1. Inside Chicago’s Worst Nursing Home: Bug Bites, Bruises, and Death

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services lists 83 facilities as the nation’s most chronically poor. One of those is on the South Side of Chicago. The Tribune looks inside.

2. My Father, the Stranger

Bryan Smith’s father left when he was two. He only saw him twice over the years; both times it went badly. Then he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The author describes what happened next for Chicago magazine.

3. A 4-Block Radius on the West Side Is at the Heart of Chicago’s Opioid Epidemic

The area around Ridgeway and Augusta saw 1,257 calls over two years—about seven percent of those citywide. The Sun-Times visits.

4. Chicago Schools Need $3 Billion in Repairs, Yet CPS Spends Big on New Construction

Since 2011, $3.4 billion has been budgeted for facilities. 60 percent of that has gone to new buildings, additions, technology, or rehabs for new programs. WBEZ runs the numbers.

5. Gangs Embrace Social Media with Often Deadly Results

How do you follow a gang conflict in Chicago in 2018? Google, YouTube, Facebook. The AP follows their paths.

6. Reality Check Time for Metra: The Downside of Frugality

The rail service is the cheapest among the six largest commuter rail systems, but how long can it keep up with its aging fleet? The BGA adds it up.

7. The Brilliant Artist that Chicago, and the World, Nearly Forgot

Edgar Miller was a painter, sculptor, printmaker, metalworker, and more. His masterpiece, though, are live-work spaces on the Near North Side that have largely been closed to the public—but they’re starting to get their due. CityLab celebrates his work.

8. The 1980s AIDS Epidemic in Chicago, Revisited in Rebecca Makkai’s New Novel, The Great Believers

She was only seven years old at the moment her book begins, but layers of research took her deep into the crisis as it was lived. The Reader sits down with her.

9. The Mysterious New Wndr Museum Will Give Chicago Its First Yayoi Kusama Infinity Room

The octogenarian’s mirrored room attracted 75,000 visitors at its New York installation. A local pop-up museum will feature it, but it’s not yet clear who’s behind it. ArtNet previews the work.

10. Q&A: Roger Bennett on His Love Affairs with Soccer and Chicago

The Men in Blazers host was lured from Liverpool to America by the work of Studs Terkel and John Huges. Chicago magazine talks to him about his early years in the U.S.