According to the state, of the business selected for the cannabis licenses, 41% are majority Black owned, 7% are majority White owned, 4% are majority Latino owned and 38% did not disclose the owner’s race.

A career development initiative has taken root on Chicago’s South Side for young people who want to improve the health of their community.

A grassroots movement fighting homelessness in Chicago. A public art initiative aims to inspire climate action. And kids exploring opportunities in the performing arts. 

A new proposal would increase the city’s real estate transfer tax, a one-time tax paid when a property is sold, by nearly 2% on properties over $1 million. An advocacy organization says the move would impact about 4% of properties sold and would generate $163 million to fund permanent affordable housing with services.        

As brutal heat waves sweep across the globe, calls to address the effects of climate change have become increasingly urgent. But in addition to large-scale policy efforts, making lasting change often starts with individuals.

Hoops in the Hood is taking over the streets of Chicago this summer by bringing kids and teens together to play basketball in their neighborhood backyards. Chicago Tonight’s Joanna Hernandez hears more about the mission behind the program and the leaders who are driven to make a change. 

Both Chicago and Cook County are in the process of launching guaranteed income programs that will provide more than 8,000 residents with $500 a month, no strings attached. While applications for Cook County residents will open in the fall, Chicago residents have started receiving monthly payments.

Checks begin rolling out for Chicago’s guaranteed income pilot program. Plus, how the Nature Conservancy is connecting teens to nature. And honoring White Sox favorite Minnie Miñoso.

Community members ask why the response to Highland Park was different than responses to deadly weekends in Chicago. Plus, Blackness is Golden and a poetic tribute to powerful Black men and women. 

“When Blackness was Golden!: Observation from the front line” is a memoir by Pemon Rami. It’s a coming of age story that gives readers a look into the civil rights movement in Chicago and an era when Black culture and excellence were on the rise.

A Chicago spoken word artist is celebrating Black men and women with a collection of poems praising and acknowledging their accomplishments. Harold Green’s “Black Roses and Black Oak” are odes to celebrities, leaders and changemakers.

Seven people were killed and 46 others injured in the mass shooting. That same holiday weekend, eight people were killed and 60 others wounded in shootings across Chicago. As support pours in for Highland Park, some Chicago residents are left wondering why the gun violence in the city doesn’t receive the same attention.

A new revelation in the decades-old lynching of Emmett Till, what advocates are calling for. Plus, the nation's first Black attorney general joins us. And the Last Word on Africa and innovation.

Highlighting African innovation is the goal of the Field Museum’s new assistant curator of African anthropology, Foreman Bandama. 

In the basement of a Mississippi courthouse in late June members of the Minnesota-based Emmett Till Legacy Foundation discovered an unserved warrant. Now the foundation, which includes members of Till’s family, is demanding that the warrant be served.

“The Billboard,” a book-turned-play, follows a fictional health clinic in Englewood at the center of a political race and fight for reproductive rights. It was written by WBEZ reporter Natalie Moore.