The Rundown | Chicago News

This spooky season, we want to share a very real ghost story.
 
 The Lozano family moved into their East Pilsen home when it was newly built, and no one has died there since. Still, they’re convinced a spirit lives among them. They hear footsteps on the stairs, see shadows under doors and experience unexplainable phenomena.
 
 Enter reporters Adriana Cardona-Maguigad and Mauricio Peña. They gamely took on the role of ghost hunters for an episode of WBEZ’s Curious City podcast and worked with the Lozanos to uncover the source of this paranormal activity. But as they report, Pilsen residents face far scarier challenges than spirits.
 
 In this episode, host Erin Allen talks to Peña and Cardona-Maguigad about their reporting on spirits, spiritualism and the looming threat of gentrification in Pilsen.

A suburban Chicago landlord charged with murdering a Palestinian American boy pleads not guilty. State test scores show continued gaps in performance between racial and ethnic groups, despite impressive growth overall. Students at UChicago and across the country are calling on their universities to divest from the fossil fuel industry.

A Chicago City Council committee approved buying land on the city’s South Side to open a shelter for migrants. A man has pleaded not guilty to all charges in the fatal stabbing of a young Palestinian American boy. Expect some snow this Halloween.

Flora and fauna from all types of climates, available to bask in – in Chicago – year round. The Garfield Park Conservatory is a special place.“The first impression is just overwhelming,” said Jennifer Van Valkenburg, the president and CEO of the Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance. In this episode, Van Valkenburg offers up reasons you should visit and spots you shouldn’t miss. She also talks about the conservatory’s upcoming “floral fashion fundraiser” Fleurotica, how the conservatory’s relationship with the community has changed over the years, and why it holds such a special place in many Chicagoans’ hearts.“Every time I meet someone and I tell them I work for the conservatory, they have generational stories,” she said. “Everybody connects with the conservatory in an individual way.”

Homeowners in the north and northwest suburbs should brace for sticker shock as their property tax bills arrive. City officials want to purchase the site of a vacant Morgan Park Jewel-Osco to turn into a shelter for migrants. The deadline to apply for federal flood relief for this past summer’s rainstorms is tonight (Monday).

A suburban foundation plans to send a million hot meals to Gaza. A northwest Illinois sheriff defends a cop who joined an anti-government extremist group. Another Chicago cyclist was hit and killed by a car.

You know Chicago is the country's rattiest city – at least according to Orkin, who just gave us that distinction for the ninth straight year – but did you also know it’s one of the feral-cattiest?Chicago has thousands of outdoor cats, as well as thousands of humans who care for them. “Probably over 3,000 caretakers in the city taking care of I don’t even know how many cats, cats we don’t even know about,” said Cecilia Ocampo-Solis, community programs manager at Tree House Humane Society in the Rogers Park neighborhood.In this episode, we talk with one of these feral cat colony-minders about what it’s like to host a couple of wild fuzzballs.“I call them more like barn cats,” said Rob Crowder, who hosts two cats, Washington and Drake, in his backyard in Chicago’s Roscoe Village neighborhood. “Because they’re – they don’t live in a barn but they’re always just around, they’re easy to maintain, and they give back to us as well.” By “give back” Crowder means “deter rats.” But Ocampo-Solis also myth-busts a common misconception about Chicago’s feral cats and her organization’s "Cats at Work" program.  “This program was built to offer quote unquote, a ‘second chance’ to unsocialized cats in high-volume shelters. They don't have many options. Sometimes their options are humane euthanasia,” Ocampo-Solis said. “So it's a harm reduction program.”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration is defending a contract extension with a Kansas company to staff migrant shelters. The iconic South Side Brown Sugar Bakery opened its new manufacturing facility yesterday. Chicago City Council members want to see a new proposed Department of Environment have enforcement powers.

Arson fires are an issue across Chicago, according to a new WBEZ analysis. Unionized part-time faculty at Columbia College Chicago plan to strike Monday if a contract deal isn’t reached by then. Even as some high schools in Chicago struggle with low enrollment, a high school community on the far southwest side is asking for overcrowding relief.

Chicago elected its first-ever police district councils earlier this year, and people around the country are watching. The councils put police accountability in the hands of neighborhood residents and could inspire similar models in other cities—depending on how they fare.
 
 For the 65 council members across 22 districts, the first challenge is getting residents to show up and share their input. WBEZ’s criminal justice reporter Chip Mitchell talked at length with Austin District Council chair Carmelita Earls, who wants to create a safe space for people to share concerns without risking retaliation from officers in their neighborhood. 
 
 In this episode, Mitchell updates host Erin Allen on the first few months of police district councils.

We have an update on how things are going with a new effort in Cook County to locate missing people. It’s onto the state Senate for a measure allowing Illinois legislative employees to unionize. The city’s human relations commission says Chicago has seen an uptick in reported hate crimes.

Two Chicago police officers killed in the line of duty will be honored tonight. Chicago officials are assessing a site in Brighton Park on the South Side as a possible base camp to house 2,000 migrants. Bat sightings are on the rise in Chicago, and not just because of Halloween.

If you’ve seen a Chicago pothole filled with old world, mosaic tile artwork – yet depicting something modern like a pair of hot sauce packets or a pack of Marlboro cigarettes – it was probably the creation of Jim Bachor.“I’ve found that my goal in life is to drag the artform of the mosaic kicking and screaming into the 21st century,” Bachor said. Bachor tells Rundown podcast host Erin Allen how a tour guide in Pompeii kickstarted his obsession with mosaics, why both the durability and the restrictions of the medium are reasons he loves it, and why he started installing his artwork in Chicago potholes.  “I got to thinking,” he said, “I’ve got this reoccuring problem outside of the house that can’t be fixed, and then a hundred yards away in my studio in the basement here I am passionately working on this artform that is so durable, why don’t I combine them?” 

Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling backs sending mental health staffers to 911 crisis calls instead of police. A measure to allow legislative employees at the Illinois capitol to unionize is moving. After 38 years – Chicago’s Newberry Library is ending its annual book fair to focus on future exhibitions and storytelling events.

The Chicago Police Department responds to WBEZ and Chicago Sun-Times reporting about extremist connections to the force. Illinois joins more than 30 states in suing Meta. The Chicago Audubon Society changes its name.

Before he got into the advice biz, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Ismael Perez did the research. He found advice columns going back to at least the 1800s when people would write into local newspapers for tips on clothing stains and housewarming parties. Somehow along the way, we ended up crowdsourcing wisdom on Reddit and calling into podcasts for advice.
 
 Now, Perez has an advice column for 2023. It’s called “Someone In Chicago,” and it’s geared toward Chicagoans in their twenties, thirties and forties. But that didn’t stop him from answering a query from a 92-year-old widow.
 
 In this episode, host Erin Allen talks to Perez about the advice that shaped us and getting vulnerable enough to accept help.

Hundreds of protestors blocked traffic in downtown Chicago Monday to call for a ceasefire in Israel and Gaza. The leading Jewish civil rights group wants the Chicago Police to thoroughly investigate the influence of political extremism on the force. Some City Council members say the city needs more 3-1-1 operators that are multilingual.

Community members and activists in west suburban Oak Park want village leaders to step up to help with the migrant crisis. There was a chaotic scene outside an Israeli solidarity event in the northern suburbs Sunday. Rookie quarterback Tyson Bagent speaks about leading the Chicago Bears to a 30-12 victory over the Las Vegas Raiders.

Briana Kidd realized the interest on her student loans was paused and saw a golden opportunity to pay down the principal. Living with her dad, working two jobs and routinely saving money allowed her to pay her balance down from $37,000 to $10,000. Andrew Palomo was able to adopt his now 16-month-old daughter Teresa. And although he’s been paying off his loans for nearly a decade, he still owes nearly $186,000 – “which is a house,” he said. 
 
 In this episode, Erin Allen talks with WBEZ higher education reporter Lisa Philip about these two very different approaches to the pandemic-era student loan repayment pause – which ended this month – and what the return of loan payments means particularly for borrowers of color, both current borrowers and potential new ones, who may have changing views on the value of higher education.

We'll hear more from the WBEZ-Sun-Times investigation into the troubling experiences people had with police officers who appeared on a leaked list of the Oath Keepers. Illinois lawmakers accepted donations from red-light camera companies despite passing a bill saying they can’t do that. Military veterans want Cook County to provide more resources.

An Evanston mother and daughter who were taken hostage by Hamas militants have been released. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators staged a sit-in at Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky’s office. This year’s pumpkin crop was strong despite droughts.

Even 20 years ago, kids didn’t have their entire lives recorded online. Then, social media assured anyone could go viral and smartphones made us all infinitely more trackable.
 
 These technologies have changed what it means to be a kid. Chicagoland author Devorah Heitner explores childhood in the 21st Century in her latest book “Growing Up in Public: Coming of Age in a Digital World.”
 
 In this episode, we talk to Heitner about location tracking, “sharenting” and why kids post the way they do.

Illinois election officials are considering various security measures ahead of the 2024 primary elections next Spring. All those ads you see on CTA trains and buses are helping to keep ticket prices from rising. An Illinois healthcare program for undocumented seniors is pausing enrollments next month.

Chicago officials on a trip to the Southern border are seeing firsthand what conditions look like for asylum-seekers when they enter the U.S. Illinois is pausing enrollment in the program providing Medicaid-style healthcare coverage for undocumented immigrants over age 65. A young guitarist mistakenly shot by a Des Plaines police officer four years ago is now getting a $1.9 million payout from the suburb.

Chicago’s own Ytasha Womack is both a scholar of afrofuturism and the author of a new book on one of the most notable figures in afrofuturistic sci-fi: Marvel’s “Black Panther.” In this episode, host Erin Allen talks with Womack about her book, “Black Panther: A Cultural Exploration,” how afro futures are everyone’s futures, and the cultural importance of T’Challa’s home country of Wakanda.“One woman in the book said that Wakanda was as real for her as the biblical city of Canaan,” Womack said. “So for some, it's not just some fantasy tale, it has real resonance because it synergizes all these possibilities, these hopes, these dreams.”

After a bombing of a Gaza hospital left hundreds dead – protesters in Chicago say they want local leaders to call for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Loyola University Law Professor Jeannine Bell breaks down what goes into a hate crime prosecution as the Chicago office of the FBI investigates the recent killing of a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy. The public will have more chances to weigh in on possible changes to the state’s blueprint for teaching reading in Illinois schools.

Google has gotten the go-ahead to demolish the glass exterior and atrium of the Thompson Center in downtown Chicago. There could be a strike among healthcare and retail workers at Howard Brown Health. The launch of Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s new abortion rights nonprofit signals he will not run for president next year, according to the chief political reporter at The Chicago Sun-Times.

If you live in Chicago, you know Lee Crooks—probably without realizing it. Crooks has been the voice of the CTA for 25 years, so he’s a fixture in most of our lives. We wanted to get to know the man behind “Doors closing.”
 
 In this episode, we talk to Crooks about trains, legacy and Midwest accents. And yes, we have him do the voice.

As the war between Israel and Hamas continues, an Islamic Day School in Chicago's southwest suburbs is trying to protect itself from violence and hate speech. Some Chicago alderpersons want the city to increase liquor inspectors to crack down on bars that have drawn shootings. Congress is hoping to create national standards for compensating college athletes.

A vigil is planned tonight in suburban Plainfield to honor 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume, who was stabbed to death Saturday. Chicago-based nonprofit MedGlobal is working to support hospitals in Gaza. Family, friends and neighbors hope for the safe return of two Evanston women from Gaza.

Instead of junk food and sodas, a Good Things Vending machine offers local art, throwback trading cards, games and dozens of other items you won’t find in a typical vending machine. There are a handful of them around Chicago, and the creator of the business says the goal is to spark joy and promote the city’s arts community. Steph Krim talks with Erin Allen about how she came up with the idea, her favorite items and where you can find a machine near you. 

Family members of the 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy who was stabbed to death this weekend gathered to condemn the alleged hate crime. Chicago’s Council on American-Islamic Relations Office says they’re receiving an increasing number of Islamophobic phone calls. If college enrollment remains steady, only about 30% of Chicago Public School freshmen today are predicted over the next decade to get a bachelor’s or associate's degree.

A 6-year old suburban Palestinian-American boy was laid to rest today two days after being stabbed to death. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson reversed course and will not visit the U.S.-Mexico border. Bears quarterback Justin Fields dislocated his thumb and may miss Sunday’s game.

Whether you’re a longtime fan or a first-time listener, you’ll love the changes coming to The Rundown podcast. From now on, catch three episodes from The Rundown feed every weekday: morning news, a midday deep-dive conversation and afternoon news.
 
 We want to bring you all the Chicago news you need to get through your day. And with our midday episodes, we’ll help you discover new places, people and things to love about the city.
 
 In this episode, host Erin Allen checks in with morning news host Adora Namigadde and afternoon news host Lisa Labuz.

Prosecutors charged a southwest-suburban man with murder and hate crimes after the deadly stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy. Hearings kick off Monday as City Council members vet Mayor Brandon Johnson’s proposed spending plan for next year. Chicago’s homes impacted by flooding earlier this summer have more time to apply for federal relief.

The concept of a person’s “race” is relatively new in the scope of human history. A new exhibit at Chicago’s Newberry Library, “Seeing Race Before Race,” looks at the period before we started grouping ourselves in racial hierarchies. “From a period of time from about 1100 to 1800, we’re arguing that race was made, through image and text,” said Lia Markey, one of the exhibit’s curators. In this episode, host Erin Allen talks through the exhibit with Markey and Noémie Ndiaye, another exhibit curator, about its most striking components and the goals of their scholarly research.“I think it's much more useful to think of what race does than to think of what race is,” Ndiaye said. “Who benefits from this? What is the power structure that is being upheld or made?”“Seeing Race Before Race” is open until late December. 

The Chicago City Council is meeting Friday to debate a resolution “condemning Hamas’ attack on Israel.” Emanuel “Chris” Welch says it’s unlikely Illinois lawmakers will consider additional funding for migrants in Chicago during their upcoming legislative session. There’s a new push for a law, known as “Karina’s Bill” that would require police to remove guns from the homes of accused domestic abusers.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s first budget lays the groundwork for his campaign promises while not raising property taxes. A new report says Uber and Lyft deactivated thousands of Chicago drivers. Many are still struggling to recover three months after record setting storms flooded thousands of homes.

The first 12 weeks postpartum are stressful for new parents, especially for new mothers. “It’s not something that’s really talked about,” said WBEZ photojournalist Manuel Martinez. He took dozens of powerful photographs of new mothers for the WBEZ multimedia series The First 12 Weeks, which is now a free interactive photo exhibit on Navy Pier through Nov. 30.In this episode, Martinez explains his process for taking photos during such an intimate time in a person’s life, as well as how he and his wife handled this totally unique part of human life.“We went through the pregnancy feeling like there were a lot of hands involved in making sure that she was going to be safe and the pregnancy was going to be successful,” Martinez said, “and then you go through the birth and you bring this baby home and nobody’s there. Everybody’s gone.”

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker added his voice to those condemning the actions of Hamas in Israel. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson will lay out his proposal Wednesday to close a half-a-billion-dollar budget gap. New research shows that the way Chicago funds its public schools is helping its neediest students.

Illinois lawmakers are calling for peace and de-escalation in wake of growing tensions between Israel and Palestine. Italian Americans in Chicago are continuing to call for statues of Christopher Columbus to be replaced in the city’s parks. Chicago transit officials claim significant progress in rebuilding its workforce.

For Mary Mitchell, retirement isn’t sticking. Lucky for us, she’s coming out of retirement to write a new column about aging called “Starting Over.” 
 
 “I think we should embrace aging as opposed to making fun of it,” Mitchell said. 
 
 She wants us to celebrate aging and use this opportunity to impart her wisdom to the next generation. In this episode, we talk to the Chicago Sun-Times columnist about what it means to reinvent ourselves later in life.

Israelis and Palestinians in Chicago are watching as casualties mount on both sides in Israel, following a declaration of war over the weekend. Native American people are celebrating their centuries-long history of resilience on Indigenous Peoples Day. Chicago Marathon fans were out in earnest cheering on runners during Sunday’s race where two world records were set.

Black drivers accounted for over 30% of all traffic stops in Illinois last year, even though the state’s adult population is only 13.6% Black. There’s also been a fivefold increase in the number of Black drivers stopped for non-moving violations and then let go with a warning. That’s all according to a recent data analysis by WBEZ and the Investigative Project on Race and Equity, which found that Black driver involvement in Illinois traffic stops has reached its highest level on record.In this episode, Erin Allen speaks with Angela Caputo and Michael Liptrot, two of the many journalists behind the report, about the increase in so-called “pretextual stops,” how public officials responded to questions about the data, and the effect these traffic stops have on Black drivers.“If you come to work and you're doing everything you're supposed to do and then every so often you just get pulled into HR for nothing and questioned about what you're doing, it will lead you to have a level of angst and anxiety about just going about your day,” Liptrot said.We want to hear about your traffic stop experience in Illinois. It will inform WBEZ's coverage going forward. Visit wbez.org/trafficsurvey.

Chicago City Council members will vote on a proposal to eliminate the commonly known “sub-minimum wage.” Chicago Bears legend Dick Butkus, considered the gold standard for middle linebackers, has died at the age of 80. Northwestern University’s former head football coach Pat Fitzgerald is suing the university for more than $130 million in damages for “wrongful termination.”

The head of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services resigns. Mayor Brandon Johnson says he will soon visit the southern border to assess the migrant situation himself as the number being brought to Chicago continues to grow. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle proposes a budget with no new taxes for next year.

Growing up in Missouri, singer Chappell Roan didn’t think of queerness as an option. Now that she’s an openly queer pop star, she wants to use her platform to empower LGBTQ+ communities. So she’s booking local drag queens to open for her in every city on tour.
 
 “Drag is just inspirational throughout my whole project,” Roan said. “It would be only right to have drag open for me.”
 
 Enter Boyj, a Chicago-based drag artist. He also didn’t see himself reflected in the mainstream growing up. He said queer communities in Northalsted—formerly Boystown—helped him find himself. “I like to think of Chicago as the headquarters of drag,” Boyj said.
 
 You can see where this is going: Boyj is one of Chappell Roan’s openers for her Chicago shows at the House of Blues.
 
 In this episode, we talk to them both about drag, queer origin stories and Roan’s debut album “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.”

Illinois saw a spike in hate crimes and speech over the last three years. Chicagoans can weigh in on a proposal to increase a tax on high-end property sales to fund homelessness prevention. Nurses want Illinois state lawmakers to regulate how many patients they treat at a time.

This past month, Chicago had fewer murders than any September since 2014. Cook County announces a Digital Equity Action Plan to expand internet access. Groups demand work permits for all undocumented immigrants – not just Venezuelans

The Guatemalan civil war brought Nestor Gomez and his family to the United States when he was a teenager in the 1980s. “In many ways I didn’t have a voice at all,” he told Erin Allen. “I didn’t have a voice because I couldn’t vote as an undocumented person, I didn’t have a voice because I stuttered and I didn’t have a voice because I didn’t know the language.”Decades later and Nestor is somewhat of a legend in Chicago’s storytelling scene. He’s won The Moth's Story SLAM over 70 times and the Chicago Grand SLAM three times (and he’s competing for a fourth win on Saturday, Oct. 7). In this episode, he explains how he found his voice, how he stays conversational on stage and why everyone has a story worth telling.