Former WTTW reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist Judy Valente first visited Mount St. Scholastica monastery to lead a retreat for busy professionals. She kept returning to the monastery in Atchison, Kansas as a student. She shares her journey of spiritual healing in her new book, Atchison Blue. Read an excerpt.

Chicago music legend Curtis Mayfield is remembered onstage at Black Ensemble Theater. We talk with the two men who portray Mayfield in the play, including one who knew him. Read an interview with the theater's founder and watch a web extra video of Mayfield from WTTW's archives.

We share what you had to say about violence in Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's plan to build or expand Chicago schools, and tougher Illinois gun laws in tonight’s viewer feedback.

Will the Cornell Square Park shooting be the catalyst for Springfield to toughen Illinois gun laws? Paris Schutz has the latest on what Mayor Rahm Emanuel had to say.

The Environmental Protection Agency sampled a small number of Chicago homes and found higher levels of lead where water pipes were disturbed by street work and plumbing repairs. We have analysis. Read the EPA study.

Alan Dixon talks about 40 years of public service in his new book, The Gentleman from Illinois. Read an excerpt and watch web extra interviews with Dixon from WTTW's archives.

It’s the world’s most powerful digital camera and it sits atop the Blanco telescope in the Andes Mountains of Chile. But it was constructed on the campus of Fermilab in far west suburban Batavia. The Dark Energy Camera officially began its work on August 31 and has already captured some amazing images of outer space. Its real mission, though, is to help scientists figure out if so-called Dark Energy is responsible for the universe’s accelerating expansion. We learn how the camera is helping scientists unravel one of the greatest mysteries in the cosmos. Watch videos and view a slideshow.

Randall Wells, one of the world’s leading dolphin researchers, joins us to discuss the longest-running study of a wild dolphin population and his commitment to conservation. Read an interview and view a slideshow.

Lawmakers take the governor to court over getting their paychecks back. Paris Schutz has the latest. Read the full lawsuit.

We take a look at what Bill Daley was like inside the Obama administration. Read a book excerpt.

Chicago and Cook County home prices are up nearly 12 percent in the second quarter of 2013. We get the latest on the housing recovery from Geoff Smith, the Executive Director of the Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University, and Loretta Alonzo, the 2012 president of the Illinois Association of Realtors.

We hear the latest on the big rollout of the CTA’s new Ventra card fare payment system, the status of the CTA’s Ashland Avenue Bus Rapid Transit proposal, and the CTA’s push to keep riders away from the dangerous third rail and oncoming trains.

The horrors of the meatpacking industry are well-documented in history but the current state of meat production may be equally as grim. We talk with the “conscience of the food movement,” vegan activist Gene Baur. See before-and-after photos and read stories of Farm Sanctuary’s successful rescues.