SPRINGFIELD – Gov. JB Pritzker signed legislation Wednesday that puts new controls on the state’s health insurance industry, including bans on certain practices companies have used to reduce costs by controlling the amount of health care services a patient receives. The Health Care Protection Act, House Bill 5395,...

Newlyweds Crystal and Belinda Richardson settled into their lawn chairs midday Saturday, sipping their drinks and watching the afternoon unfold as thousands of jubilant fest goers streamed into the sixth annual Pride South Side celebration. Most of the estimated 7,000 event attendees wore casual outfits for the warm weather as...

Mahari, a new fusion eatery by Hyde Park-born chef Rahim Muhammad, is bringing cuisines from across the African diaspora to the Hyde Park Shopping Center in August. Hailing from a long line of chefs, Muhammad said Mahari is the amalgamation of his familial roots in the Dominican Republic and Louisiana, and his time spent exploring the Caribbean and the American South.

Three men were wounded in a drive-by shooting outside of the University of Chicago Medical Center Sunday morning, Chicago police said. According to CPD, at around 5:19 a.m. on July 7, three men on the 5700 block of South Cottage Grove Avenue were approached by an unknown man in an SUV, who began firing shots. A 51-year-old sustained a graze wound to his nose, a 29-year-old was shot in the right thigh and a 31-year-old was shot in the right lower leg. All men were transported to the U. of C. Medical center in stable condition.

Movies on the Midway, a free weekly series of children’s movies and outdoor activities, returns to the Midway Plaisance tomorrow night. Hosted by the University of Chicago, Movies on the Midway will take place every Wednesday through early August at 1130 Midway Plaisance, between Ellis and University avenues. All activities will begin at 7 p.m.

Reverend Robert Jones, a Bronzeville pastor and community advocate, is running for the 10th District school board seat to expand and strengthen the Sustainable Community Schools program and establish more equity between the city’s public schools. In an interview with the Herald, Jones said his campaign for the new...

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Promontory Point Conservancy is writing to respond to questions coming up at Morgan Shoal community meetings about accessibility to the water at Promontory Point. There are many creative and innovative opportunities at both Morgan Shoal and Promontory Point for ADA access for all. Since 2003, Promontory Point Conservancy has advocated...

James “Dr. Jim” Walton, a former Chicago Public Schools (CPS) principal and administrator who was in the running for the 10th District school board seat, dropped out of the race Monday after several ballot objections challenging his candidacy were filed with the Chicago Board of Elections last week.

Almost two months after its rebrand, the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry is settling into its new name. Spurred by the $125 million donation from billionaire Citadel founder Kenneth Griffin, the new name has begun to appear on the neighborhood’s banners, benches and the No. 10 bus route that heads directly to the museum.

Mash together a broad sitcom and a dysfunctional family melodrama, and you have the recipe for Katori Hall's “The Hot Wing King,” which won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The atypical ingredient is that the characters are mostly gay men. Hall (“The Mountaintop”) has said she wanted to mirror her brother's experiences, and the format allows her to examine timely themes of masculinity and parenthood seasoned by ever-popular onstage cooking.

Chicago’s own Cedille Records, a company that records primarily Chicago-based artists but has an international reach, has released a new double-CD recording by Will Liverman. This talented baritone came to Chicago as a member of Lyric Opera’s Ryan Center, a program to enhance the development of young opera singers, and now entertains music lovers around the country, regularly performing in major opera houses, including the Met.

In 1967, William Walker (1927-2011) helped launch the public art movement in Chicago when he and colleagues created the “Wall of Respect,” a mural of famous Black heroes and artists across the entire side of a two-story, shuttered tavern at 43rd Street and Langley Avenue. And so, art...

Pride South Side, the sixth annual festival celebrating the life, legacy and history of LGBTQ+ people on Chicago’s South Side, is back at the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center this Saturday. With the theme “Right to Pride,” this year’s festival aims to celebrate the legacy of LGBTQ+...

A 67-year-old man who was walking in Woodlawn Monday night was critically injured after getting caught in the crossfire between two unknown gunmen, Chicago Police said. At about 9:50 p.m. on July 1, the man was walking along the sidewalk on the 400 block of East 61st Street when two people opened fire on each other, striking the man in his chest. Both of the shooters fled and the 67-year-old was transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center in critical condition.

The U.S. Supreme Court announced Tuesday it will not take up any of the pending challenges to the law until the cases have been fully heard in lower courts. Illinois lawmakers enacted the ban last year in response to a mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park in 2022 that left seven people dead and dozens more injured.

The Chicago Park District installed a swinging gate at a service entrance off of South DuSable Lake Shore Drive Friday, the district’s latest move to curb personal vehicle access to the lakefront. The gate was installed just south of Promontory Point, between 55th and 56th streets on the east...

First, thanks for the incredible article about my life and times in the last issue. The writer, Max Blaisdell did his best to transcribe a zillion details which is very difficult to do perfectly. One detail is significant. In the part of the story where he writes that in 1978 the Chas Levy Company sent "goons" to persuade a man across the street from my Hyde Park Bob's Newsstand to sell his lease to them so they could do harm to me, that isn't correct. While the incident DID happen and their stated plan expressed to the man who held the lease from the Illinois Central Railroad was to knock a hole in the brick wall of the viaduct at 51st and Lake Park face me so they could sell magazine at 50% off the cover price and put Bob's out of business, the men who approached the man who owned the lease there and sold fruit sand vegetables to commuters morning and night, were executives from the Levy company. Regular people, not physically threatening in any way. The space's owner, a proud and dignified Black man, was highly offended that they would try to use his space to harm me no matter how much cash they offered him to leave, and that the men felt he would be easy for them to push out of the way. He refused to deal with them, and he himself, mockingly, threatened to call some of his friends to "mess them up" unless they got the hell out of his little shop under the tracks, which they instantly did, he told me years later. I never knew this story until his last day of business in 1983. His name was James and he was a real life hero secretly saving my business during a bitter war for distribution in Hyde Park and the jobs of about 20 adults and children who sold newspapers and magazines to the public.

Since the beautiful Washington Park Pool opened for the season last week, I have attempted twice to use it. However, its rules and schedule are so mysterious that I have so far found swimming there pretty much impossible. My first attempt was on Juneteenth. I was excited to see it...