Stories by Matt Masterson

“Judge Harry D. Leinenweber was a friend, mentor, and model jurist,” Rebecca Pallmeyer, chief judge for the Northern District of Illinois, said in a statement. “My colleagues and I are deeply saddened by Judge Leinenweber’s passing.”

Prosecutors push for prison time for Chicago’s longest-serving alderperson. One on one with the founder of the animal rights group PETA. And cruising the Chicago River on a kayak conservation tour.

For more than 40 years, PETA has worked to change the way many people think about animals. Attention-grabbing media campaigns have raised the public’s awareness of practices like factory farming, fur production and animal testing — while also drawing backlash at times for the group’s tactics.

Shedd Aquarium is once again offering an opportunity to explore the Chicago River while learning about efforts to take care of it. The Kayak for Conservation program offers pay-what-you-can tours.

Despite having a net worth of $30 million, now former Ald. Ed Burke was “steeped in corruption,” repeatedly choosing “spite and greed – not the public interest,” prosecutors told U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Kendall.

Two law firms spearheading the action said about 15,860 Amazon Flex drivers have submitted arbitration claims with the American Arbitration Association, where 453 similar cases are already being litigated.

Guy joins a previously announced list music lineup for NASCAR weekend, which includes the Black Keys and Keith Urban.

All signs point to a cicada-induced vitamin deficiency as the cause of a mystery disease that affected some birds during a 2021 emergence and now again in 2024.

CPS on Tuesday announced the CPS CEO Pedro Martinez had informed network and school leaders the final draft of its FY25 budget would now be presented in July as the district continues “finalizing the total budget.”

The U.S. has been thrashed with 11 extreme weather disasters with costs exceeding $1 billion so far this year, with a total price tag of $25.1 billion, according to an updated tally from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It’s tied for the second-most such disasters on record and doesn’t even include the extreme weather in the second half of May, said Adam Smith, an applied climatologist with NOAA.

Jurors found Hunter Biden guilty of lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on the application by saying he was not a drug user and illegally having the gun for 11 days.

The figures are the latest evidence of the surging popularity of the WNBA since it added prominent rookies including Indiana’s Caitlin Clark, Chicago’s Angel Reese and Los Angeles’ Cameron Brink, all of whom drew big audiences playing in college.

A controversial push to make Chicago’s downtown curfew for teens even earlier. How updating identifying documents could become easier for transgender people. And a look at Illinois’ gun laws in our latest installment of WTTW News Explains. 

The bill allows Illinois residents to get a judicial order to alter the name and sex on birth certificates and other documentation issued in another state. Currently in Illinois, the process no longer requires certification from a health professional, making it easier to request this change.

Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd Ward) came up with the idea following a violent attack on May 31 when a group of teenagers allegedly assaulted a couple in the Streeterville neighborhood. The man was hit in the head several times, and the woman was kicked in the stomach, which she said caused her to suffer a miscarriage.

Three-quarters of the patients served by the Carbondale clinic have come from out of state, the organization said in numbers released Monday. Of those out of state patients, 88% reside in states where abortion access is restricted, including Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana and Missouri.

The Chicago Park District also received nearly $1.5 million to conduct an inventory. Morton Arboretum's Chicago Region Trees Initiative is administering the grants on behalf of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

The former president shook hands with construction workers and signed a beam that will be used in the ongoing construction of the center in Jackson Park.

Food and Drug Administration advisers voted unanimously that the drug’s ability to slow the disease outweighs its risks, including side effects like brain swelling and bleeding that will have to be monitored.

The CTU announced the sides have agreed to schedule an open contract bargaining session Friday from 5-7 p.m. at Marquette Elementary School, 6550 S. Richmond St., in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood.

An 18-year-old woman fatally shot as she sat in a vehicle early Sunday morning in West Englewood was among eight people killed by gunfire over the weekend across Chicago.

Chicago has a reputation as the City of Big Shoulders. For rough-and-tumble politics. And for having a lot of crime, despite strict gun laws. But what are those laws? WTTW News explains.

The Prairie Band Potawatomi are now headquartered in northeast Kansas. But they once had a reservation in what is now DeKalb County, a reservation that officials now agree was illegally sold out from under them in 1850.

David Kwong is a magician who also constructs crossword puzzles. As he puts it, “I combine the two nerdiest hobbies into one.” In his one-man show “The Enigmatist,” Kwong asserts that the disciplines of puzzle-making and magic-making share DNA.

“We aren’t rising to the occasion,” said Doug Schenkelberg, executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. He called the survey results “disheartening but not surprising.”

Chicago police learn new tactics to handle mass protests ahead of the DNC. And could the president’s new border policy mitigate migrants coming to the city?