Chicago | featured news

Teachers in Chicago went on strike for the first time in 25 years on Monday in a bitter dispute with Mayor Rahm Emanuel that is reverberating across the country as the issues at the core of the conflict — teacher evaluations tied to student test scores, a longer school day and other education policy changes — are being hotly debated from Hawaii to Maine.

U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. has returned to his home in Washington after treatment for depression at Mayo Clinic, Jackson's chief of staff in suburban Chicago said Friday.

Nineteen people were shot overnight in Chicago - more than a dozen of them in just half an hour - as the US city's gun violence epidemic continues. Thirteen of the victims were shot within a half-hour period, including eight in a drive-by shooting on a single street.

The producing team that helped to create such musicals as "Chicago" and "Hairspray" is overseeing the next Academy Awards ceremony. Academy management announced Thursday that Craig Zadan and Neil Meron will produce the 85th annual Oscars that will air live Feb. 24 on ABC.

A man was charged over the weekend with shooting at a Chicago-area mosque, in what an Islamic group described as a disturbing act of violence, according to a local report.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says a fast food chain’s opposition to gay marriage is none of “the government’s business.” Bloomberg said Friday that he strongly disagrees with the mayors of Boston, Chicago and San Francisco in that regard. Chick-fil-A’s (chihk-fih-LAYZ’) opposition to gay marriage has touched off a national furor. Gay rights groups have called for a boycott and the three mayors have said Chick-fil-A was not welcome in their cities.

Jury selection is to begin Monday in Drew Peterson's long-delayed murder trial, where prosecutors want the former suburban Chicago police officer's wives - one he's charged with slaying and another who has disappeared - to effectively testify from their graves through friends and relatives about his threatening to kill them....

U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. is under intensive medical treatment for a “mood disorder,” his office announced in a brief statement Wednesday, more than a month after the Chicago Democrat quietly went on medical leave of absence.

Passengers hailing cabs in Chicago starting Sunday may want to read the fine print on the taxi placards before they get in. In addition to the base fare, cab drivers for the first time can charge sick passengers a $50 vomit cleanup fee.

The increasing violence has left its largest scars in some of the city’s most impoverished, struggling neighborhoods on the South and West Sides.