Stories by WTTW News

Health care for newly arrived migrants. Residents fight a metal scrapping facility on the Southeast Side. And native Mexican cultures featured in a new exhibit.

The ritual of human sacrifice in Aztec culture provides the unlikely backdrop for a musical now running at City Lit Theater. 

When it comes to alleviating the impacts of climate change, trees have been promoted as the ultimate “green infrastructure.” But trees are living organisms, and they can be sensitive to some of the same climate stressors as people. But just how sensitive?

A black bear was caught on video running through the parking lot of a Gurnee daycare. Wildlife officials confirmed the sighting as the real deal.

The indictment accuses Trump of having improperly removed scores of boxes from the White House to take them to Mar-a-Lago, many of them containing classified information. The indictment carries unmistakably grave legal consequences, including the possibility of prison if Trump is convicted.

Chicago Department of Public Health officials determined last year the operation posed an “unacceptable risk” to the health of nearby residents, following Environmental Protection Agency investigations and activism from local residents who said their neighborhood could not withstand the pollution they believe the new Southside Recycling facility will bring.

Read the full indictment filed in U.S. District Court. 

CPS confirmed Friday that Stephanie Jones, the district’s chief of the Office of Diverse Learner Supports and Services (ODLSS), is stepping down from that role after four years effective immediately.

Last week, the location reopened with a dramatically pared back look. Why? Walgreens says it’s a digital-first experimental store to benefit customers. It’s not designed to deter theft, Walgreens says.

Donald Trump has been indicted on charges of mishandling classified documents at his Florida estate, a remarkable development that makes him the first former president in U.S. history to face criminal charges by the federal government that he once oversaw.

A local business group’s new public safety initiative. Ethical questions about government grants in Aurora. And Puerto Rican Fest kicks off today — we’re live from Humboldt Park.

The business group is proposing a “one table” approach to addressing gun violence with the goal of reducing homicides and shootings by about 80% in 10 years. 

A review of the grant application for Laura’s Furniture shows the company misrepresented whether it had previously received COVID-related government funding.

Fiestas Patronales Puertorriqueñas is a four-day event featuring live music, games and food all celebrating Puerto Rican culture.

Two very different musicals now on stage in Chicago — a revival of “West Side Story” at Lyric Opera, and a new work, “Lucy and Charlie’s Honeymoon,” at Lookingglass Theatre — are in many ways driven by the issue of immigration. 

Mayor Brandon Johnson, along with Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez and Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates, announced that the school district is in the process of expanding its paid parental leave up to 12 weeks for birthing and non-birthing parents.

Republicans are poised to launch aggressive get-out-the-vote campaigns for 2024 that employ just those strategies, attempting to match the emphasis on early voting Democrats have used for years to lock in many of their supporters well ahead of Election Day.

With large swaths of the U.S. shrouded in smoke from Canadian wildfires, now's a good time to review the basics of the Environmental Protection Agency's Air Quality Index.

Summer festivals, a dance performance and a 46-foot dinosaur usher in the weekend. Here are five things to do in Chicago.

Mayor Brandon Johnson and Chicago Bears President Kevin Warren met Wednesday, a clear sign that relations between the city and the Monsters of the Midway have thawed, which may set the stage for talks to keep the team in Chicago, if not at Soldier Field.

One on one with superstar Chance the Rapper. Part Two in our series on elder prison parole in Illinois. Does Chicago still have a shot at keeping the Bears? And the last day of school for CPS students.

Leaders of Chicago's environmental justice movement are confident Mayor Brandon Johnson has their backs – and they won’t have to fight City Hall as well as the businesses that they blame causing high rates of cancer, heart disease, respiratory ailments and asthma by polluting the air they breathe.

More than half of IDOC inmates serving a life sentence are 55 or older. Caring for an aging prison population is a costly endeavor, advocates say, and the health care elderly prisoners do receive often falls short. That’s why some are calling for a new parole system.

Antwon Harrison, 24, was held without bail during a hearing Wednesday after he was charged with two counts of attempted murder stemming from a shooting incident Monday evening.

The bill came in response to a flurry of lawsuits filed in recent years in courthouses throughout the state challenging such things as Pritzker’s COVID-19 mitigation orders, a law that would end cash bail, and, most recently, the state’s ban on assault-style weapons and large-capacity magazines.

While Canadian officials asked other countries for help fighting more than 400 blazes nationwide that already have displaced 20,000 people, air quality with what the U.S. rates as hazardous levels of pollution extended into central New York.