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Everything crumbled within the first few months. I couldn’t keep up with pandemic e-schooling, solo parenting, full-time remote work, and cancer treatment. I monitored meds, negotiated claims with the insurance company, filled out assistance paperwork, ignored the dishes in the sink, but every time I checked one line off my list a dozen more filled its place. By the time an alert for a cheap flight to Ireland hit my inbox, we’d spent hundreds of days in the hospital.

President Biden vowed on Friday that the federal government would cover the cost of rebuilding the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore – and that the work would be done by union labor, potentially setting up a funding fight with the conservative wing of the House of Representatives. Biden has promised from the outset that the federal government would pay for the bridge to be rebuilt. His comments on Friday came after the House Freedom Caucus — the conservative wing of the House of Representatives — released a series of conditions for federal funding for the bridge. The conditions include...

Mourners at the funeral of an elderly Ecuadorian woman were startled to discover she was still alive. Bella Montoya, 76, was declared dead last week following a suspected stroke. Five hours into her wake on Friday, relatives preparing to change her clothes ahead of the burial found her gasping for air. Ms Montoya is now back in hospital in intensive care, and Ecuador's health ministry has set up a committee to investigate the incident.

The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has blocked a federal judge's controversial ruling that overturned California's longtime ban on assault weapons, in which he likened the AR-15 to a Swiss Army knife. In an order Monday, a three-judge panel on the federal appeals court issued a stay of US District Judge Roger Benitez's order earlier this month that overturned California's three-decade old assault weapons ban. The state's current assault weapons laws will remain in effect while further proceedings continue, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement on Twitter.

With billions in federal relief funds headed here, Illinois State Comptroller Susana Mendoza is sounding warnings against letting that money change the state’s budget priorities. Mendoza has been urging fiscal restraint for the expected $7.5 billion in recovery assistance. Most recently, on Friday, she was telling North Shore Democrats the first instalment of $3.75 billion is expected in mid-May. Mendoza argues that money should pay down debt, like the nearly $3 billion borrowed from the Federal Reserve to get through the pandemic.

The professional fallout came quickly Thursday for a few Chicagoans who attended the “Stop the Steal” rally in the nation’s capital that later devolved into chaos and violence. A city real estate agent was publicly fired after she posted to social media about attending the event. After workers at a tattoo shop posted about attending the rally, the shop was savaged on social media and was hit with graffiti accusing the store of employing “Nazis.” A Vietnamese restaurant, whose owners reportedly also attended the rally, was overwhelmed with negative online reviews.

More people will be eligible to take a $100,000 coronavirus-related distribution from their retirement account. The IRS released guidance on Friday which details new rules for individuals affected by Covid-19 to take a withdrawal from a 401(k) plan or an individual retirement account. The CARES Act allows savers to take coronavirus-related distributions – emergency withdrawals – of up to $100,000 from their retirement plans and IRAs. And those who are under age 59½ can access the money without the usual 10% early withdrawal penalty.

COVID-19 has transformed home life — turning kitchen tables into home offices and classrooms and putting a spotlight on the countless household tasks typically performed by women. Brigid Schulte says the pandemic has laid bare the "grotesque inequality" that exists within many families. "There's been a lot of invisible labor that women have done, that people, particularly men — even in the same household — haven't been aware of or haven't paid attention to," she says. Now that more couples are working from home, Schulte says, it's impossible to ignore "the fact that women bear so much more of the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tara Reade, a former Senate staffer who alleged Joe Biden sexually assaulted her 27 years ago, is being represented by a prominent lawyer and political donor to President Donald Trump’s 2016 Republican campaign. Attorney Douglas Wigdor told The Associated Press he was not currently being paid for his work with Reade. His firm also denied there was a political motivation for his decision to represent Reade in her accusations against Trump’s presumptive Democratic opponent in the November election.

New information has emerged in recent days about a sexual assault allegation against the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, made by Tara Reade, a former staff assistant in Biden's Senate office. For the first time, someone has gone on the record to say that Reade detailed the allegation to her decades ago in the same way Reade is describing it now. A former neighbor of Reade's named Lynda LaCasse told NPR on Wednesday about a conversation the two had approximately 25 years ago regarding the alleged assault. The revelation, first reported by Business Insider, comes with increasing pressure on...

AUSTIN, Texas — An updated model now suggests that Texas is past the peak of deaths related to COVID-19. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, part of the University of Washington, projects that Texas' peak daily deaths happened on Sunday, April 19th.

A massive storm is churning and has stalled over the western Atlantic Ocean, just offshore of the East Coast -- and it may acquire some tropical characteristics as it blasts New England with wind, cold air, rain and even wet snow late this week.

The coronavirus pandemic is shutting down entire sectors of the economy and putting millions of Americans out of work, but one corner of Wall Street may find opportunity amid the carnage: private equity. Private equity firms have been stockpiling cash in recent years as rising markets made it harder for them to invest, accumulating a record pile of “dry powder” for deals. The industry typically buys undervalued companies with borrowed money, taking them private to spruce up operations for an eventual sale. The high company valuations that kept them at bay collapsed this month amid widespread business closures and quarantines...

WASHINGTON (SBG) - As the coronavirus spread to all fifty states over the last two months, the Trump administration faced mounting criticism for the lack of reliable, widely accessible test kits. Now, a former senior federal health official nominated to his post by President Trump, alleges that the delays in testing occurred because leaders at the Centers for Disease Control “lied” to the president, and to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, about the center’s ability to produce the kits. CDC has acknowledged that its initial stab at mass production of the test kits encountered “a problem,” and that...

Nobel-prize winning economist Robert Shiller believes a recession may be years away due to a bullish Trump effect in the market. According to the Yale University professor, President Donald Trump is creating an environment that’s conducive to strong consumer spending, and it’s a major force that should hold off a recession. Before the markets can take-off, Shiller stresses President Trump needs to get past the impeachment inquiry. He sees this as the biggest threat to his optimistic forecast. Yet, he’s sticking with the idea that the economy and markets should have a lot of runway left for gains if President...

When a retired New York woman left her $424,000 cashier’s check at a local pizzeria, she said she felt her “world just collapsed." That is, until an unlikely hero came to save the day: the very waiter she burned with no tip and a sassy note. After looking at a condo she hoped to buy, Karen Vinacour, her daughter and a real estate broker went to the historic Patsy’s Pizzeria in Manhattan to grab a slice of their signature brick-oven pizza — the same pizza enjoyed by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Al Pacino and even Justin Bieber. Tucked in...

Over prosecutors’ objections, a 14-year-old boy charged with shooting two men on a CTA platform earlier this week has been released to his parents after a bond hearing. "At today’s detention hearing, we requested the minor be held in custody,” the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office said in a statement. “The court made the finding that under the law the minor must be released because he was held in custody for 42 hours … and not brought before a judicial officer within 24 hours.” A spokesperson for Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said prosecutors objected and asked for electronic...

The family of 16-year-old Derrion Albert wants to know why one of the men convicted in his murder is now free. The 16-year-old Fenger High School honors student was on the way home from school when he was caught in the middle of a gang fight and killed in 2009. The I-Team has been looking into the Cook County State's Attorney decisions in the wake of the Jussie Smollett case and uncovered that the Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx decided not to pursue a stiff prison sentence for one of the attackers shortly after she took office. Cook County...

Foxx’s call to Johnson came after an influential supporter of the “Empire” actor reached out to Foxx personally: Tina Tchen, a Chicago attorney and former chief of staff for former First Lady Michelle Obama, according to emails and text messages provided by Foxx to the Chicago Sun-Times in response to a public records request. In an interview with the Sun-Times this week, Foxx said that the family member expressed concerns about leaked information about the investigation — information that media outlets attributed to “police sources.” “They had no doubt about the quality of the investigation, but believed that the FBI...

House Democrats will refuse to seat North Carolina Republican candidate Mark Harris on Jan. 3 as state election authorities investigate election fraud claims surrounding his race, incoming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Friday. Hoyer told The Washington Post that Democrats would oppose any effort to seat Harris, who leads Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes in the state's 9th District.