1. Jose Lopez’s Last Stand
The longtime Humboldt Park activist is fighting his neighborhood’s gentrification. It’s his hardest battle yet. Chicago profiles the man and his community.
2. No Money for Treating the Traumatized
A Chicago program helps children who have been exposed to violence, with the hopes that it will break the chain. But it’s running on a thread. The Reader goes inside Safe Start.
3. Can the NFL Change Domestic Abusers? A Conversation with Beth Richie
One of the women on the league’s new domestic-violence panel is a UIC prof who’s been studying the issue for decades. Jezebel asks how she got here, and what’s next.
4. Why Does Chicago Have So Many Illegal Guns?
Last year cops seized twice as many as in Los Angeles and New York combined. How easy is it to get one? Al Jazeera goes undercover to find out.
5. Chicago by Stanley Kubrick
Before he was a famous director, a 21-year-old Kubrick photographed the city as an apprentice for Look magazine. Mashable shows his budding talent.
6. Real Estate and Religion: The Tale of Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist
How did a small Christian denomination end up with a massive, mod building on a major downtown corner? It wasn’t always a hotspot. WBEZ tells the story of the local landmark.
7. Faces of Minimum Wage: Home Care Worker ‘Always Back in the Hole’
After 12 years as a security guard, she started taking care of the elderly—and took a pay cut of three dollars an hour to do it. The Sun-Times looks at life from a South Shore woman’s view.
8. Cardinal George Discusses Successor, Pope, Defense of Doctrine
The outgoing leader of Chicago’s Catholics admits that Blase Cupich’s pastoral approach could reach people he couldn’t. The Tribune sits down for a long interview about his future, and Cupich’s.
9. Drawing Attention to Chicago’s Anti-Homeless Measures With ‘Compartment 13’
There are an estimated 138,000 homeless in Chicago. Here are the stories of some who live under its underpasses. CityLab illustrates their tales.
10. Want to Help Out Gary, Indiana? Why Not Just Give Them Money?
In the early 1970s, the struggling city was the host of a surprising—and surprisingly successful—test of the negative income tax. Chicago explores what happened.