The appointment of Dr. Garth Walker to lead the Chicago Department of Public Health has sailed through a key city council panel. People who live in Chicago’s most heat-vulnerable neighborhoods will soon have improved cooling options. A new analysis says Illinois residents lost nearly $8 billion to sports betting last year. 

Plus, Vladimir Putin’s government made it illegal to criticize the war after Russia invaded Ukraine. But one Russian family couldn’t hold back their outrage. That led to persecution and a frantic effort to seek asylum in the U.S. — a country with a long history of protecting Russian dissidents. Instead of being welcomed, some of the family has been in detention for almost nine months. The rest of the family is in Chicago’s northern suburbs, trying to get them out.