NEW: I took a close look at a buy-here, pay-here car dealer with 128 locations across the country. On the way I learned about repossession tactics, bonus incentives for in-house payments collectors & what it’s like when you’ve got no car but still owe thousands on a car loan tinyurl.com/2d5mcyxt

For @chicagoreader.com , I interviewed regulars at the Harold Washington Library, including: a man who copies reference books by hand, the lawyer who patented the Pringles can, a young woman banned from the library six times. Davon Clark's amazing pics in thread. chicagoreader.com/city-life/pe...

Malik Jackson, former executive director and publisher of South Side Media Works, which operates South Side Weekly, will be the Chicago Reader's next publisher starting June 1.

new: sheriff tom dart is quietly pitching the cook county board on two new surveillance systems that could be approved as soon as thursday. dart wants $2 million for a software that uses ai to monitor the jail’s cameras for drug use and nearly $1 million for more flock license plate readers.

We will celebrate our Pulitzer @chicagotribune.com with champagne and malört

Certificates of innocence give exonerees modest state compensation and the right to expunge their records. Why has Cook County's top prosecutor been fighting to block people from getting them? New from @danhinkel.bsky.social @injusticewatch.org w/@boltsmag.org www.injusticewatch.org/project/deny...

Here's an update from a chaotic scene following a car crash on the West Side in 2025. An unidentified Black man was placed in a chokehold and temporarily detained by federal immigration agents. The man told CPD he had nothing to do w/the crash or a robbery. thetriibe.com/2026/04/new-...

A very important personal message for you all today: No, @vimiller.bsky.social and I are NOT the same person. And the fact that y'all keep confusing us says something about Society™️ in case you need more clarification: chicago.suntimes.com/opinion/2026...

As Southwest Side neighbors were targeted or hid in their homes, Ald. Raymond Lopez repeatedly defended Trump’s immigration roundups on conservative media. We looked at Lopez’s rise and how he became a favorite in the right-wing media ecosystem. blockclubchicago.org/2026/04/14/h...

NEW: An indefinite sentence without being convicted of a crime. Under Illinois' Sexually Dangerous Persons Act, men are detained in a southern Illinois prison, with the only way out being to complete treatment. But those inside say they just receive three hours a week. news.wttw.com/2026/04/14/n...

Every jailhouse lawyer knows Dee Farmer’s name, even if they don’t know who she is. What most of them don’t know is that the person who paved the road for them was a transgender woman who filed her suit from a federal prison cell, in an era when her gender identity was considered a mental illness.

Commercial tenants in Chinatown's storied Richland Center food court face a steep increase in monthly rents under new landlord chicagoreader.com/city-life/ch...

Nice work in today's @chicago.suntimes.com from colleagues Stefano Esposito and photog Pat Nabong

New: Chicago officials have for years resisted calls to mandate proactive apartment safety inspections, even as renters keep dying in preventable fires. The City Council just passed an ordinance directing departments to study the idea in earnest. illinoisanswers.org/2026/03/18/p...

NEW: @cb-312.bsky.social on the business dealings of Greg Bingham, the real estate investor who "made a fortune" taking Cook County homes through tax foreclosure and faced fraud allegations along the way www.injusticewatch.org/project/take...

The National Police Index’s brand new website provides unprecedented public access to police employment records from across the United States and allows users to track law enforcement employment records across 24 states — searchable by officer name, agency, and more. national.cpdp.co/

A timeline: June 2021: Officer Noah Ball shoots at a man (no one is injured) May 2022: Ball shoots a 13-year-old boy fleeing a traffic stop, paralyzing him June 2023: COPA rules June 2021 shooting unjustified, urges Ball be fired Sept. 2023: Supt. Snelling rules June 2021 shooting justified (1/2)

A mom sues the state and prison medical provider over forced labor induction: “That was my right that got stripped away from me when I should have been able to have, you know, this baby whenever she felt like coming" ✍️ Jeremy Gorner @angieleventis.bsky.social www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/28/i...

I’m zipping around town dropping off stacks of the print version of the @injusticewatch.org judicial election guide. Find them all over the dang place or online at that link. 2026primary.injusticewatch.org

new: highlands reit, a small chicago-based real estate firm, is renting an empty prison it owns in colorado to ice and private prison giant geo group. highlands is part of a network of private contractors hoping to get a cut of the $45 billion allocated to warehouse immigrants through 2029.

🤩 The Triibe's incredible reporters are unionizing @onetriibeunited.bsky.social 🤩 Signal your support by signing this petition asking org leadership to voluntarily recognize the union: actionnetwork.org/letters/were...

Read of the day: local law enforcement arrested dozens of nonviolent protestors at Broadview over minor offenses, including jaywalking. Why is the state's attorney prosecuting them? by @minabloom.bsky.social blockclubchicago.org/2026/02/26/w...

Submissions for this year's Keeley Schenwar Memorial Essay Prize, for writers who are incarcerated or formerly incarcerated, are open! The prize honors my sister, who died tragically in 2020 after many years in & out of incarceration. Please help us spread the word.❤️ truthout.org/articles/kee...

We’re forming a union to build a more sustainable and equitable newsroom that serves Chicago’s Black communities. ✨ You can support us by: Linktree Reading our mission statement ✅ Signing our petition ✅ Following us here and on Bluesky (@onetriibeunited) for updates ✅ Thanks for your support!

5 members of a CPD tactical team have been stripped of their badges ands gun after the agency tasked with investigating misconduct identified a troubling pattern of undocumented and unprofessional traffic stops of Black Chicagoans. @wttw.bsky.social

Keshia Golden says she fatally stabbed Calvin Sidney in 2022 when he attacked her after their baby shower. Now the mother of a 3-year-old daughter, Golden is still facing murder charges in a case her lawyers argue amounts to self-defense.

“Black, brown, and elderly CHA residents languished and died, their names sitting on a de facto waiting list for nearly a decade before their much needed and deserved reasonable accommodations were ever made available,” according to whistleblower Amanda Motyka.

Took a data deep dive on Chicago area suburbs, where social services infrastructure sometimes don't keep up with how quickly the population is diversifying racially but also economically and culturally. www.wbez.org/immigration/...

BLACK HISTORY — From the 1840s to the 1860s, the John and Mary Jane Richardson Jones used their influence to fight against the Illinois Black Codes that prohibited Black people from voting, required them to carry a “certificate of freedom,” and more. thetriibe.com/2021/06/the-...

NEW: since last year, a pair of "highly trained" feds have been involved in an array of incidents attacking crowds with chemical weapons. We used public records and open source analysis to identify Edgar Vazquez and Michael Sveum, alongside some other members of their tactical team. Read more:

Mayor Johnson said: "We took her to court and we won back millions of dollars for taxpayers and more than 800 lots across the South and West Sides of the city of Chicago.” But he got the facts wrong. My latest w/ @ctoner.bsky.social @blockclubchi.bsky.social blockclubchicago.org/2026/02/04/c...

Read of the day: reverse mortgage scammer Mark Diamond and an accomplice are now behind bars, but >100 victims and their next of kin are still in court fighting to regain title of family properties. Others have lost those homes. By @tatiwm.bsky.social blockclubchicago.org/2026/02/03/f...

A white former sheriff’s deputy convicted of murdering an unarmed Black woman in her Springfield area home was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison, marking a capstone in a racially charged case of police brutality that drew national headlines.