Crafting as resistance: How 4 Indigenous artists across Chicago use crafting as a tool to resist cultural erasure, sustain culture
By Jenna Mayzouni Medill Reports The sound of the Huehuetl drum thuds gently against the ground as Sergio places it down on the cement playground in Harrison Park, in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. His wife, Ana, places offerings in front of the drums and begins preparing the copal incense for the practice of the day. They are usually the […]
This brandy bottles 500 years of Bolivian history: A growing number of trendy Chicago bars are pouring Singani, the spirit director Steven Soderbergh brought to the U.S.
By Paulina Marinkovic Camacho Medill Reports Down an alleyway on Palmer Street, past a nondescript door and centuries-old brick façade, a 500-year-old type of brandy, until recently little known beyond its homeland of Bolivia, is starring in one of the city’s most high-concept cocktail lineups. At The Meadowlark, a Logan Square speakeasy renowned for its […]
Robbins: A small Chicago suburb with a big part in Black history
By Autumn Coleman Medill Reports In 2019, Dawn Colquitt-Anderson walked into her small hometown’s history museum with her 8- and 9-year-old nieces in tow. She expected to find family photos and fun facts, but she discovered memorabilia of Tuskegee Airmen and Black cowboys. The information sent Colquitt-Anderson on an ongoing journey to spread the almost-forgotten […]
Not their first rodeo: New generation of Black cowboys in Chicagoland lasso cattle for Midwest crowds
Horse hooves knocked chunks of dirt over the steel bars of the arena. Stallions charged 20 mph after a loose steer. Within seconds, a cowboy slid off his steed, grabbed the loose animal by its horns, flipped it over his shoulder and tackled it to the ground. The crowd clapped and hollered. On a Saturday […]
LISTEN: Inside a viral facelift: The Guadalajara plastic surgery journey
By Emma Urdangen, Kaitlyn Luckoff and Payton Turkeltaub Medill Reports Americans are traveling to Guadalajara, Mexico, for facelifts that cost a fraction of U.S. prices and documenting every step on TikTok. In this episode, we follow David and Michelle, two patients who went viral after their surgeries, to uncover what it really feels like to […]
The Bumble burnout: As dating app enthusiasm dims, industry scrambles to prove digital matching can still deliver meaningful connections
By Emma Urdangen Medill Reports Walking out of a Washington, D.C., dive bar after her fifth terrible app-date of the month, 23-year-old Carly HoganBruen knew something wasn’t working. That night, “David” took a 20-minute call during dinner to chat with his sister, then ended the date early. The week before, “Mark” said he “couldn’t stop […]
Asian supermarkets in Chicago serve as community hubs. Now they’re bracing for effects of tariffs.
By Alyssa Rola Medill Reports Every time she gets sick, Wanmin Zhang habitually looks for her personal cure: her parents’ home-cooked Chinese meals. The 28-year-old support engineer, who was born in southern China but grew up in Chicago, can only fend for herself as an adult. She’d visit Asian grocery stores to cop intricate ingredients […]
Build-A-Bear’s 10-year turnaround: How the company quietly became one of the world’s top specialty retailers
By Payton Turkeltaub Medill Reports From the day the first Build-A-Bear Workshop store opened in the Saint Louis Galleria Mall in 1997 to a line around the corner of parents and children waiting to be the inaugural customers, founder and former CEO Maxine Clark knew she had done something right. A month later, it was […]
PHOTOS: ‘More than a sport’: Irish Gaelic games grow, build community in Chicago
By Tom O’Connor Medill Reports Far from Ireland, Gaelic games are thriving in Chicago even as the number of U.S. residents born in Ireland fell between 2009 and 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Players with and without Irish roots are building communities around these centuries-old traditions, despite resource challenges and competition from mainstream […]
E.l.f. Beauty, Rhode show impact of celebrity association on brand’s stock, company’s trajectory
By Bianca Javate Medill Reports When E.l.f. Beauty announced May 29 it would acquire Hailey Bieber’s skin care line Rhode for $1 billion, its stock surged 24% in just a few days. This is an unusually sharp move as, based on historical market data compiled by Financial Samurai and DataTrek Research, the S&P 500 typically […]