In Illinois, an estimated 3.3 million people have criminal records, which can include everything from an arrest to years spent in prison. But even once their criminal case has run its course, the punishment continues. Those who know the system best are working to make change for those looking to rebuild their lives.

The first installment of our new series, Permanent Punishment, about life with a criminal record. The mayor’s election year budget address. Boiling down recycling in Chicago. And the Supreme Court’s next term.

Chicago has long had a tortured relationship with recycling. City leaders have scrapped old programs and replaced them with new ones, but the result is the same  recycling rates in the single digits. 

A record can include everything from an arrest— not necessarily even a conviction — to years spent in prison. But even once that criminal case has run its course in the legal system, oftentimes the punishment continues.

Chicago bills itself as a world-class city, but when it comes to recycling, its performance has been less than first-rate. 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to close a projected $170.6 million budget gap in 2023 relies on booming tax revenues that she said proves Chicago’s budget has fully recovered from the economic catastrophe caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Monday’s session also is the first time new Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court’s first Black female justice, will participate in arguments. And the public is back for the first time since the court closed in March 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

A new high school is slated to be built at 24th and State streets, with the recent blessing of the Chicago Board of Education. It was a tight 4-3 vote, an indication of how controversial the plan is considering that residents of Chinatown, the South Loop and surrounding communities have been asking for a new school for decades.

Last year, the National Kidney Foundation launched Kidney Health for Life, a campaign focused on educating and targeting the high rate of kidney disease among the Black, Asian and Latino populations.

Controversy over a new school on the near South Side, we have a live report. The latest on Hurricane Ian. Northwestern plans a new billion dollar football stadium. And raising awareness around kidney disease.

To many, Queen Elizabeth's 70-year reign was a symbol of tradition and stability that linked the present to the past. But on her death, along with expressions of sympathy, many people from former colonies from Ireland to Kenya — and here in America — have pushed back on the glorification of the monarchy and empire.

Northwestern University on Wednesday unveiled plans for a state-of-the-art $800 million stadium, which would replace the almost 100-year-old Ryan Field. 

Floodwaters rose waist-high near Orlando as one of the strongest hurricanes to ever hit the United States crossed the peninsula. Ian's tropical-storm-force winds extended outward up to 415 miles, drenching much of Florida and the southeastern Atlantic coast.