The 18th annual 79th Street Renaissance Festival returns to Auburn Gresham on Saturday, Sept. 9, with entertainment, food, community resources and a carnival including a 50-foot-tall Ferris wheel.

The picture for student loan debt has been pretty tumultuous over the last couple of years. Borrowers will soon begin repaying their federal student loans after a forbearance period ends this month.

Student loan payments are resuming — what’s being done to provide relief. What’s behind the soaring number of opioid overdose deaths. And a sit-down with the new leader of Rainbow PUSH.

In 1992, native South Sider Captain Bill Pinkney became the first African American to sail around the world solo via the Southern Capes. It was a feat that took 22 months, which he chronicled in a video diary and in a documentary.

In the 55 years since his death, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is often quoted and revered, an icon. But in the new book “King: A Life,” author Jonathan Eig draws King as “a man, not a saint, not a symbol” — delivering far more nuance than history has allowed.

The nonprofit Safer Foundation provides assistance to citizens returning from incarceration. Much of its work is made possible thanks to the Second Chance Act, which was championed by longtime U.S. Rep. Danny K. Davis and passed in 2008 with bipartisan support.

Chicago is one of 18 cities participating in the Heat Watch 2023 program with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in which community volunteers collect temperature and humidity data to analyze for underlying reasons and potential mitigation efforts.

Labor Day weekend will once again be filled with the sounds of jazz at the Chicago Jazz Festival, a four-day showcase of all forms of jazz including a lineup of local, national and international artists.

The impact of this week’s extreme heat on Black communities. The definitive life of Martin Luther King Jr. in this week’s Black Voices Book Club. Honoring a longtime congressman. And the Chicago Jazz Fest.

Data has shown that Black students in CPS schools are disproportionately subject to discipline, underrepresented in the city’s top-rated high schools and have to travel the farthest of any demographic group to get to school.

Black women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than White women, according to the Centers for Disease Control. It’s a grim reality that led advocates to start The Gathering campaign.

It’s back to school for CPS students — we talk about the challenges ahead this school year. A new effort to reduce maternal mortality. And The Last Word on mentoring.

In her sophomore year of college, Jamila Trimuel became a mentor. In 2011, she started her own organization, Ladies of Virtue, which offers mentorship and support to girls ages 9-18.

The Deeply Rooted Center for Black Dance and Creative Communities will be a state-of-the-art facility on the Washington Park State Street Corridor.

Black and Latino students in health care career paths recently shared their findings on past experiments during a summer internship program at Rush University Medical Center.

The city of Chicago and the Illinois Attorney General’s Office negotiated an agreement to shift oversight of CPD’s stop-and-frisk practices into a consent decree governing the department.