For a family who lost a baby, love keeps them moving on

By Yunyi (Jessie) Liu Medill Reports Anne Street set a wall of five  clocks at home to the moment of her marriage and the birth times of each of her four children. The accuracy of the time can be calculated in seconds. Her eldest son George, 7, excitedly pointed to the clock with the time of […]

One priest’s journey from the Second City to the Eternal City

By Larry Flynn Medill Reports Fr. Tom McCarthy is in his element. He wears the Augustinian Black Robe. He fills the immediate space around him with gestures and a Chicago accent. He faces 32 students at All Saints School in Rossford, Ohio, and plants a seed. “How many of you here have thought about being […]

Chinatown “circle time” preps kids and parents for school days ahead

By Serena Yeh Medill Reports Around 20 young children, accompanied by their caregivers, sing and dance to both English and Mandarin nursery rhymes, listen to an English story translated to the Mandarin language, and learn from a bilingual teacher about cultivating good habits in the classroom. It is a scene called “circle time” and it […]

Is Glen Ellyn’s Ethan Cepuran the future of Illinois speed skating?

By Chris Kwiecinski Medill Reports Ethan Cepuran was simply trying to make it through the 2018 Junior World Championships with at least one top-20 finish. After two days of skating against some of the world’s best up-and-coming speed skaters, the Glen Ellyn native hadn’t finished better than 25th. He even described his performance as poor. […]

FHFA House Price Index up 0.8 percent in January

Home for sale

By Charlene Zhang Medill Reports Single-family house prices rose in January 0.8 percent from December, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s seasonally adjusted House Price Index. The rise beat the forecast of a 0.4 percent increase. From January 2017 to January 2018, house prices rose 7.3 percent, also beating the forecast, of 6.5 percent. […]

Wrigleyville memorabilia shop brings history to life

By Sarah Foster Medill Reports Tom Boyle can’t help but poke through his shelves. He’s in search of a movie poster that only he can visualize. It’s somewhere among the newspaper clippings, the vinyl records, the buttons and the books. “Let me see,” he says, furrowing his brows and shuffling through his inventory. After searching […]

Japanese politician fights for gender equality

By Sarah Foster Medill Reports Tokyo—There would be nothing special about the night of Oct. 22. There would be no front-page stories to commemorate her, no newspaper headlines to honor her. No confetti would fall from the ceiling; no balloons would bounce to the floor. Instead, she would spend her night alone, sitting somberly in […]