They say it takes a village to raise a child, but speaking from my own experience, I know it also takes a village to care for an aging or sick parent. I only wish when I was a caregiver for my mother that I would have had an organization like Lincoln Park Village to turn to. It would have made life a lot easier.

The city of Chicago and the state of Illinois are swimming so deep in debt that desperate politicians are pushing a massive gambling expansion that would bring new casinos to the city and suburbs — a roll of the dice that could generate up to $1 billion in new annual revenue.

Advocates fighting for the former Prentice Women’s Hospital in Streeterville finally have the city’s ear, but the fate of the building is still far from decided. The Commission on Chicago Landmarks recently agreed to consider granting a landmark status for Prentice Women’s Hospital at 333. E. Superior St. Designed and built by Marina City architect Bertrand Goldberg, Prentice’s cantilevered honeycomb towers have been empty since 2007.

When Robin Petrovic and Jamie Gayle bought a house a few months ago, they signed a deed under their legal designation as single women. Inconveniences like this will be a thing of the past for the women, as Illinois on Wednesday became the sixth state to recognize civil unions. They were joined by more than 100 other couples who lined up at the Daley Center as early as midnight to apply for civil union licenses.

If you’re looking for a couple of good books to chill with this summer, look no further than your own backyard, because a couple of local authors have provided great reads to lounge around with. Anyone who has ever wondered about the statues in Lincoln Park should check out Krista August’s Giants in the Park ($20, Lincoln Park Press).

A thick fog greeted cyclists as they took over Lake Shore Drive Sunday for the annual Bike the Drive event.

Almost 20 years to the day after first opening its doors, Old Town's Piper's Alley shut down the projectors last week. Theater operators AMC say it's because of poor ticket sales, and a legal battle between the building's owners may further chill efforts to reopen the space.

Some city leaders and environmental advocates are calling foul on the sanitation district’s response to a federally-mandated order to clean up Chicago’s waterways. Earlier this month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told Illinois officials that the state needs to improve water quality conditions within the Chicago Area Waterways System, a 78-mile network of barge and recreational canals that sprouts from Lake Michigan and runs through the city to northern Illinois, northwestern Indiana and toward the Illinois River.

When River North attorney Lauren Rozich was 16, she was a passenger in a three-car accident that not only changed her life but also helped save it. After surviving the crash, Rozich was taken to the hospital for a routine check-up, just to double check that everything was okay. Turns out she was fine from the accident, but one of her x-rays revealed something alarming — a tumor in her chest that was traveling up her neck.