One year ago, crews imploded the smokestack at the defunct Crawford coal plant, sending a plume of dust over Little Village but illuminating the impact that toxic air pollution caused by industrial operations has had on South and West side neighborhoods for decades.

The Chicago Teachers Union’s House of Delegates on Sunday evening voted to keep high school staffers out of schools beginning Wednesday as the union continues negotiating with CPS over how to safely reopen those schools.

The Illinois Department of Corrections will resume in-person visits at its facilities statewide over the next month, giving prisoners a chance to see their loved ones for the first time in more than a year.

The vaccines currently being rolled out across the U.S. offer strong protection against variants. But new studies of experimental updates to the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines mark a critical first step toward an alternative if the virus eventually outsmarts today’s shots.

The expansion of vaccine eligibility to any Illinois adult regardless of their age, health or employment does not include the city of Chicago. However, Chicagoans can travel outside of the city to be vaccinated, officials said, though supplies are still limited.

The number of coronavirus cases statewide continues to climb as officials reported Friday more than 4,000 new and probable cases, as well as 21 virus-related deaths.

The spread of the U.K. variant is helping to fuel a surge in COVID-19 cases in Chicago and across Illinois, according to Dr. Allison Arwady, the commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health.

Suburban Cook County residents ages 16 and older will be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine beginning Monday, and while eligibility in Chicago doesn’t expand until April 19, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said adults in Chicago are also “absolutely welcome” to sign up at any state-run mass vaccination site starting Monday.

A preliminary study from Johns Hopkins University finds that fewer than 20% of organ transplant patients generated an antibody response to their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. The research raises questions about vaccine protection for those patients and others with weakened immune systems.

Suburban Cook County health officials are extremely concerned with the rise in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations but are holding off on reimposing mitigations to curb the spread of the virus, at least for now.

More than 20 colleges and universities across the country are looking for students to enroll in a clinical trial to see if the COVID-19 vaccine prevents infection and spread of the virus among them.

In recent months, the percentage of Black and Latino Chicagoans who have gotten the COVID-19 vaccine has increased significantly, in part through the city’s priority zip code program. But hurdles remain in getting shots to every community, especially as COVID-19 cases are once again on the rise.

The coronavirus pandemic and mitigation measures to control it have led to a huge drop in ridership on public transit. As more and more people get vaccinated and the economy reopens, are riders going to come back?

President Joe Biden announced Tuesday that he’s bumping up his deadline by two weeks for states to make all adults in the U.S. eligible for coronavirus vaccines. But even as he expressed optimism about the pace of vaccinations, he warned Americans that the nation is not yet out of the woods when it comes to the pandemic.

New funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will allow Illinois to “move quickly to further expand our aggressive efforts to reach those most vulnerable to COVID-19,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said in a statement. 

It’s been a violent start to 2021 in Chicago, which has recorded 131 homicides in the first three months of the year. Now, a measure sitting on Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk declares violence a public health crisis and takes aim at racial inequities in the state’s health care system.