Elsa Harris has played in Chicago churches since she was 12 years old and has performed around the world. We visit this “legend of Chicago gospel.”

(Maggie Not Margaret / Flickr)

The city’s annual winter overnight parking ban goes into effect early Sunday and continues through April 1, 2020. Here’s what you need to know.

A folding chair holds a parking spot cleared of snow on Feb. 12, 2011 in Chicago. (Quinn Dombrowski / Flickr)

In a sign that spring is on the way, the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation on Monday will begin removing items used to (unofficially) reserve parking spots during winter.

(Johnny Knight / Statue Stories Chicago)

The public art exhibit Statue Stories Chicago was slated to end this August. But Abe Lincoln, Leif Erikson and Cloud Gate won’t fall silent anytime soon.

Despite ongoing funding issues and declining enrollment, students at Chicago Public Schools graduated last year at the district’s highest rate on record, with more students earning a diploma than in each of the past six years.

The Chicago-born recording artist said money raised through the New Chance Arts & Literature Fund will be split among nearly two dozen Chicago schools to help boost arts programming and facilities.

“Chicago will not be blackmailed into changing our values, and we are and will remain a welcoming city,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Sunday at a press conference announcing the suit.

(Giuseppe Milo / Flickr)

For black women in Chicago, a breast cancer diagnosis in 2003 meant you were 68 percent more likely to die from the disease than a white woman. A new study shows that gap is closing.

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Should parents be held responsible if they know their kids have guns? We speak to Ald. Raymond Lopez (15th Ward) about a new ordinance.

Geoffrey Baer solves the mystery of a viewer’s “vague memory” from the 1940s, revisits the Century of Progress and opens the door to the Evanston History Center in this encore edition of “Ask Geoffrey.”

It is one of the city’s crown jewels, but parts of Lake Shore Drive have not been upgraded since before World War II. A new plan gives parts of the drive a real “wow” factor.

The public is invited to weigh in on public health policy ideas at a series of upcoming town hall meetings. Get dates, locations and more details.

(Giuseppe Milo / Flickr)

Researchers of demographic shifts in the Chicago region have some interesting takeaways following analysis of census data. One calls the findings “staggering.”

Miss Wonderful 1958 contestants (Courtesy of Ernestine Terry)

In the late 1950s, the Chicago Defender and Pabst Brewing Company sponsored the Miss Wonderful 1958, an all African-American beauty contest. Meet Ernestine Terry, who was one of the contestants.

For more than a decade, a network of nonprofit organizations has been addressing gang violence by hosting summer basketball games in neighborhoods across the city.

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The Chicago Police Department says the city saw 56 shootings and eight homicides from Friday night to Tuesday night, with the majority occurring Monday on the city’s South and West Sides.