Stories by Emily Soto

While views on how to address public safety are divided, Mayor Brandon Johnson announced his new plan Thursday, which he says will address the root causes of crime.

Tribune Publishing journalists plan to picket and rally Saturday outside Tribune Tower, accusing the hedge fund that owns the company of brutally undercutting local news in service of a relentless thirst for profits.

The newly designed program is expanding from the Mexican region to include music from Peru, Spain, Guatemala and many others — calling it “A Latin American Christmas” with music that was heard from the 15th to the 18th centuries.

A recent accident gave local rum distillery Chicago Cane Cooperative a big challenge just months after starting. But the owners of the business are moving forward with their big plans.

City Council rejects an effort to ask voters whether Chicago should stay a sanctuary city. And a new plan for community safety.

The law prohibits the possession, manufacture or sale of semiautomatic rifles and high-capacity magazines. It takes effect Jan. 1.

Closing arguments continued Thursday in the high-profile corruption case of the longtime 14th Ward alderperson and Finance Committee chair, with prosecutors zeroing in on perhaps the most elaborate of four criminal schemes Burke is charged with.

The National Labor Relations Board is asking a judge to order Starbucks to reopen 23 shuttered locations around the U.S. – including at Bryn Mawr and Winthrop avenues in Edgewater – claiming the company closed the coffee shops as retaliation for employees unionizing or to hinder their organizing efforts.

Clear skies, a new moon and relatively warm temperatures will make for a great opportunity to catch the peak of the Geminid meteor shower Thursday — even in Chicago.

Four former Commonwealth Edison officials convicted of conspiring to bribe Michael Madigan are seeking to delay their sentencing after the U.S.  Supreme Court agreed to hear a separate case the defendants say “has the potential to upend” their own proceedings.

The special meeting of the Chicago City Council was a last-ditch effort to put the non-binding question to voters on the March 19 ballot. 

Closing arguments began Wednesday, more than a month after proceedings began in Ed Burke’s landmark corruption case. Prosecutors painted the longtime 14th Ward alderperson as a “powerful and corrupt” politician who was motivated by greed to “get what he wanted for himself.”

Efforts to redefine Chicago’s community boundaries. Meet a 17-year-old who just earned her doctorate degree. And we break down the history of Chicago’s alphabetically inclined street names.

We all know Chicago as the city of neighborhoods, but how exactly are those neighborhoods defined? And do those boundaries last mapped out in the 1920s still hold true? That’s what a group of scholars and researchers from the University of Chicago is venturing to find out.

Most 17-year-olds are excited about finishing high school and possibly thinking about college. But Bronzeville teen Dorothy Jean Tillman is in a class all by herself. A typical teen in some ways, she also happens to have just earned her doctorate degree.

New rules requiring nonprofit organizations to register as lobbyists are set to take effect July 1 after a delay of nearly four years.

Gov. J.B Pritzker proclaimed this week as Dog and Cat Adoption Week in Illinois as animal shelters face increased pressures with overcrowding in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic.

The settlement is the largest police misconduct settlement approved by the City Council in 2023.

The Chicago City Council voted 31-18 to resolve the lawsuit filed by the family of Darius Cole-Garrit, which claimed the officers who shot the 21-year-old threatened him hours before they nearly ran him over and then shot him in the back as he fled.

The Chicago City Council voted to reject an effort to upend the system used to punish officers for 60 years, triggering what is likely to be a fierce legal fight that will determine whether, and how, city officials can hold officers accountable for serious misconduct.

Here in Chicago, a number of reimaginings of the classic story demonstrate how the family tradition can be transformed to fit the interests of modern audiences while also celebrating the Christmas magic that made that original ballet such a success.

The story of one Indiana store demonstrates how the more than 60,000 gun retailers in America have little financial incentive to say no to questionable buyers and face limited penalties for failing to prevent illegal transactions.

The six-month delay means that workers in Illinois outside Chicago will have more flexibility to take paid time off than those in the city until July 1.

The sponsor of a state law intended to stop “deceptive” practices by anti-abortion advocates and centers said she is in “shock and dismay” over a pending legal arrangement agreed to by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul that will effectively nullify the law that he championed.

In what could be a preview of the 2024 Academy Awards, “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Oppenheimer” received top honors from the Chicago Film Critics Association.

Andre Braugher, the Emmy-winning actor who would master gritty drama for seven seasons on “Homicide: Life on The Street” and modern comedy for eight on “Brooklyn 99,” died Monday at 61.