Investigations

An Illinois law designed to ensure victims of sexual assault receive proper care inside hospitals also includes carve out that allows patients to be transferred if hospitals can’t provide services like rape kit exams, but it can have unintended consequences.

Between 2018 and 2024, NBC 5 Investigates found 88 hospitals failed to properly treat victims of sexual assault, according to our review of thousands of pages of state health department inspection reports.

A series of bomb threats targeting polling locations across the country prompted evacuations and disrupted voting on Election Day in several states.

While election officials have ramped up efforts to combat misinformation and reassure voters the election is secure – election threats remain a concern, according to an NBC 5 Investigates’ review of police records and memos from federal agencies.

Over the past two weeks, NBC 5 Investigates reached out to more than 100 election officials across Illinois, southern Wisconsin and parts of northwest Indiana to ask local election officials about the upcoming election, their preparedness and their concerns.

When John heard the news on a recent Friday, it hit him hard: Elliott Nott, a former Chicago public schoolteacher and John’s former colleague, had been arrested and charged with three counts of child exploitation, after allegedly exposing himself to three girls – ages 10, 9, and 7.

After two years and half a billion dollars spent, the city of Chicago’s migrant shelter system will close as we know it.

Chicago police arrested a 49-year-old man on Wednesday on charges that he exposed himself to three girls, aged 7, 9, and 10, on two separate days in late September.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson told reporters this week that “everything is on table,” including the potential layoff of city workers, which Johnson said he hopes to avoid, as the city grapples with how to address a nearly billion-dollar budget shortfall.

Facing a nearly $1 billion budget deficit, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson side-stepped questions Thursday about a $100 million pay increase for Kansas-based company – Favorite Healthcare Staffing – which has staffed the city’s migrant shelters.

A day after Mayor Brandon Johnson indicated he would veto a council effort aimed at keeping ShotSpotter – the controversial gunshot detection technology – the device’s parent company, SoundThinking, said it would begin the process of removing some 2,000 sensors from across Chicago beginning on Monday.

In the hours after a young boy was seriously hurt and airlifted after being thrown from an amusement ride at a summer festival last year, state inspectors almost immediately identified problems with the ride, according to reports obtained by NBC 5 Investigates.

The mother of the suspected shooter charged with killing four passengers Monday aboard a CTA Blue Line train said she believes her son suffered a mental breakdown.