Stories by Grace Del Vecchio

Protesters lined the corner of Austin Boulevard and Fullerton Avenue on Sunday, holding signs linking animals to viral outbreaks, like Ebola and COVID-19. One sign simply read: “We are one pandemic away from collapse.”

Boosting the census response in hard-to-count communities. Black Chicago police officers tell us what the job is like right now. And a visit to a West Side record store that sells a little bit of everything.

Community leaders and elected officials have been making a big push to get the city’s and state’s response rates up.

“I think it’s more than a suggestion that people are seeking to do harm to cops,” Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown told reporters at a recent briefing. 

The Kenosha police officer who shot Jacob Blake in the back seven times last month told investigators he thought Blake was trying to abduct one of his own children.

New coronavirus cases reported by state health officials bring statewide totals to 287,930 cases and 8,601 deaths since the first infection was reported in Illinois in late January.

Through desperate efforts to save their lives, scientists now better understand how to treat and prevent the disease — and millions of others may survive.

Each year, city officials define a budget for Chicago. While the city budget process includes public hearings, an event Saturday sought to get community input on their budget priorities.

President Donald Trump hailed Judge Amy Coney Barrett as “a woman of remarkable intellect and character,” saying he had studied her record closely before making the pick.

Educator Ray Salazar has the last word on the unprecedented challenges facing Chicago teachers and students during the coronavirus pandemic.

Latinos are easy to spot at movie theaters, but not so much on the big screen. A one-on-one conversation with the director of the Chicago Latino Film Festival.

A federal judge has ordered the 2020 census schedule to continue until the end of October. We discuss efforts to boost response rates and get as accurate a count as possible.

More time for the census count, but will it matter? Straight talk about Latino representation in Hollywood. How some Southwest Siders are helping people stay connected during the pandemic.

About eight officers a year have been arrested and charged with murder or manslaughter for killings in the U.S. since 2005. Around 1,000 people a year are shot and killed by law enforcement across the country.

President Donald Trump is planning to announce his choice of the 48-year-old Indiana judge at a Saturday afternoon press conference, setting Barrett on the path to help conservatives hold sway over the court for decades to come.

More than 40 people have gotten sick and four have been hospitalized, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.

The U.S. is averaging more than 40,000 new confirmed cases a day. While that number is dramatically lower than the peak of nearly 70,000 over the summer, the numbers are worrisome nonetheless. 

Trump said Friday he had made up his mind and it was “very exciting,” without giving away the name, aiming to maintain some suspense around his personal announcement. 

A Supreme Court confirmation battle rages. President Trump won’t commit to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose. Chicago reacts to the Breonna Taylor decision, and Bears fans mourn the death of the legendary Gale Sayers.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lay in state Friday at the U.S. Capitol as the first woman ever so honored, making history again as she had throughout her extraordinary life.

Breonna Taylor’s family demanded Friday that Kentucky authorities release all body camera footage, police files and the transcripts of the grand jury hearings that led to no charges against police officers who killed Taylor.

Several aldermen on Friday urged Chicago’s chief financial officer to dip into the city’s $900 million savings account to wipe out the massive budget shortfall caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

A federal judge has stopped the 2020 census from finishing at month’s end and suspended a year-end deadline for delivering the numbers needed to decide how many seats each state gets in Congress.

Superintendent David Brown said the charges came as part of “Operation Split Corners,” a three-month Chicago Police Department undertaking in the 15th (Austin) and 25th (Grand Central) Districts.

State health officials also reported 25 coronavirus-related deaths, including seven in Cook County.

Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old accused of killing two protesters days after Jacob Blake was shot by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Friday fought his return to Wisconsin to face homicide charges that could put him in prison for life.