Stories by Heather Cherone

The facility includes a “scenario village” that features multiple two- and three-flat residential brick buildings complete with fences, curbs, alleys, sidewalks, yards, back stairways, porches, basements and garages. It will also include a new 18,000-square-foot location Boys & Girls Club and two restaurants. 

Deputy Inspector General Amber Nesbitt said her office has seen a rise in the number of district schools, charter schools and vendors that have launched investigations into sexual misconduct allegations without contacting the inspector general or CPS.

One person is dead and multiple people are injured after a fire broke out on the 15th floor of a Kenwood high-rise building Wednesday morning.

WTTW News explains the science behind lake effect snow. (Hint: We’re lucky to be on this side of Lake Michigan.)

The Black Crowes and Charley Crockett round out the music lineup for Chicago Street Race Weekend, July 1-2.

Chicago White Sox pitcher Mike Clevinger is being investigated by Major League Baseball following an allegation of domestic violence, the team announced in a statement.

Lingering lake effect snow could make the evening rush hour an equal exercise in patience, according to the National Weather Service.

Assessing COVID-19 three years to the day of the first case in Illinois. Why day care providers are waiting for checks from the state. And boosting safety for street vendors who've been robbed in Little Village.

The Chicago nonprofit already has locations in Pilsen and the West Loop. Open Books promotes literacy through programming and the sale of new and used donated books.

It’s been three years since the first Chicago COVID-19 case was confirmed. Since then, more than four million people in Illinois have been diagnosed with coronavirus; it has killed more than 36,000 people in the state.

A technical delay is holding up payments to providers who care for children of low-income families that are part of the state’s Child Care Assistance Program, designed to help parents go to work or school with the help of subsidized child care.

The records “appear to be a small number of documents bearing classified markings that were inadvertently boxed and transported to the personal home of the former vice president at the end of the last administration,” Pence’s lawyer, Greg Jacob, wrote in the letter shared with The Associated Press.

The Chicago Board of Ethics first asked the city's watchdog to probe Gardiner in 2021 after complaints he used his power as an alderperson to retaliate against critics.

The National Weather Service is trackiThe National Weather Service is tracking a storm set to hit late Tuesday, with peak snowfall during Wednesday morning’s commute. The greatest snow totals are expected east of I-55 and south of I-80.ng a storm set to hit late Tuesday, with peak snowfall during Wednesday morning's commute. The greatest snow totals are expected east of I-55 and south of I-80.

Pending confirmation by the Illinois Senate, Natalie Phelps Finnie is poised to become just the second woman to head the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, following in the trailblazing footsteps of her immediate predecessor Colleen Callahan.

“We are really closer to that doomsday,” former Mongolian president Elbegdorj Tsakhia said Tuesday at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists annual announcement rating how close humanity is from doing itself in.

The exceptional find is heading to the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels, where it will be studied. And Maria Valdes, a research scientist at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History and the University of Chicago who was part of the expedition team, has kept some of the material for her own analysis.

In a span of less than 12 months, nearly all of the biggest cryptocurrency equivalent of a banks have failed spectacularly. Last week, Genesis filed Chapter 11, joining Voyager Digital, Celsius and BlockFi on the list of companies that have either filed for bankruptcy protection or gone out of business.

Remembering a beloved local DJ. The latest on the legal tangle over the state’s assault weapons ban. A trans bus driver who was fired from the CTA. And how well do you know Chicago’s street grid?

In 2019, WTTW News covered his successful push for the CTA to add gender affirming care to its health insurance policy. The employee behind that push has since been fired and is now suing the agency and his union. 

Multiple county sheriffs across the state have said they won’t enforce it. On Friday, a circuit court judge in downstate Effingham County issued a temporary restraining order blocking the new law — although that ruling only applies to the 850 plaintiffs and four licensed gun dealers named in the case.

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday proposed a simplified approach for future vaccination efforts, allowing most adults and children to get a once-a-year shot to protect against the mutating virus.

The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, which runs through Jan. 29, will unquestionably change your conception on how puppets can be used in staged productions.

The Chicago Board of Ethics voted unanimously to ask both the Chicago inspector general and the Chicago Public Schools inspector general to probe emails sent by Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s campaign to CPS teachers and City Colleges instructors.

How exactly are streets organized in Chicago? WTTW News gives you a guided tour of the grid system that organizes the city’s streets and addresses. 

The suspect, Huu Can Tran, who was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound Sunday, had visited police in his town of Hemet twice this month to allege he was the victim of fraud, theft and poisoning by family members between 10 and 20 years ago in the LA area, spokesman Alan Reyes told The Associated Press.