Masks must be worn in Illinois schools when students and staff return to the classroom in the coming weeks. But a just-filed lawsuit could void that statewide executive order. We talk with the attorney who filed it — and a local pediatrician. 

The former 22nd Ward alderman appears set to plead guilty three months after being indicted on charges that he drained more than $38,000 from the bank account of the City Council’s Progressive Reform Caucus and used those funds to pay for trips, jewelry, iPhones and tickets to sporting events.

After several delays, the first phase of the sex trafficking trial of R&B hitmaker R. Kelly started Monday with jury selection in New York City.

Opponents of the Obama Presidential Center’s construction in Jackson Park suffered another legal setback Thursday in federal court.

A Black family is suing the Chicago police department, saying officers broke down their door and pointed guns at two small children while searching the place and then tried to cover up that they had no evidence to justify the raid.

Ten people from the city and suburbs face the potential of decades behind bars after they allegedly used counterfeit U.S. Postal Service money orders to fraudulently obtain hundreds of thousands of dollars from area banks.

R&B star R. Kelly gained weight and lost money while he awaits a sex-trafficking trial that starts in earnest next week, his lawyers said Tuesday at a court hearing.

Chicago police Officer Karol Chwiesiuk, who was charged for his alleged role in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, may lose his job, his attorneys claim, because he’s been forced to turn over his firearm owner identification card as part of the conditions for his release from jail.

Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Illinois’ only governor to be impeached and removed from office, was back at the Dirksen federal courthouse on Monday, but this time it was on his own volition — rather than as a defendant in criminal proceedings.

In a 10-page ruling, Judge James Linn ordered that Jussie Smollett may continue using attorney Nenye Uche to represent him in the actor’s disorderly conduct case, despite a push from Special Prosecutor Dan Webb to have Uche removed.

A Cook County judge has appointed Lawrence Oliver to serve as special prosecutor in the case of Jackie Wilson, who wrongfully spent decades behind bars for a double murder he didn’t commit.

Federal authorities on Tuesday announced that Jose Valdovinos had been arrested earlier this week after a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging him with maliciously damaging and destroying a building in June 2020.

R. Kelly’s lawyers said Monday they would fight prosecutors’ bid to tell jurors about allegations beyond the actual charges  at his upcoming federal sex trafficking trial. 

While the number of women in prisons is relatively small compared to the number of incarcerated men, the rate of female incarceration is on the rise. Black women in particular are overrepresented in the nation’s jails and prisons.

Federal prosecutors in R. Kelly’s sex trafficking case say he had sexual contact with an underage boy in addition to girls, and the government wants jurors in his upcoming sex trafficking trial to hear those claims. 

The city is expanding a program that works to keep people from getting a drug offense and, instead, places them into treatment. Eleven police districts are currently eligible for the program, but officials say it will be available in all districts by the end of the year.