Stories by Matt Masterson

A year after the launch of a program aiming to provide 100,000 Chicago Public Schools students with free high-speed internet for four years, city officials have announced plans to extend the program further.

An EF0 tornado, with maximum winds of 85 mph, touched down in Plainfield late Sunday, carving a 3.2-mile path to southwest Romeoville before dissipating near the Mistwood Golf Club, according to the National Weather Service.

In the eyes of the law, pets are property when it comes to divorce, but new ways of working out custody of the dog, cat or parrot have sprung up with special mediators and “petnups” to avoid courtroom disputes.

Two people were fatally shot and another 10 were injured this weekend on the city’s West Side. How a local anti-violence group is working alongside the community to prevent further violence.

Have you ever thrown out a broken bike or any of its spare parts? There’s a chance a local bike club scooped up that trash to make a work of art on wheels. We visit Logan Square to learn about the city’s bustling custom bike culture.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought Chicago’s nightlife scene to a halt. How businesses are faring — and hoping to rebound — now that the city is fully reopened. 

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday the NCAA can’t limit education-related benefits that colleges can offer their sports stars, a victory for athletes that could help open the door to further easing in the decades-old fight over paying student-athletes.

Chicago’s police superintendent said Monday that his decision to strip an officer’s police powers was tied in part to the officer’s ownership of a house on the city’s South Side where gunmen killed five people and injured three others. 

A cutback in flights for a major airline. Crain’s Chicago Business editor Ann Dwyer takes us behind the headline of that story and more business news.

After conducting a preliminary survey of Sunday’s tornado site in the western suburbs, the National Weather Service said it has determined the twister was an EF3, the strongest to touch down in the Chicago metropolitan area since 2015.

Though many Chicagoans found refuge in nature during the pandemic, the physical Nature Museum in Lincoln Park has been shuttered since spring 2020. 

Approximately 26,850 Chicagoans who lost their jobs or found their paychecks scaled back because of the COVID-19 pandemic applied for $137 million in grants designed to stave off a wave of evictions and keep the lights on across Chicago, officials said Monday.

Aldermen are poised to settle a lawsuit alleging that four paramedics were sexually harassed by fellow members of the Chicago Fire Department — three by the same person — and another was retaliated against for reporting that she had been harassed.

Some of the nation’s largest metropolitan regions have become increasingly segregated in the last 30 years, underscoring racial inequalities that have led to poorer life outcomes in Black and brown neighborhoods, according to a study released Monday.

More than 1 million people were under a tornado warning late Sunday as a line of storms ripped through the Chicago area. At least one tornado touched down and left in its wake a path of destruction through Naperville, Woodridge and Darien, according to the National Weather Service.

A report released last week indicates that deaths of people of color are severely undercounted and much more needs to be done to produce an accurate database that collects ethnicity information.

Cleanup is underway following massive storms in Chicago’s suburbs. Anti-violence efforts in Humboldt Park. The Supreme Court deals a blow to the NCAA. Nightclubs reopen. The world of “freak bikes.”

The decision comes as opposition among Japanese to holding the Games in July remains high, though may be softening, and as new infections in Tokyo have begun to subside.

From the Civil War to the civil rights movement and everything in between, the lives of these prominent Black Chicagoans are educating others. We visit Oak Woods Cemetery for a lesson.

In 1921, Georgiana Rose Simpson became America’s first black woman to graduate with a Ph.D. How her trailblazing achievement is being honored at her alma mater through the new group GRO.

We celebrate Juneteenth by tracing history through a cemetery of prominent Chicagoans, remembering one of the first Black women to receive her Ph.D. and sitting down with an award-winning chef.

The dog was one of 34 animals — 33 dogs and one cat — imported by an animal rescue organization from Azerbaijan to O’Hare International Airport in Chicago on June 10. 

The short answer: It’s likely safe and effective, but researchers are still gathering data to be sure.

Inside the Logan Square Blue Line CTA station, a subterranean gallery features a selection of photographs from a new book about gentrification and preservation in the neighborhood, which was, for decades, a predominantly Latino community.

Chicago high school students Isabela Ávila and Francisco Villaseñor give us the last word on creating meaningful change in local communities.

A fight to save historic city housing. Capturing a changing Logan Square. The life and work of renowned artist Frida Kahlo. And two high schoolers on making a difference in their communities.