Journo Portfolio Logo

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.

← Back to all Publications

Featured Writers

profile picture

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 …

View Portfolio
profile picture

Anne Stein

From Shaquille O'Neal to Scott Turow, I write and edit profiles, sports features, book reviews and global health and wellness stories. I also write and shoot travel features, and my …

View Portfolio
profile picture

Katherine Hartley

View Portfolio
profile picture

Emily M. Little

View Portfolio
profile picture

Ariel Parrella-Aureli

I am the Far Northwest Side reporter for Block Club Chicago, covering the Far Northwest Side neighborhoods of Portage Park, Jefferson Park, Norwood Park, Forest Glen and Sauganash. previously was …

View Portfolio
profile picture

Danielle Gensburg

Freelance journalist, creative writer and communications professional who is passionate about writing stories that educate, move and inspire readers.

View Portfolio

Latest Articles

Another Chicago parking meter twist: 1,800 meters added since Mayor Lori Lightfoot took office

Gary Kinsler has a succinct take on the parking meter pay box that popped up one year ago in front of his car repair shop in the North Center neighborhood: “It’s not helping anybody. It’s just another form of tax, it’s just taxing people.” For years, the spots in front …
By Justin Laurence
• Chicago Tribune

R. Kelly’s Chicago federal trial to put spotlight on brawling ‘26th & Cal’ legal tactics

When Chicago-born R&B star R. Kelly walked out of the Cook County criminal courthouse a free man in 2008, it wasn’t just a stroke of luck. Kelly’s stunning acquittal on child pornography charges nearly a decade and a half ago was the result of a carefully crafted strategy by a …
By Justin Laurence
• Chicago Tribune

2 of 3 men killed in South Shore crash that may have been intentional are identified, officials say

At least four people were struck by a vehicle — possibly intentionally — in the South Shore area Sunday morning and three of the four later died at an area hospital, Chicago police said. Authorities were called to the 7000 block of South Jeffery Boulevard around 5 a.m., according to …
By Justin Laurence
• Chicago Tribune

CTA will alter schedules, expand security, as part of a plan to address long wait times and safety concerns

Facing complaints about safety and long wait times, the CTA is planning to change schedules, boost security efforts, and upgrade its bus and train trackers. The measures are part of a broad plan CTA President Dorval Carter laid out at a lunch for the city’s business and political elite Thursday, …
By Justin Laurence
• Chicago Tribune

Bally’s files application with state for first Chicago casino; plan for temporary site at Medinah Temple passes one hurdle

Bally’s filed its application with the Illinois Gaming Board on Wednesday, taking a major step in the process to build Chicago’s first casino and the flagship property for its fast-growing company. The application was posted on the gaming board website Thursday morning. The clock is now running for the publicly …
By Justin Laurence
• Chicago Tribune

Obama Foundation revenues down in 2021 amid pandemic, delays in approval for construction

Former President Barack Obama’s foundation set a goal last summer of raising $1.6 billion between 2021 and 2026 to pay for construction of his presidential center and an endowment to sustain it for years to come. The foundation’s total revenue for 2021 of $160 million, almost all of it from …
By Justin Laurence
• Chicago Tribune

It’s been a rough summer for air travel. But for some, the trip to or from O’Hare is just as frustrating.

Standing outside Terminal 2 at O’Hare International Airport, a phone in each hand, Mervyn Wright weighed the options to get to his suburban hotel. He eventually settled on a $64 Uber ride from O’Hare to St. Charles. “That’s it. It’s 64 bucks,” said Wright, a business strategist from Virginia, relieved …
By Justin Laurence
• Chicago Tribune

Mayor Lightfoot responds to firing of Chicago police leader of reform effort, calling it ‘palace intrigue’

Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Wednesday downplayed concerns that Chicago police Superintendent David Brown’s decision to fire the department’s director of reform will hurt the city’s efforts to comply with a federal court order aimed at reforming Chicago police. She also defended Brown’s move to reassign personnel from the reform division, …
By Justin Laurence
• Chicago Tribune

Riot Fest management apologizes and its contractor steps down after ‘hostile’ community meeting, as momentum to boot festival gains traction

With a community-led movement to evict big-ticket music festivals from Douglass Park gaining steam, Riot Fest management has let go its event organizer and apologized to the community for his “tone” at a neighborhood meeting last week that only seemed to exacerbate the festival’s fraught relationship with residents. The community …
By Justin Laurence
• Chicago Tribune

Should mental health professionals, instead of police, respond to some 911 calls? A ballot measure in November would ask some Chicago voters.

A coalition of activists aims to add a symbolic question to the November ballot about funding non-police responses to 911 calls about mental health crises. The referendum would ask if Chicago should reopen all the closed mental health clinics that were operated by the public health department, as well as …
By Justin Laurence
• Chicago Tribune

Chicago police union head John Catanzara won’t run for mayor next year

John Catanzara, the firebrand president of Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police, won’t run for mayor against Lori Lightfoot. Catanzara, who retired while facing potential termination by the Chicago Police Board after a career as one of the department’s most disciplined officers, flirted with the idea of running for City Hall’s …
By Justin Laurence
• Chicago Tribune

Climate change is turning air conditioning into a matter of life and death. But government help is lacking.

If it were up to Jacques Wallace, no Chicagoan would find a loved one dead of heat stress, without air conditioning, ever again. Wallace still remembers how hot it was a decade ago when he walked into the Near West Side building where his mother, Jacqueline, lived in a studio …
By Justin Laurence
• Chicago Tribune

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to sue gang members and seize their property falters amid criticism over crime and civil rights

Days before aldermen were set to vote on Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s controversial plan to sue gang members as an anti-violence strategy, she texted an impassioned message to several City Council members seeking their support. “We must send a strong message to gangs that we will take away their profits …
By Justin Laurence
• Chicago Tribune

Chicago Reader publisher to step down after hard-fought battle to convert alternative newspaper to nonprofit

Three months after completing a long and challenging quest to convert the Chicago Reader to a nonprofit, Tracy Baim announced she is stepping down as publisher of the storied alternative newspaper by the end of the year. Baim, 59, a veteran Chicago journalist who has helmed the Reader since 2018, …
By Justin Laurence
• Chicago Tribune

Una familia recurre a la comedia para sobrellevar el Alzheimer

“Me estaba dando cuenta [...] de que, con algunas de las reglas básicas de la improvisación, realmente se simplificaba la forma de hablar con los cuidadores, ya sea un cuidador profesional o un cuidador familiar, acerca de cómo comunicarse con su ser querido con demencia”, dijo Neumann. “Fue realmente difícil …
By María Paula Mijares Torres
• Chicago Tribune

‘Finding Your Laughter’ documents the struggle of a Chicago family with Alzheimer’s, and how improv made that burden just a bit lighter

One day, Arlieta Hall’s father forgot that you don’t go to Best Buy to get chairs. On another day, he thought her brother was his younger self. That was when Arlieta realized that Alzheimer’s had hit the smartest man she knew. When Milton Hall Sr. was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease …
By María Paula Mijares Torres
• Chicago Tribune

Toddler killed in bike crash with semitruck

A toddler was killed in a crash when the bike on which she was a passenger collided with a semitruck in Uptown on Thursday morning, a Chicago Fire Department spokesperson said. The 3-year-old girl was on a carrier seat on the back of a bicycle operated by her mother in …
By María Paula Mijares Torres
• Chicago Tribune

DCFS staffers removed from duties following suspicious Uptown death of 8-year-old Amaria Osby, officials say

Two state child welfare workers were removed from their duties following the suspicious death of 8-year-old Amaria Osby late last month in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood, allegedly at the hands of her mother, officials said. The workers, an investigator and a supervisor, didn’t try hard enough to see Amaria and her …
By María Paula Mijares Torres
• Chicago Tribune

Culinary student and shooting survivor Dakota Earley out of ICU

Dakota Earley, the culinary student who was shot last month during an attempted robbery in Lincoln Park, has been released from the intensive care unit, his mother announced on Twitter Wednesday. Joy Dobbs said she received a call with the news around 1 p.m. Wednesday from a nurse at Advocate …
By María Paula Mijares Torres
• Chicago Tribune

Chicago ve una ola de actividad sindical conforme los trabajadores de primera línea en EEUU se organizan. ‘La gente vio cómo sus jefes los abandonaron’

Con la pandemia y la escasez de mano de obra, los trabajadores de industrias que han sido difíciles de sindicalizar se organizan cada vez más...
By María Paula Mijares Torres
• Chicago Tribune

Chicago is seeing a wave of union activity. Among the reasons: Workers ‘saw the willingness of their bosses to let them die.’

Last year, Brick Zurek, a shift supervisor at a Starbucks in the Loop, found working conditions at the store becoming increasingly untenable. People coming into the store threatened and screamed at baristas. One person, after being served a cup of scalding hot water, poured it on the manager, Zurek said. …
By María Paula Mijares Torres
• Chicago Tribune

Man charged with attempted murder in Loop hotel stabbing

A man charged with stabbing another man at a downtown hotel over the holiday weekend was denied bail in court Tuesday, according to the Cook County state’s attorney’s office. Gregory Bell, 42, was charged with one felony count of attempted murder and two felony counts of aggravated battery after stabbing …
By María Paula Mijares Torres
• Chicago Tribune

Doctors, Durbin call for action in wake of mass shootings

It was an early Saturday evening when the radio alarm system went off, alerting Dr. Samaa Kemal, a pediatric emergency medicine fellow at Lurie Children’s Hospital, that an ambulance had called en route to the hospital. “They had a teenager who had sustained a gunshot wound and was in critical …
By María Paula Mijares Torres
• Chicago Tribune

Cook among 15 counties to move into ‘high’ COVID-19 level Thursday evening: officials

Chicago moved into a “high” community level of COVID-19 Thursday evening, officials said, as the city braces for an estimated 1.4 million people to visit Chicago over Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of the summer season. The development affects areas that include Chicago, Cook County and surrounding counties in …
By María Paula Mijares Torres
• Chicago Tribune

Police looking for man who allegedly pointed a gun at Fox 32 crew on air

Police are trying to identify a man who allegedly pointed a gun toward WFLD-Ch. 32 crew members while a reporter was live on air Wednesday morning. In the Ch. 32 footage, the reporter was doing a story on gun violence in the 400 block of North Clark Street when the …
By María Paula Mijares Torres
• Chicago Tribune

Chicago expected to reach ‘high’ COVID-19 level as soon as next week

Chicago is expected to increase to a “high” community level of COVID-19 next week as positive cases continue rising across the city and suburbs, public health officials said Friday, mirroring the surge of infections around other parts of the country. “While we remain in medium, I expect that we will …
By María Paula Mijares Torres
• Chicago Tribune

One held for reckless conduct after ‘North Avenue Beach Takeover’

A beach party that turned into a “large altercation” and spilled over into the streets of the Old Town neighborhood Wednesday night left one person charged with reckless conduct, police said. The event, “North Avenue Beach Takeover,” spread over social media and began about 5 p.m. at the beach...
By María Paula Mijares Torres
• Chicago Tribune

Musician reports 1758 violin stolen from South Loop home

Three musical instruments including a 1758 violin were stolen from a town home in the South Loop Wednesday morning while a family of musicians was sleeping. MingHuan Xu, a professional violinist and director of the string program at Roosevelt University, said the antique violin stolen has an immense cultural and …
By María Paula Mijares Torres
• Chicago Tribune

Bike advocates alarmed by number of car-related deaths in the city; at least 3 this year

Chicago police are questioning a “person of interest” following the fatal hit-and-run involving a 22-year-old bicyclist on Wednesday night as bike advocates sound the alarm for the number of car-related deaths to cyclists in the city this year. Nick Parlingayan, 22, of Chicago, was at least the third bicyclist fatality …
By María Paula Mijares Torres
• Chicago Tribune

Boy, 14, fatally shot in mobile home neighborhood near Des Plaines

Erick Alfaro loved art, soccer and dressing up and was on the brink of graduating from junior high school. But Wednesday night, the 14-year-old was fatally gunned down while walking in the mobile home park where he lived in unincorporated Elk Grove Township, according to the Cook County Sheriff’s Office. …
By María Paula Mijares Torres
• Chicago Tribune