Stories by Patty Wetli

State and federal agencies are still assessing how much damage was done to natural resources in Northwest Indiana as a result of the 2019 discharge of hazardous chemicals into a Lake Michigan tributary.  

The proposed mega-development would create residential and retail space, parkland and a transit hub on top of the Metra tracks just west of Soldier Field. Why some lawmakers want to block state financing for the splashy, $20 billion plan.

U.S. regulators on Monday expanded the use of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to children as young as 12, offering a way to protect the nation’s adolescents before they head back to school in the fall and paving the way for them to return to more normal activities.

Newton Minow, a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, played a key role in public media. Here’s what he thinks about television today — six decades after his famous “vast wasteland” speech.

One of Chicago’s only weekly, nearly year-long farmers markets opened on Sunday, just in time to provide some extra help to the farmers, restaurateurs and other food producers selling their goods in the city’s Northwest Side neighborhood. We meet some of this year’s vendors.

The U.S. economy has come roaring back from pandemic lows, but a disappointing jobs report that fell far short of analysts’ predictions highlighted some potentially worrying trends.

Demand for the COVID-19 vaccine is dropping, but there is still a large population that’s hesitant to get the shot. Some of that hesitancy is steeped in politics or misinformation, but others fear an allergic reaction. We meet one Chicagoan who says she has good reason to hold out.

With experts saying the coronavirus is likely spreading in India’s northeastern state of Assam faster than anywhere else in the country, authorities were preparing Monday for a surge in infections by converting a massive stadium and a university into hospitals.

A Cook County judge has scheduled a hearing this summer to determine if an attorney that actor Jussie Smollett has hired will be allowed to represent him following allegations of a possible conflict of interest involving that attorney and the two brothers Smollett allegedly hired to carry out a hoax attack.

The federal government will protect gay and transgender people against sex discrimination in health care, the Biden administration declared Monday, reversing a Trump-era policy that narrowed rights at the intersection of changing social mores and sensitive medical decisions. 

Jim Mabie, a noted Chicago businessman, philanthropist and civic leader who served as a WTTW and WFMT trustee for more than 20 years, died Saturday surrounded by his family.

The Transportation Security Administration said that slightly more than 1.7 million people were screened at airport checkpoints on Sunday, the highest number since March 2020, when travel was collapsing because of the coronavirus outbreak.

COVID-19 vaccines are on their way to downtown office buildings. What to do about vaccine allergies. The debate over a mega-development near Soldier Field. Newton Minow on TV as a “vast wasteland.”

Chicagoans notched a whopping 12,000 observations of plants, animals and fungi in the 2021 City Nature Challenge, coming in well ahead of Moscow, Prague, London and Tokyo.

Vaccination clinics will open in office buildings in downtown Chicago and across the state as officials continue to get as many people vaccinated against COVID-19 as quickly as possible. The vaccines will allow the city to put “the pandemic in the rearview mirror,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Monday.

The project’s many delays – some due to unexpected maintenance, some to funding availability – became a source of both frustration and humor for trail users and observers, who joked about the flyover taking longer than engineering marvels like the Golden Gate Bridge and the Sears Tower. 

Eager to the turn the page on the Trump years, the Biden White House is launching an effort to unearth past problems with the politicization of science within government and to tighten scientific integrity rules for the future.

Critics of the Chicago Police Department’s use of ShotSpotter technology question its value. The head of Chicago Public Schools announces her departure. A trip to the Hampton House. And fabulous fabrics.

A new study by Northwestern University’s MacArthur Justice Center found that 86% of ShotSpotter alerts resulted in no report of any crime, leading to questions of the gunfire detection system’s value in violence reduction.

It’s a story many Chicagoans know, but since the Oscar-nominated film “Judas and the Black Messiah” was released, more people are learning about the life and death of Fred Hampton. We talk with his widow and his son. 

This world premiere, feverishly choreographed by Nicolas Blanc and performed by 15 of the company’s emotionally fiery dancers, is a work of such beauty and dynamic intensity that it can and should easily endure as part of the standard ballet rep for years to come.

The cyberextortion attempt that has forced the shutdown of a vital U.S. pipeline was carried out by a criminal gang known as DarkSide that cultivates a Robin Hood image of stealing from corporations and giving a cut to charity, a person close to the investigation said Sunday.

Joyous reunions among vaccinated parents and children across the country marked this year’s Mother’s Day, the second one celebrated during the coronavirus pandemic.

Helmut Jahn, a prominent German architect who designed an Illinois state government building and worked on the design of the FBI headquarters in Washington, was killed when two vehicles struck the bicycle he was riding outside Chicago.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on everyone, but one group in particular has had an especially heavy lift: mothers, who have taken on the majority of caregiving responsibilities over the last year.

Four families separated under former President Donald Trump’s immigration policy were this week the first to be reunited by organizations working with the Biden administration’s Family Reunification Task Force.