Cicada Watch 2024 is reaching fever pitch in the Chicago region, where Brood XIII periodical cicadas are expected to burst from the ground by the millions, any day now. Here’s what’s in store.

A big change to the school funding formula — what it could mean for students and teachers. And how Chicago police are responding to pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

CPS is anticipating a budget deficit of $391 million for the coming school year as COVID-19 relief funding runs out. That deficit is expected to rise to $700 million the following year.

Activists have sued in federal court, alleging First Amendment violations because the city has only offered permits for demonstrations miles from the United Center, where Biden is scheduled to accept the Democratic presidential nomination.

Chicago is set to host the Democratic National Convention this summer. It will be the city’s 27th time hosting a national political convention. Chicago conventions have been some of the most memorable, raucous and consequential in American history.

 Chicago native Sendy L. Soto became  the city’s first chief homelessness officer. Part of her new role will be to devise a five-year plan to end homelessness. 

The Field Museum ushered in a new era of scientific exploration with Monday’s unveiling of the Chicago Archaeopteryx.

Meet Chicago’s first chief homelessness officer. Birds are modern-day dinosaurs — the Field Museum says it now has a rare fossil to prove it.

Only 13 specimens of Archaeopteryx — and one special feather — are known to exist since the first Archaeopteryx fossils were discovered in 1860. Most come from the same deposit of Solnhofen Limestone in Bavaria, Germany.

Shake any family tree, and a few skeletons are bound to fall out — that’s as true for birds as it is for people. Except that for birds, the wacky cousin lurking in one of those branches is T. Rex.

WTTW News sat down with paleornithologist Jingmai O’Connor and talked about dinosaurs, birds, the Chicago Archaeopteryx, evolution and why studying fossil birds is more important now than ever.

Tensions rise over encampments at local universities. And the mayor’s relationship with the Chicago Police Department, as a manhunt leads to murder charges.

Five years ago, Chicago police Officer Derrick Jones Jr. went from responding to calls on the job to becoming a victim of gun violence himself. Now, for the first time publicly, he’s sharing his story about life as a survivor.