For Chicago Magazine

Steve Johnson

The patio at Burial Beer Co. in Asheville, North Carolina, in April 2021.

Road trip to Asheville, N.C.: A long way to go for some hikes and a historic home, but worth every mile

May 14, 2021 at 1:41 p.m.

Yes, Chicago to Asheville, North Carolina, is just a little too far for a long weekend's road trip. It's a good 10 hours of driving, longer if you have human...

A cook prepares a chicken sandwich at Chubby's Char House on May 12, 2021.

Takeout 25 has saved local restaurants in Oak Park. Now it’s flexing its spending muscle across the Chicago border, in Austin.

May 24, 2021 at 4:09 p.m.

As the COVID-19 pandemic dragged on last fall, Ravi Parakkat watched tensions rise in his community between restaurant owners desperate for revenue and officials trying to keep people from congregating...

The R/V Coral Reef II, a research vessel working on coral reef restoration in the Bahamas, on Oct. 15, 2019. The boat is Shedd Aquarium's custom-built research and collection vessel that, on this date, was collecting coral samples and establishing coral nurseries.

Shedd Aquarium research vessel worker alleges sex discrimination in lawsuit

May 7, 2021 at 9:39 p.m.

The first woman to work on the Shedd Aquarium's Miami-based research vessel is suing the institution for sex discrimination. Susan Catherine Edgerton, a North Carolina resident, alleges in a federal...

Round goby specimens are seen in the Field Museum's fish collection lab.

Fish guts on the Red Line: Chicagoan was transporting specimens for a study showing the long history of microplastics in freshwater species

May 6, 2021 at 8:03 p.m.

To prove that fish ingestion of microplastics is more than just an ocean story and more than just a modern story, Loren Hou used an unusual technique. Transporting the digestive...

Chef Q. Ibraheem packs up food donations on Nov. 19, 2020.

Evanston’s Chef Q, others take 2021 Red Cross Heroes awards

May 24, 2021 at 4:10 p.m.

With winners ranging from Park Ridge high school brothers who ran blood drives to an Evanston chef who made thousands of meals for the hungry, the American Red Cross of...

Visitors walk along reopened Navy Pier on May 2, 2021, in Chicago.

To mask up outdoors or not? Some Chicagoans welcoming loosened CDC rules, others find it harder to let go of a new habit

April 30, 2021 at 8:00 p.m.

America and masks have had a complicated relationship during this pandemic, even in the places where state officials haven't tried to turn the featherweight little face-hole blockers into symbols of...

Jetta Jones in 2004 at a gala of the Chicago Humanities Festival.

Lawyer, ‘great citizen’ Jetta Jones was Art Institute, Lincoln Park Zoo trustee

May 24, 2021 at 4:10 p.m.

When the Art Institute needed to implement a $5 million grant to better reach African Americans, it reached out to Jetta Norris Jones, who became the founding chair of the...

Outside the Thompson Center in Chicago on June 24, 2021, people wait in line for the Chicago Central Illinois secretary of state's driver services facility.

Real ID and expired license backlog — but mostly COVID-19 — create long lines at driver services facilities. But not all of them.

April 16, 2021 at 8:25 p.m.

Ronda Dible tried twice previously to renew her driver's license, expired since last April. "The first time, the line started past the Ace Hardware," some 100 yards away in the...

Art Institute names Denise Gardner new board chair, believed to be first Black woman chair at major art museum

May 22, 2026 at 7:59 p.m.

The Art Institute of Chicago on Tuesday elected Chicago philanthropist and art collector Denise Gardner as its next board chair, beginning in November. A 15-year trustee of the museum, Gardner...

A person passes by a work titled "Scout's Honor" by Chris Pappan at "The Long Dream" exhibit.

Column: MCA’s ‘The Long Dream’ intended to address inequity through art. But it has become about the museum itself.

May 22, 2026 at 7:59 p.m.

At the center of it all is "The Long Dream," an art exhibition named after the Black Chicago writer Richard Wright's final novel published in his lifetime, about the distant...

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