Stories by Heather Cherone

The city is conducting additional environmental studies after the head of the Environmental Protection Agency said the proposal raises “significant civil rights concerns.”

Bird monitors said the gull colony is probably stressed in some way, either from lack of food, not enough room on the roof or extreme heat.

When a Chicago artist decided to strengthen his craft creating sculptures, he took on an unlikely job to help him refine the lines. Nearly a decade later, he's using the skills he picked up as a mill worker to create custom wooden furniture.

Chicago’s Office of Inspector General found that while Black candidates make up 37% of the initial officer applicant pool, they comprised just 18% of the candidates who were ultimately invited to the CPD’s Police Academy.

Two men believed to be Haitian Americans — one of them purportedly a former bodyguard at the Canadian Embassy in Port au Prince — have been arrested in connection with the assassination of Haiti’s president, a senior Haitian official said Thursday.

Are the courts to blame for a spike in crime? Chief Judge Timothy Evans responds to the repeated accusations from Mayor Lori Lightfoot and police Superintendent David Brown. 

It’s another sign that Chicago is returning to normal: Conventions are beginning to return to the city, including the Chicago Auto Show, which is set for mid-July at McCormick Place in the South Loop. We hit the streets as part of our community reporting series.

More than 500 current and former employees of the Cook County jail say they were subject to “vulgar” “and “offensive” misconduct by detainees, and that Sheriff Tom Dart’s office did not do enough to protect them from the constant harassment.

Cook County Chief Judge Tim Evans talks courts and crime. Local reaction to the unrest in Haiti. How a local woodworker brings his custom pieces to life. And we’re live from the South Loop. 

Determined to convince tech companies to trade in views of the Golden Gate Bridge for the City of Big Shoulders, Mayor Lori Lightfoot spent Wednesday and Thursday wooing Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, even as the city reeled from the most violent weekend of 2021.

Chicago’s indomitable piping plovers have welcomed three chicks, with a fourth still possibly on the way, plover monitors have reported.

A 28-year-old Chicago man who allegedly shot two federal agents and a Chicago police officer as they were driving Wednesday in an unmarked vehicle in Morgan Park apparently believed the victims were members of a rival street gang, according to federal prosecutors.

An Iowa man who was in custody in Chicago after police found a rifle with a laser sight in a hotel room that overlooks a Lake Michigan beach during the July Fourth weekend made bond and then proposed to his girlfriend upon his release.

The lucrative, high-stakes chase for space tourists will unfold on the fringes of space — 55 miles to 66 miles up, pitting Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson against the world’s richest man, Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos.

New research from France adds to evidence that widely used COVID-19 vaccines still offer strong protection against a coronavirus mutant that is spreading rapidly around the world and now is the most prevalent variant in the U.S.

The 34th Ward alderperson is the second-longest serving member of the City Council — and the third sitting member to be charged with federal crimes. She faces one count of bribery conspiracy, two counts of using interstate facilities to promote bribery and one count of lying to the FBI.

The global death toll from COVID-19 eclipsed 4 million Wednesday as the crisis increasingly becomes a race between the vaccine and the highly contagious delta variant.

President Biden touts his American Families Plan in McHenry County. Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx on the crime surge. Should the Tokyo Olympics go forward? And fairy houses in Chicago parks.

More than 100 people were shot over the Fourth of July weekend in Chicago, one of the city’s deadliest in years. Some officials are blaming the courts for the recent violence. Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and Public Defender Sharone Mitchell Jr. respond.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of its natural areas, the Chicago Park District, in partnership with The Nature Conservancy of Illinois, has installed 20 fairy houses in parks across the city. Here’s where to find them.

Chicago owes $32.9 billion to its four employee pension funds representing police officers, firefighters, municipal employees and laborers, according to the 2020 Certified Annual Financial Report — an increase of nearly 3.5% from 2019. 

When theaters across the city shut down last year, a local multimedia company took the performing arts from stage to screen. With the help of some celebrated collaborators, they kept audiences in touch with artists. 

Surging COVID-19 cases in Tokyo have hit a two-month high that almost guarantees the Japanese government will declare a new state of emergency to start next week and continue for the duration of the Tokyo Olympics.

President Joe Biden pitched his proposed investments in families and education at an Illinois community college on Wednesday, telling residents of the swing district that what’s good for families is also good for the economy.

A Chicago police officer and two federal agents are expected to survive after they were shot early Wednesday while driving in a vehicle onto the I-57 highway. A person of interest is being questioned in connection with the shooting, officials said.

Emergency workers gave up Wednesday on any hope of finding survivors in a collapsed Florida condo building, telling sobbing families that there was “no chance of life” in the rubble as crews shifted their efforts to recovering more remains.