll, surging rivers and destruction after the remnants of Hurricane Ida walloped the region with record-breaking rain, filling low-lying apartments with water and turning roads into car-swallowing canals.

A deeply divided Supreme Court is allowing a Texas law that bans most abortions to remain in force, for now stripping most women of the right to an abortion in the nation’s second-largest state.

Rowers, kayakers and other users of the Chicago River are getting a real-time look at one measure of water quality in the system that weaves through downtown and several neighborhoods. 

Legislators have been working toward a measure that would keep two Illinois nuclear plants open. Despite a rash of talks during Tuesday’s special session, there is still no concrete path — and less than two weeks remain until Exelon says it will close the plants.

Local college students on returning to campus. The latest on a revived energy bill in Springfield. A new push for high-speed rail. And our Spotlight politics team on remapping, Afghanistan and more.

State legislators this week passed new district maps and rejected an amendment to ethics legislation. Our politics team of Amanda Vinicky, Paris Schutz and Heather Cherone weigh in on that story and more in this week’s roundtable.

The two-year, $3.5 million pilot program represents the first time in Chicago’s history that the city’s emergency dispatch system will send someone other than a sworn and armed police officer to a call for help, officials said.

Imagine getting from Chicago to St. Louis by train in just a couple of hours. That’s the vision of high-speed rail advocates, who want to see an ultrafast train cut across Illinois — and the vision has gotten a boost from Illinois lawmakers.

There are lots of familiar sights on college campuses across the state as students return to lecture halls and activities. But what exactly has this transition from largely virtual instruction to in-person been like?

The nation’s most far-reaching curb on abortions since they were legalized a half-century ago took effect Wednesday in Texas, with the Supreme Court silent on an emergency appeal to put the law on hold.

It’s one of the biggest touring exhibitions of one of the world’s most well-known street artists. We take a look at “The Art of Banksy,” on view in River North through October.

One of R. Kelly’s accusers testified on Wednesday that he kept a gun by his side while he berated her as a prelude to forcing her to give him oral sex in a Los Angeles music studio.

Beefy burgers, music festivals, cycling on Lake Shore Drive and mini golf usher in the holiday weekend. Here are a dozen things to do in and around Chicago.