DHS confirmed it has stopped automatically storing officials' text messages. Instead, officials are supposed to take a screenshot, send that to their work email, download it onto their work computer and run a text-recognition program on it. Every time. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/u...

Feds deploy tear gas in Albany Park as neighbors respond to them detaining people. One person was taken, though another was freed. “I was afraid to go over there. I got braver the more people came out. I know my neighbors have my back, and I have their back."

NEW: There’s a disaster unfolding in Alaska right now. And no major network is covering it. The remnants of Typhoon Halong battered western Alaska overnight. Homes, with people in them, have literally been swept into the Bering Strait. At least 20 are missing. No comment from any federal agency.

NEWS: ICE gave a Rogers Park man a $130 ticket for not having his papers on him. They rounded him up last week and eventually let him go, but not without a fine that some critics say is un-American. Trump admin enforcing little-used law www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/13/i...

I'm at the scene where ICE abducted multiple people from Lincoln and Foster this morning. A WGN producer was among the people taken, allegedly because she was among a group of bystanders who tried to intervene. ICE agents hit this car while making their getaway.

Neighbor shielded 7-year-old during South Shore federal raid: ‘I didn’t want them to take her’ via @chicago.suntimes.com

NEW investigation from @lkpwrites.bsky.social: IL colleges are contracting w/ for-profit businesses called online program managers which are paid as much as 50% tuition revenue for each student they enroll. www.wbez.org/education/20...

This is from a video on X, showing inside the Broadview ICE facility when Noem was in town on Fri. For context, she's in the central room with 15 workstations setup to process detained individuals, whether they were arrested by immigration enforcement or at protests. See the orange triangles?

Bumping again--I'm back full time starting today. Am especially interested in hearing from unhoused people and advocates in Chicago who have been impacted by ICE and the now-looming National Guard deployment in our city. Signal is katie.507.

About 1 in 4 U.S. adults worry they or someone close to them could be deported, according to a June @pewresearch.org survey.

NEW: ICE is planning to hire a team of nearly 30 people to surveil social media 24/7, build dossiers on people, and flag them for arrest and deportation. @dell.bsky.social has the scoop: www.wired.com/story/ice-so...

What we just saw: state police not only assisting federal agents with crowd control out here, but also protester arrests. All morning, this has been a nonviolent demonstration. Have not seen a single crime from this crowd (not that that would excuse the brutality).

There’s no medical staff or services at Broadview. No food preparation. No beds. That’s all by design because the facility was created for holds less than 12 hours. @bylaurenfitz.bsky.social @adrianacardmag.bsky.social chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Broadview was never designed to be a detention facility, but the administration of President Donald Trump is now using it as a de facto one. As a “service processing center” it’s intended to hold up people picked up by immigration authorities for up to 12 hours. chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

JUST IN: In declarations to the court, top officials in the Portland Police Bureau and the Oregon State Police say they really don't need federal/military assistance to contain the relatively minor protests they're seeing outside ICE facilities. www.politico.com/news/2025/09...

City Council just backed a plan to set aside city-owned land for affordable housing and fund homeownership programs near the future Obama Center. The ordinance passed within a day, after an initial draft — focused solely on South Shore — stalled for 2 years. blockclubchicago.org/2025/09/25/o...

Since 2023, the city has drawn between $70 million and $90 million of an approximately $325 million federal loan for lead service line replacements that expires next year via @keertigopal.bsky.social and @juanpab.bsky.social grist.org/economics/ch...

The Department of Agriculture said it will end a longstanding annual food insecurity survey. Experts say the move will obscure the effects of recent changes that will lead to people losing food aid.

NEW: US law enforcement have claimed the use of certain *emojis* could signal affiliation with the Tren de Aragua gang, records reveal. The "ludicrous" claims, like assertions about tattoos, could further fuel false gang labels + deportations. W/ @propertyofthepeople.org emoji docs excerpted here ⬇️

Late rent payments have jumped up. In recent months, the percent of tenants who are late on rent has risen toward 12%. But that’s not the whole story 🧵

Elgin man who is a US citizen was briefly detained in latest Chicago-area ICE blitz (gift link) www.chicagotribune.com/2025/09/16/e...

“AI isn’t magic; it’s a pyramid scheme of human labor,” said Adio Dinika, a researcher at the Distributed AI Research Institute…These raters are the middle rung: invisible, essential and expendable.”

Federal immigration agents were seemingly forced to retreat from a roofing job site in Rochester, NY, after being confronted by more than 100 protesters The workers stayed on the roof and agents drove away in a Border Patrol SUV on four flat tires, which had been slashed

IDF sniper from Chicago who says he killed Gazan teenager just for trying to retrieve his brother's corpse: “They’re thinking, ‘Oh I don’t think [I’ll get shot] because I’m wearing civilian clothes and I am not carrying a weapon' and all that, but they were wrong. That’s what you have snipers for.”

So the Supreme Court just allowed ICE agents to racially profile **in an order that was “unsigned and gave no reasons.” **

It's been a pleasure to be involved in this important project!! Huge congrats to @amyqin.bsky.social @estheryjkang.bsky.social and the rest of the @wbez.org team and our collaborators at @miurbanchicago.bsky.social The work @writeralejandra.bsky.social and I began with #TheTenantTrap continues!

this is good timing because i have finally updated the data in deseguys.com so it's current as of Sept. 2nd as a bonus, it not only includes LLC managers and addresses, but also lets you layer in contracts and political donations

Who owns your building? Chances are, it's an LLC. We looked at ~26m property records in Chicago and found LLC ownership of large rental properties went up nearly 4x in the past two decades. New story + data out from me and @estheryjkang.bsky.social www.wbez.org/housing/2025...

Today, DHS announced the termination of the 2021 TPS designation for Venezuela, adding to the largest de-legalization push in modern US history: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

NEW: More details on Trump's Chicago immigration blitz. -230 agents arrive from LA this weekend w/ 140 unmarked vehicles -30 already arrived and are practicing crowd control with shields/flashbangs -agents will leave base daily by 5 a.m. -new no-fly zone at NSGL to keep away news choppers/drones

Holy shit: Stateline spoke to nearly a dozen firefighters, agency staffers and contractors, who said that top officials assigned to the fire deployed the crews to a remote location under false pretenses so federal agents could check their immigration status. www.hcn.org/articles/fir...

NEW: Politicians of both parties are pushing to expand forced hospitalization. In many cases, cops w/ minimal training fill out forms attesting that people are a danger to themselves or others. In Chicago, police forcibly hospitalize 6 people a day. It's how over 20% of CPD mental health calls end.

Ok @kellygarcia.bsky.social is back on the "DOES THIS COOK COUNTY OFFICIAL EVEN LIVE IN COOK COUNTY?!" beat www.injusticewatch.org/juvenile-cou...

As Trump prepares to send the National Guard to Chicago, @chipmitchell1.bsky.social dug into the crime data and found summer homicides in Chicago are at a 60 year LOW. What's working, experts say, is community-violence intervention and investment. www.wbez.org/news/2025/09...

Hats off to Chicago Tribune intern ‪(and my AAJA mentee!) @williamtong.bsky.social ‬for his story about the American Fujianese diaspora through the lens of hometown associations Gift link: www.chicagotribune.com/2025/08/30/f...

Hello everyone! I am working on a story for The Guardian about how Chicagoans are preparing for the possible arrival of federal troops, following President Trump's statements on the matter. Right now, I'm looking for residents, community organizers, business owners, and other folks to talk to!

BREAKING: Gov. JB Pritzker says the Trump administration has sent the Texas National Guard to Great Lakes Naval Base outside Chicago, awaiting orders to deploy to Chicago. Trump administration officials will target Mexican Independence Day (Sept. 16) celebrations. @wttw.bsky.social

Okay. I just came back to this and you aren’t calling these efforts resegregation yet, you absolutely should be

“It’s within us to stop the violence,” Carter says. “President Trump couldn’t do nothing about that.” If you just read one thing today, let it be this beautiful dispatch from @sophiesherry.bsky.social and Sarah Karp chicago.suntimes.com/donald-trump...

Aug 29 marks 20 years since Hurricane Katrina. @siric.bsky.social profiles 4 young climate advocates whose lives it changed—2 of whom fled New Orleans during Katrina as kids @teenvogue.com: "For them, combatting climate change, environmental racism, and structural inequality has become a calling."

Chicago has most the lead pipes in the country. A team of excellent reporters and I mapped them all on a searchable tool. Huge s/o to @juanpab.bsky.social @keertigopal.bsky.social @peteraldhous.com and @compatibilism.bsky.social for this monumental effort. Relevant links threaded below!

Chicago has the most lead service lines of any city in the county. We mapped out which neighborhoods are hit hardest. Mega collab out today from me, @peteraldhous.com @juanpab.bsky.social @compatibilism.bsky.social + @amyqin.bsky.social insideclimatenews.org/news/2808202...

We got big project out today about Chicago’s lead pipes. The news is we mapped them all. The big idea is that Chicago residents are living through a public health crisis, and we wanted to help them visualize their place in it. @grist.org @wbez.org @insideclimatenews.org @chicago.suntimes.com

EXCLUSIVE: DHS, ICE and CBP agents — and possibly National Guard troops — would operate from a suburban naval base for much of next month as part of President Donald Trump’s plan to target Chicago, per an email from Navy leadership obtained by CST. They'd be at Naval Station Great Lakes Sept. 2-30.

🚀 I made a tracker that shows when the Census Bureau adds or removes datasets from their APIs. Dashboard at www.hrecht.com/census-api-d... and follow @censusapitracker.bsky.social for major updates. I've been wanting to build this for years but now seemed an especially important time to keep track.

My latest investigation! A story about some wild things that happened at a UIC forensics lab and how inadequate crime lab oversight is in our state. In the course of reporting I: -filed 45+ FOIA requests -did 100+ interviews -reviewed 8000+ pages of records www.injusticewatch.org/project/fore...

Rail and Bus system recoveries for major US transit agencies through the first half of 2025. D.C. continues to impress, with a fully recovered bus system and a rail network that has picked up steam over the last year while most peers are tapering off.

Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago closed this morning. The owner plans a news conference today not at Weiss, but at the other hospital he owns. Interesting choice. 'Community hospitals are more than buildings – they are a promise,' state Rep. Lilly says per the release.

The Tucson city council unanimously rejected the Project Blue data center today. That comes after weeks of dogged organizing plus our little team @azluminaria.org going hard on helping Tucson understand who was behind this project and its impact on our community azluminaria.org/2025/08/06/t...

Local reporting uncovered Amazon was behind the water-guzzling data center slated for the desert. Residents fought against the data center. Today, the city council unanimously voted against Project Blue. If you care about local journalism that drives impact, consider donating to @azluminaria.org!