A pair of snowy owls on the coast of Chicago

Several Chicago newsrooms spent two months collecting and analyzing evidence of ICE & Border Patrol's use of tear gas and pepper spray in Chicago. They found that agents deployed chemical agents nearly 50 times. Most uses occurred after a judge ordered federal agents to restrict their use.

This chipmunk came up to me and said “Chicago will outlive the federal government” what did he mean by this

yeah i'm on the apps (merlin, ebird)

Wait they chased off an ICE raid in WHEATON?????????? WHAT???????????????????????????? For people who don't know Chicago imagine like Brigham Young or Liberty University chasing off an ICE raid this is fucking WILD Moreover, ICE must be destroyed

Northwest Side rapid response confirms federal agents present this morning in the Belmont Cragin and Logan Square neighborhoods of Chicago.

in wheaton, illinois, this morning— it appears bystanders helped chase off this crew of ice agents, who had boxed in a person's car outside a convenience store. multiple people showed up and recorded the interaction. after a brief back-and-forth with agents, the feds got in their cars and left.

New, w/ @mulchy.bsky.social & @djbyrnes1.bsky.social: ICE shot & killed an immigrant in the Chicago suburbs yesterday. Then they immediately gave a misleading account of events. Chicago erupted in chaos and a father who lived here for decades is dead. This is what really happened:

Here is a list of OTG accounts that I recommend following for useful live or near live on the ground reporting in Chicago bsky.app/profile/did:...

And a list for newsrooms and reporters bsky.app/profile/laur...

Moonrise over Lake Michigan

We got a real fucky week ahead of us, rest as much as you can, stay hydrated when you're not resting, do both if you can figure it out! operate locally, win globally <3 #birds

No reports of ICE arrests yet so far today in Chicago, but rapid response is reporting feds are active and have been spotted on the Southwest Side again. Community alert: instagram.com/p/DOWAj-bjQGB/

Somebody has now made this into a graphic that's circulating widely. It's still false. There are many trustworthy orgs monitoring the situation on the ground, like ICIRR and OCAD and CAARPR and NLG Chicago and TRP. Listen to them, not random unsourced, undated stuff reshared onto your timeline.

We've heard a lot of gossip about residents + tenants complaining to management—not about protesters, but about the ICE activity that brought them. If it's true the feds have been cut off, that means Chicagoans have shut off a pipeline that was easily providing a dozen or more detainees a day.

the moment i knew zohran mamdani was the real deal was that video he did in spanish. his pronounciation + fluency was so good, people said it was ai, so he dropped the behind-the-scenes of him struggling to say "permanentamente" www.youtube.com/watch?v=mazE...

We can have a little hope as a treat

The piping plover chicks at Montrose Beach!

imagine what Mr Casaubon could have done on a diet of Diet Coke, ketamine and journalistic admiration

amtrak’s marketing team gets it

I really liked this essay!

trans people will always exist (laudatory) trans people will always exist (threatening) trans people will always exist (factual)

The noise demo has grown, in terms people, variety of instruments, and barricades. So far no ICE sightings. Yesterday they arrived before 9am.

A lot has happened this week. While the big rallies dominate headlines, we'll most remember this one brave protester who singlehandedly stopped a kidnapping van from returning to immigration court. Just a profoundly important thing to witness in all the noise.

Protesters and ICE watchers are gathering again outside immigration court this morning, where ICE agents have been kidnapping people after mandated hearings in downtown Chicago. Sessions have been canceled (and arrests prevented) multiple times this week due to their presence.

Coyote pups at Graceland Cemetery!

Ding ding ding

im sorry but this is just indefensible, why the fuck is Judge Judy still on the air

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shel silverstein on the LLM, 1981

Is anyone going to do anything about Ray Lopez? He's been lying about protesters, migrants, organizers, Chicagoans and other electeds for years in increasingly unhinged ways. He's not even a person anymore, he's a FOX News chyron.

surely the four helicopters over albany park are very necessary to catch someone who is already in custody and not just there to terrorize an immigrant neighborhood

Poet friend sent me a voice recording of a Hopkins poem this morning

this is a letter to the editor from a high school track runner who came in second to a trans girl in a race. her state house rep in maine started talking about it. so she wrote this: www.pressherald.com/2025/05/14/r...

We have baby Great Blue Herons at the rookery! This adult Great Blue Heron is warning away another Great Blue Heron who landed too close to the nest and the nestlings.

I spent a chunk of today thinking abt my own neurodivergence, how I’m always trying to cram my brain into the “right” mode. Then I find yet creative solution from the disability community that already exists. We’re hunting the most insightful in the U.S., when we should be begging them for answers.

a formerly enslaved Black anarchist woman led the first American May Day parade in Chicago in 1886 and don’t you forget it!!

It is absurd to criminalize children existing in public and it is especially absurd to do so during an era of ascendant fascism. CPD has never met a power they wouldn't abuse. Imagine them invoking something like this during a time of protest/unrest to keep youth from dissenting, also

🗓️ NEW EVENT: Join Lambda Legal for Know Your Rights: Passports —a free virtual info session on Wednesday, February 26 at 3 p.m. ET / 12 p.m. PT — to unpack the latest developments and hear answers to common questions re: federal ID policies. ✍️ RSVP today: lambdalegal.org/id-info-sess...

If you are a cis person *please* take 2 minutes to do this. Trans people with non-updated gender markers, historical gender marker changes, and X markers are terrified to travel right now; rolling back this policy would mean a lot.

Minnie Bruce Pratt at a May Day immigration rally in the disability support car and driving home after, by Leslie Feinberg :-)

‘Praise the rain; it brings more rain.’ For anyone who needs it, this poem by Joy Harjo: #poetry

the discourse on whether the economy is actually good or bad is ridiculous to me bc even if you showed me a graph that somehow conclusively proved the economy was Good i could still walk through my city and see people living in tents on the side of the road and in every public park

last night was historic huh? (i am of course referring to the dynasty typewriter muppet script reading)

there’s a difference between being informed and afraid, and an entire media industry built on muddying it.

i went to a Chicago Public Library branch that I had never been to before and happened across these very cool Archival Grab and Go Kits with an invitation to archive your stories