Stories by Heather Cherone

If the mayor insists on keeping the libraries open, employees should be eligible for the vaccine along with teachers and other front-line essential workers, union leaders, employees and aldermen said.

Geoffrey Baer explores the past, present and future of a historic West Side garden in North Lawndale.

Amid a surge in carjackings, drivers for ride-hailing companies have been working in close contact with other people during the pandemic. Meanwhile, those companies are gearing up for a fight over whether gig workers should be classified as employees.

The request from House impeachment managers does not require Donald Trump to appear — though the Senate could later subpoena him — but it does warn that any refusal to testify could be used at trial to support arguments for a conviction. 

Four city-run COVD-19 test facilities will be closed from Friday through Wednesday as an arctic blast bears down on the city, officials announced Thursday. The facilities require staff members and volunteers to work outside to test people inside their cars.

Watch the Feb. 4, 2021 full episode of “Chicago Tonight.”

Those who have taken sanctuary have enlisted lawmakers to ask President Joe Biden for relief, pushing to cancel deportation orders and reviving the use of private bills — measures to protect a person or group.

“We are deeply disappointed to announce that we still have not reached a deal,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Thursday.

Winter has arrived with a vengeance. The next 48 hours will bring a one-two punch of snow and plunging temperatures.

The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits declined to 779,000 last week, a still-historically high total that shows that a sizable number of people keep losing jobs to the viral pandemic.

“We are disappointed to report that at this time, no deal has been reached between CPS and the Chicago Teachers Union leadership,” the school district said in a tweet late Wednesday.

The tug of war between the Chicago Teachers Union and Chicago Public Schools is still on, as the vaccine rollout bumps along. Our politics team of Amanda Vinicky, Paris Schutz and Heather Cherone weighs in on that story and more in this week’s roundtable.

Rennie Davis, one of the “Chicago Seven” activists who was tried for organizing an anti-Vietnam War protest outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago in which thousands clashed with police in a bloody confrontation that horrified a nation watching live on television, has died.

Any description of Rajiv Joseph’s mini-play — the newest entry in Steppenwolf Theatre’s NOW series of virtual programming that runs about 11 minutes — might make it sound like just a quick virtual doodle. But it is much more than that.

Prosecutors asked a judge Wednesday for a new arrest warrant for an Illinois teen charged with shooting three people, killing two of them, during a protest over police brutality in Wisconsin after he apparently violated his bail conditions.

The Chicago Musical Pathways Initiative is preparing gifted students for higher education and careers in music — and debunking myths along the way.

In Illinois there are more than 1,400 laws regulating the lives of people who are formerly incarcerated. A new book by Reuben Jonathan Miller examines these laws and how they affect the lives of people with felonies once they are out of prison.

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin on efforts to get President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 relief plan passed as Republicans decry a “partisan” approach from Democrats.

Chicago’s convention industry took a huge financial hit when COVID-19 shut down the city. McCormick Place, North America’s largest convention center, is looking to rebound this summer with dozens of events scheduled through the end of the year.

Watch the Feb. 3, 2021 full episode of “Chicago Tonight.”

Illinois legislators are now eligible to get the coronavirus vaccine as part of phase 1B, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Wednesday, but the governor says he’s going to wait his turn to be vaccinated.

Illinois health officials announced Wednesday that they are temporarily redirecting approximately 97,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses that have not yet been used in order to increase the limited supply of vaccine to those who are eligible under phase 1B.

The young readers edition is for ages 10 and up and includes a new introduction from Michelle Obama.

The Invisible Institute, a journalism nonprofit based on the city’s South Side, has published an online archive documenting former Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge’s "violence against more than 100 Black men, from the 1970s to the 1990s.”

Chicago Public Schools and Chicago Teachers Union negotiators spent Tuesday back at the bargaining table as they attempt to reach an agreement on how to reopen schools safely. Districts and teachers throughout the Chicago area have likewise worked to broker agreements, to varying degrees of success.

The first round of COVID-19 vaccination administration to skilled nursing homes in Illinois is complete, and assisted living sites are set to finish their first round by Feb. 15. We discuss the state of the pandemic in nursing homes.