Stories by Heather Cherone

Approximately 26,850 Chicagoans who lost their jobs or found their paychecks scaled back because of the COVID-19 pandemic applied for $137 million in grants designed to stave off a wave of evictions and keep the lights on across Chicago, officials said Monday.

Aldermen are poised to settle a lawsuit alleging that four paramedics were sexually harassed by fellow members of the Chicago Fire Department — three by the same person — and another was retaliated against for reporting that she had been harassed.

Some of the nation’s largest metropolitan regions have become increasingly segregated in the last 30 years, underscoring racial inequalities that have led to poorer life outcomes in Black and brown neighborhoods, according to a study released Monday.

More than 1 million people were under a tornado warning late Sunday as a line of storms ripped through the Chicago area. At least one tornado touched down and left in its wake a path of destruction through Naperville, Woodridge and Darien, according to the National Weather Service.

A report released last week indicates that deaths of people of color are severely undercounted and much more needs to be done to produce an accurate database that collects ethnicity information.

Cleanup is underway following massive storms in Chicago’s suburbs. Anti-violence efforts in Humboldt Park. The Supreme Court deals a blow to the NCAA. Nightclubs reopen. The world of “freak bikes.”

The decision comes as opposition among Japanese to holding the Games in July remains high, though may be softening, and as new infections in Tokyo have begun to subside.

From the Civil War to the civil rights movement and everything in between, the lives of these prominent Black Chicagoans are educating others. We visit Oak Woods Cemetery for a lesson.

In 1921, Georgiana Rose Simpson became America’s first black woman to graduate with a Ph.D. How her trailblazing achievement is being honored at her alma mater through the new group GRO.

We celebrate Juneteenth by tracing history through a cemetery of prominent Chicagoans, remembering one of the first Black women to receive her Ph.D. and sitting down with an award-winning chef.

The dog was one of 34 animals — 33 dogs and one cat — imported by an animal rescue organization from Azerbaijan to O’Hare International Airport in Chicago on June 10. 

The short answer: It’s likely safe and effective, but researchers are still gathering data to be sure.

Inside the Logan Square Blue Line CTA station, a subterranean gallery features a selection of photographs from a new book about gentrification and preservation in the neighborhood, which was, for decades, a predominantly Latino community.

Chicago high school students Isabela Ávila and Francisco Villaseñor give us the last word on creating meaningful change in local communities.

A fight to save historic city housing. Capturing a changing Logan Square. The life and work of renowned artist Frida Kahlo. And two high schoolers on making a difference in their communities. 

As the state’s eviction moratorium winds down, a housing crisis looms in Chicago. Now, a coalition of community organizations is trying to keep at-risk families in their homes and save the multifamily housing stock that helped build Chicago.

When it reopens its doors July 1, the National Museum of Mexican Art will be kicking off operations with a major financial boost after it received an $8 million donation from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott.

Parades, picnics and lessons in history were offered Saturday to commemorate Juneteenth in the U.S., a day that carried even more significance after Congress and President Joe Biden created a federal holiday to observe the end of slavery.

Hundreds of top companies had already pledged last year to observe Juneteenth in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd and the national reckoning on racism that followed.

After a year of protests over police brutality, some Republican-controlled states have ignored or blocked police-reform proposals, moving instead in the other direction by granting greater powers to officers, making it harder to discipline them and expanding their authority to crack down on demonstrations.

Mayor Lightfoot pushes for changes to the elected school board bill that already passed. City violence spikes again. Aldermen battle the mayor over liquor sales. And renaming Lake Shore Drive.

This year alone, legislation to make Juneteenth a paid state holiday died in Florida and South Dakota and is stalled in Ohio, all states controlled by Republicans. But even in Maryland, where Democrats control the Legislature, a Juneteenth bill passed one chamber only to die in the other.

President Biden hasn’t said whether he’d back a bill introduced by fellow Democrats to strike the death penalty from U.S. statutes. He also hasn’t rescinded Trump-era protocols enabling federal executions to resume and allowing prisons to use firing squads if necessary, something many thought he’d do on day one.

U.S. regulators cleared the way for Max jets to resume flying late last year after Boeing made changes, including overhauling flight-control software that played a role in the crashes. This spring, about 100 new Max jets were idled for several weeks because of an unrelated problem with electrical grounding of cockpit instruments.

A long-stalled plan to put an elected board of Chicago residents in charge of the Chicago Police Department remains mired in limbo after a razor-thin vote Friday.

The U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels will perform from noon to 1 p.m. on Aug. 21 and Aug. 22 after practicing from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Aug. 20.