Dick Durbin. (WTTW News)

The concept of the Equal Rights Amendment has been around for a century, but it's getting a renewed push of momentum in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the federal right to abortion.

President Joe Biden talks with reporters after speaking in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Jan 20, 2023. (AP Photo / Susan Walsh, File)

Biden should be “embarrassed by the situation,” said Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, adding that the president had ceded the moral high ground on an issue that has already entangled former President Donald Trump. 

(WTTW News)
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Monuments can be created by the stroke of a president’s pen, and undone by the same. As a national historical park, Pullman now has added protections.

Maj. Tom Schueman, left, and Travis Haggerty, right, are trying to help Zainullah Zaki stay in the United States. (Courtesy of Travis Haggerty)

An Afghan interpreter who served alongside U.S. Marines fled the country with his family over safety concerns. Now, his Special Immigrant Visa was denied for the last time. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., grins as he emerges from the closed-door Senate Democratic Caucus leadership election at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 8, 2022. (AP Photo / J. Scott Applewhite)

Senate Democrats met behind closed doors at the Capitol to choose their leadership team for the new Congress that begins in January. The session was quick and upbeat, with no challengers. 

An abandoned rail spur on 59th Street is inching toward becoming the elevated Englewood Nature Trail. Pictured in 2020. (Patty Wetli / WTTW News)
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Federal officials popped into Chicago Friday to celebrate the awarding of a $20 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to the Englewood Nature Trail.

(WTTW News)

One of the priorities is a bill to protect more than 600,000 so-called Dreamers under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA program, which Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin aims to work with Republican senators.

Immigrants protected by the DACA program, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, have been in limbo over the last few years as the program has been challenged in the courts. Now, just weeks before the next Congressional session begins some are hoping to use the lame-duck session to protect the program.

Sen. Dick Durbin appears on “Chicago Tonight” on Oct. 17, 2022. (WTTW News)

As co-chair of the Senate’s Ukraine Caucus, Sen. Dick Durbin said any push to sit down at the negotiation table and offer Russia territory that it illegally took must come from the Ukrainians, not Western pressure.

Donations for migrants arriving from Texas. (WTTW News)

As buses of migrants arrive from Texas, the city of Chicago and local community organizations are working to get the newly arrived people settled.

Former U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez speaks about the launch of Our Nation’s Future at the Union League Club of Chicago, Friday June 17, 2022. (WTTW News)

Former U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez and Senator Dick Durbin announced the formation of a new immigration reform organization called “Our Nation’s Future.” 

(WTTW News)

So far this year there have been 24 shootings in K-12 schools across the country. A sobering statistic that Illinois' Senator Durbin gave in his opening remarks of a Senate Judiciary Committee today. Senators questioned President Biden's nominee for the director of the nation's top gun enforcement agency — a position that has been vacant for seven years.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson speaks to the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 21, 2022. (CNN)

Senate confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson began with opening statements from both sides of the aisle, and from Jackson herself, who alluded to the historic nature of her nomination.

(skeeze / Pixabay)

The Senate Judiciary Committee that U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin chairs begins a series of hearings Monday into President Joe Biden’s nominee for the high court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. 

Sen. Dick Durbin chairs a Senate committee hearing on carjackings on March 1, 2022. (WTTW News)
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Both locally and nationally, carjackings are on the rise. In Chicago, they have tripled over the last decade, according to the Cook County sheriff’s office. Other cities including New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. have also seen similar upticks.

Former Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke enters the courtroom for his sentencing hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building on Friday, Jan. 18, 2019. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune / Pool)

Illinois Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth want to know more about a federal investigation into the 2014 killing of Black teen Laquan McDonald.