The Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission will hold an emergency meeting on Monday to withdraw a temporary, emergency rule put in place earlier this month.

The Brighton Park Neighborhood Council provides a wide range of social services and programming on Chicago’s Southwest Side. We learn how it’s adjusting to community needs sparked by the pandemic.

As part of our series on the local impact of the coronavirus, a report from the Southwest Side, where a troubling situation has gotten worse as the pandemic has intensified.

Things were starting to look up in Hegewisch when the pandemic hit. The community spent years trying to recover from a massive loss of manufacturing, and has regularly dealt with pollution from nearby industry. 

Located in the Hegewisch neighborhood, Ford Motor Company’s Chicago Assembly Plant employs close to 6,000 people, most of them hourly workers. Will they be headed back to work soon?

In the Northwest Side neighborhood of Montclare, residents are quietly on edge, worried about the coronavirus and the prolonged economic shutdown it prompted, which has ravaged the hundreds of small businesses in the area.

A new bill to replenish a multibillion-dollar fund aimed at helping small businesses keep workers on the payroll failed to materialize Monday. We get a status check on the Paycheck Protection Program.

Some big restaurant chains have obtained loans from the government under a small-business relief program, leading business groups to cry foul even though the loans are within the guidelines of the lending program.

Agriculture is one of Illinois’ main industries. But like many other sectors, it’s taking a beating because of the coronavirus.

The government said 5.2 million more Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, bringing the four-week total to about 22 million out of a work force of 159 million — easily the worst stretch of U.S. job losses on record. 

The novel coronavirus has closed schools, restaurants, bars and businesses throughout the state, and on Wednesday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker revealed how the pandemic will cause a $2.7 billion shortfall this year and a $4.6 billion shortfall next year.

The West Side neighborhood of Austin has become a hot spot for COVID-19 cases. According to the city, it falls into a zip code that has recorded a COVID-19 case rate of between 431-720 people per 100,000. 

Social distancing and the statewide stay-at-home order has changed the way reporters gather and share the news. We check in with Michael Romain, editor of the Austin Weekly News, as part of our series COVID-19 Across Chicago.

Between March 1 and April 4, the state received 513,173 initial unemployment claims, surpassing the total number of claims filed in 2019, according to Gov. J.B. Pritzker. 

Whether working from home or reporting from the street, journalists provide information to keep communities safe and healthy. We check in with some members of the local independent media to see how they’re faring with this developing story.

Everyone knows the basics: Clean your hands. Wipe down surfaces. But for more on how to protect yourself from the coronavirus, we spoke with a local chemical supplier.