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Chicago Tribune

The Chicago Tribune is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", it remains the most-read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region.

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Featured Writers

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IVONNE SPINOZAiv.spinoza@gmail.com [ press about me & my work ]

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Katherine Hartley

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Charlie Fripp

Veteran journalist and SEO writer with a knack for producing fast, high-quality consumer technology articles, product reviews and SEO audits for online publications.

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Ilana Arougheti

(they/she) Hi! I'm a breaking news reporter at the Kansas City Star in Kansas City, MO. I graduated from Northwestern University in June 2023, with majors in journalism and sociology …

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Alyssa Hayes

I'm a PR and brand communications professional with extensive experience leading and managing PR campaigns in both agency and in-house settings. Having worked with a wide range of companies from …

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Hi, I'm Elizabeth!

I'm a communications leader, writer, digital strategist, and storyteller with a passion for creating impactful and resonant content about issues that impact all of us. My decade of experience in …

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Latest Articles

‘The year bald eagles decided to make history’: 3 eaglets born in Chicago for first time in a century

Hyde Park birding couple Pat and Steve Pearson have ventured out to Chicago’s Southeast Side once a week for over a year keeping their eyes and camera focused on two bald eagles soaring above South Deering. The couple watched the birds carry large twigs high into the treetops near Park …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

Illinois farmers hope Supreme Court protects state safeguards in Roundup cancer case

Harold Wilken still remembers the moment nearly 30 years ago when he was sprayed with herbicides after a hose broke on his family farm in Danforth, Illinois. A decade later, Wilken was diagnosed with cancer. He said he believes years of herbicide exposure contributed to his health problems, including tonsil …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

Hundreds march in Pilsen, demand answers in unsolved fatal hit-and-run

Hundreds of protesters filled the streets of Pilsen on Sunday afternoon, chanting for justice and answers in a fatal hit-and-run that has remained unsolved for nine months. Dressed in black and pink, members of the crowd marched from Harrison Park to the Chicago Police Department’s 12th District precinct, calling out …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

Chicago suburbs in Cook and Lake counties prepare for Des Plaines River flood

Homeowner Maha Amin moved three dozen sandbags from the trunk of her car to her driveway Thursday, bracing for more flooding in Des Plaines. After 16 years in her home without flooding incidents, she watched as a couple feet of stormwater poured into her basement during Sunday’s storm, destroying her …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

Floods overtake Chicago’s Northwest Side after rainiest April day since 2013: ‘People really got slammed’

Water began pouring into David Tahara’s North Park home Tuesday night around midnight, thanks to a late-breaking rainfall and a basement storm drain that smelled of sewage at certain points. By daylight, the water had receded, but Tahara couldn’t help but smell what he described as the lint-like residue as …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

Hundreds gather in Springfield to push environmental bills on wetlands, plastics and data centers

More than 200 Illinois residents gathered in Springfield on Wednesday for Environmental Lobby Day, joining lawmakers and advocates in the Illinois Capitol rotunda to push for a trio of environmental bills aimed at curbing pollution and protecting natural resources. “We’re facing some really, really big fights here,” said Cate Caldwell, …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

Chicago space expert weighs in on launch of mission to orbit the moon

After weeks of delays, four astronauts are preparing to launch Wednesday evening on a trip around the moon, the first such spaceflight to be undertaken in more than 50 years. “It’s really just a historic mission for the future Artemis missions, but also to prepare us for the human journey …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

Illinois bill would ease rules on solar plug-ins, expand access to renters and condo owners

As energy bills climb across the state, lawmakers are exploring new ways to expand access to renewables. And one green option is outpacing the others: solar. Although Illinois is committed to achieving 100% renewable energy by 2050, a large group of state residents, including renters and condo owners, remain shut …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

Illinois farmers brace for another bruising season as Iran war spikes fertilizer prices

From sunrise to well past sundown, Rodney Bushmeyer has been driving his tractor over freshly turned soil on his western Illinois farm, planting soybean seeds. He has covered nearly 800 acres. But with another 2,200 acres to go, spring planting season is far from over. Bushmeyer has been cultivating fields …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

A push to protect Morgan Shoal — a marine wonder on the South Side — and the Chicago shoreline

A few hundred feet off the shoreline of Kenwood and Hyde Park lives an underwater marvel few Chicagoans ever see: the remnants of a 400 million-year-old coral reef scattered with ancient fossils and the wreckage of the Silver Spray, a steamship that sank after striking the shallow bedrock in 1914. …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller wins Illinois’ 2nd District over comeback effort by former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.

Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller was declared the winner of the Democratic primary in Illinois’ 2nd Congressional District Tuesday, ending a comeback effort by former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. Miller, who ran a health care-focused campaign, weathered criticism from opponents that her campaign was overly backed by a pro-Israel lobbying …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

Trump vows to fight invasive carp in Great Lakes, but Illinois federal funds remain frozen

A recent pledge by President Donald Trump to protect the Great Lakes from invasive carp comes as his administration continues to withhold federal funding for a key Illinois project designed to stop the spread into Lake Michigan. Illinois officials say they welcome the president’s public support but are urging immediate …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

Illinois EPA rejects coal ash cleanup plan in Joliet, a ‘heartening’ win for environmentalists

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency denied Midwest Generation’s application to clean up more than 3 million tons of toxic coal ash in Joliet earlier this week, saying the company’s proposal was “insufficient.” The decision marks the first time the agency has rejected a coal ash cleanup permit since Illinois finalized …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

Chicago’s hottest club is … Seafood City? Viral pop-up dance party comes to the Filipino grocery store

Party in Aisle 8! Under the fluorescent lights and produce banners of Seafood City Supermarket, an unlikely dance floor opened for over a thousand Chicagoans Friday night. Inside this Filipino grocery store in the North Mayfair neighborhood, the aisles were packed with crowds waving Philippine flags, children perched on parents’ …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

Illinois orders 21 communities to remove forever chemicals from drinking water by 2029. But who will pay?

Sitting on the Mississippi River flood plains, Collinsville is among a handful of Illinois communities that draw drinking water from the American Bottoms aquifer. The Metro East town of 30,000 is also one of 21 communities, covering 47 water systems, that contain levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

Graduates of Illinois clean energy workforce program gain a vision — and skills for the future

Overlooking the shoreline of Lake Michigan and an aging coal plant, a packed conference room was filled with families, advocates and Illinois legislators celebrating the graduation of two dozen newly trained clean energy workers. “It’s not lost to me today that we’re sitting on the fifth floor of the College …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

As Indiana extends coal and builds data centers, Illinois may be on the hook for neighbor’s AI boom

WHEATFIELD, Ind. — Surrounded by farmland and wetlands, three generations of the Hunter family have grown crops and raised cattle, chickens and horses in this quiet corner of northwest Indiana. When the Hunters first started farming the 20-acre plot “this was their dream property,” said granddaughter Carly Schroeder. But in …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

Illinois Rewilding Law, first in US, a step toward state wetland protection

As sweeping changes to the federal Clean Water Act in recent years have weakened protections for wetlands, Illinois has become the first state in the nation to officially recognize a conservation tactic known as rewilding. The Illinois Rewilding Law, which took effect last month, empowers the Illinois Department of Natural …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

South Side residents protest rejection of Quantum Shore nonbinding referendum

On a brisk Wednesday morning, South Side residents gathered outside New Sullivan Elementary School to demand their voices be heard about a major development rising just across the street: Quantum Shore Chicago. “No quantum facility, invest in community,” demonstrators chanted. New Sullivan Elementary will serve as a polling site for …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

Great Lakes ice resurges this winter, but unpredictable shifts threaten businesses and ecosystem

On a brisk January day with wind chills plunging to minus 25 degrees, Paul “Blade” Bloedorn stood out on nearly 2 feet of ice on Lake Michigan’s Little Bay de Noc. Last weekend, more than 400 shacks speckled the frozen bay, Bloedorn recalled, as ice anglers flocked to the Upper …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

Will trees ‘explode’ during this cold snap? Illinois arborists weigh in.

Chicago residents are weathering a dangerous cold snap this week — but so are the trees. After a post on X warning of “exploding trees” went viral on social media ahead of this week’s polar vortex, many people are asking: What’s happening to our trees during this severe Arctic blast?
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

A collapsing polar vortex brings Arctic blast to Chicago area. How long will it last?

Polar vortexes are a year-round phenomenon. But Chicago-area residents only notice them when they collapse, experts say. That’s what’s happening starting Thursday when dangerously frigid air from Siberia and the North Pole is forecast to plunge the Great Lakes region into subzero territory for multiple days.
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

Nearly a year after asphalt spill in Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, EPA criticized for leaving cleanup unfinished

Nearly a year after a toxic asphalt spill in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, state and local officials and environmental advocates say the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ended the cleanup effort before it was completed. A week before Thanksgiving, the agency posted a notice on its website that federal …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

Environmentalists push back against US EPA plan to extend coal plant closings

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is facing strong public opposition to its proposed plans to extend closure deadlines until October 2031 for 11 coal plants across the country — three of which are in Illinois and one in northwest Indiana. But many environmental experts, including Earthjustice senior attorney Mychal Ozaeta, …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune

Plans to close dozens of toxic coal ash ponds in Illinois stuck in backlog

ALTON, Illinois — Where the Wood and Mississippi rivers meet in southern Illinois, over a million cubic yards of toxic coal ash sit on the edge of Illinois’ floodplain, threatening the waterways that surround it. The retired Wood River Power Station is home to one of 72 coal ash impoundments, …
By Christiana Freitag
• Chicago Tribune