The collapse of Al Jazeera America is going to put about 700 journalists out of work, and as you think about this high number keep in mind that when the Qatar-owned news channel was setting up three years ago, it got about 12,000 job applications. Any decent job in journalism is a precious commodity. Then there was the fact that Al Jazeera already offered the international channel Al Jazeera English, an excellent service launched in 2006 that was available in the U....

Stretched out on her bunk at night, arms all akimbo, Sharonda Miller likes to close her eyes and imagine freedom is a train ride home. After 19 years away from her only child, the 41-year-old mother, known for her big jokes and watchful eye, has built countless friendships inside the gates of Logan Correctional Center, Illinois’s largest women’s prison. The lack of cameras in her temporary unit made her mind tick and creep into dark parts of her past....

Q: I’m a 22-year-old straight male dating a 23-year-old woman. This is by far the most sexual relationship I’ve been in, which is great, except one part is freaking me out: I recently “caught” my girlfriend masturbating with her roommate’s panties. (She knew I was coming over and wanted me to catch her.) It turns out she has a habit of sneaking her roommate’s worn underwear, masturbating while smelling them (or putting them in her mouth), and then sneaking them back into her roommate’s laundry basket....

In a small courtroom on the third floor of a nondescript building in downtown Chicago on February 5, Judge Samuel B. Cole called case 849. Add the novel coronavirus pandemic, and the situation becomes untenable. Even as much of the country has shut down and many civil and criminal proceedings are on hold, immigration courts hearing cases for immigrants held in detention are still operating. This makes Cole and many of his colleagues furious....

Way back in the day, when no one ever would’ve thought that Marshall Field’s or the Sears Tower would change their names, all 28 of the Robert Taylor Homes buildings marched up and down State Street from 39th to 54th. The housing project’s high-rises shot up into the air, 16 stories, looming over apartment buildings, schools, and police stations. When you entered that way, you had to go through “the breezeway....

Guitarist Li Jianhong is fairly unknown in the U.S., but he’s one of the most important experimental musicians in China. Like Sonic Youth and Japanese rock collective Ghost, he straddles and/or blasts his way across the line between psychedelic rock and exploratory noise; he also frequently incorporates a spiritual component inspired by Buddhism and traditional Chinese art. The tracks on his latest album, Father, and a Wild Trail Zigzagging Down, were recorded in 2018 at various venues on his first European tour, and together they make for a lovely summation of his range and focus....

Courtesy Thinkstock What’s the deal with eggs? Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, alarm, amuse, or inspire us. • That Ireland is the first country to ask electorate about legalizing marriage equality? —Drew Hunt

British singer Dua Lipa released her second album, Future Nostalgia, on March 27—a week earlier than she originally planned, but right on schedule to give the world a much-needed dose of bubblegum poptimism. The title track opens with a promise: “You want a timeless track, I want to change the game.” From there, the album’s 11 songs blend disco beats and 80s synths in a throwback sound that channels late-night dance clubs and Jazzercise classes....

Sometimes, we just don’t give ourselves the space. “[In Goods], here these two women are: in outer space, with no space, in a small space, trying to garner their personal space,” Butler says. “The thing that really excited me about [Goods] is that it’s very well written, [Ferebee] did an amazing, bang-up job with this script, and it speaks to something that we haven’t endeavored before: the future, space, our goods, what we do with them, how we look at life now, moving forward after the pandemic with social justice and change happening all around us, and we have a whole new medium of theater right now, Zoom, and that’s never going to go away....

Courtesy of Tim Mortensen Tim Mortensen Every day brings a glut of new song and album premieres appearing on music sites (including our own) and social-media platforms. The influx can work against artists, who are all vying for the public’s attention—figuring out which song premieres to check out becomes a job of its own for the listener. Fortunately Chicagoan and Into It. Over It. bass player Tim Mortensen is developing one solution for music lovers, and it’s a newish website called Debuts....

The autumnal folk music that Alec Watson writes (and performs with pals) under the name DPCD has the uncluttered, utilitarian grace of Shaker furniture, shaped with a contemplative sense of order and sturdy enough for daily use. Gossip Wolf loved the band’s 2017 debut, Good Visions, especially “Images of No Use,” which recalls Iron & Wine, early Sufjan Stevens, and Thrill Jockey supergroup Pullman. Watson describes DPCD’s self-released new LP, False Virtue, as “centered around daily routine, memory, and family history,” and debut single “No Will” is as potently specific as the crunch of fallen leaves underfoot....

Over the past few years, Chicago hip-hop duo Mother Nature have become so thoroughly embedded in several overlapping scenes that it could feel like they were always playing a show. And when the weather heated up, they sometimes got gigs bigger than any one scene: Subterranean booked them for Wicker Park Fest twice in a row, they won a spot on North Coast Music Festival’s 2018 lineup, and last year they played an unofficial Pitchfork afterparty organized by multimedia outlet AMFM....

Annex at GreenRiver | Streeterville Band of Bohemia | Ravenswood A gorgeous, spacious, comfortable space to await your dinner reservation in the Fulton Market district, from the folks behind Bangers & Lace. Read the full review >> The Broken Shaker | River North The folks behind Dante’s Pizza and the Rocking Horse took over Crown and turned a dumpy liquor-store/dive bar into a less dumpy liquor-store/dive bar with lots of charm—and foosball and that really fun Addams Family pinball machine....

A Reader staffer shares three musical obsessions, then asks someone (who asks someone else) to take a turn. Biiri by Nihiloxica Music in South Shore There’s great energy in South Shore right now musically, between weekly shows at the Quarry on 75th, the Universal Alley Jazz Jams off 71st (summer months only, unfortunately), and community-level initiatives—this summer I got to see Dee Alexander at one block party and a fantastic youth band, Urban Aspirations, at another....

Inclusion of full and frequent nudity is so vital to the gay throuple drama Afterglow that, according to playwright S. Asher Gelman, a production’s failure to include it “will result in legal action.” In the case of Pride Films & Plays’s current staging, Gelman should feel comfortable putting that cease and desist letter back in his drawer. Be it silently bathing in the background, laying on a massage table, or sitting around a bed postcoital, director David Zak’s handsome cast spends almost as much time onstage stripped down to their skivvies as not....

Q: I’ve been in a relationship with a wonderful guy for the past year. The only problem is that he works with a girl he used to fuck. It wasn’t just sex—they would go on dates and even went on vacation together. He kept this little “detail” to himself for six full months before giving himself away by mistake. He then apologized, said he hadn’t told me so that I wouldn’t worry for no reason, and that he no longer has any feelings for her whatsoever....

Marta Collazo’s androgynous cropped hair frames her, she says, “like a blank canvas” ready to showcase unique wares: Komono sunglasses, a bird cameo secured to an amber necklace with a twist tie from a loaf of bread, a geometric bracelet that was a gift from a stranger at a Starbucks. “It’s a very transparent hairdo because you cannot hide your face or facial expressions,” the 61-year-old retiree said last month during a fashion show at the Stony Island Arts Bank that was part of the exhibit “Runway to Reality,” a collaboration between photographer Maurene Cooper and gown designer Suzette Opara that featured south-side teens in prom dresses....

ARTIST: Karissa Talanian SHOW: Timmy’s Organism, Poison Boys, Wet Piss, Andy Marchel’s Cocaine Rainbow, and DJ Todd Killings at Liar’s Club on Fri 11/8 MORE INFO: Karissa Talanian/Eye Vibe Records

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago.

Chicago R&B singer Ravyn Lenae dropped her debut EP, heavenly Moon Shoes, in 2015, and six of its eight tracks had beats by eclectic producer Monte Booker—one of her comrades in local hip-hop crew Zero Fatigue, which also includes idiosyncratic rapper-singer Smino. Booker has also provided the instrumental backbone for much of Lenae’s otherworldly work since then, and last year she appeared on Smino’s breakout debut album, Blkswn. Her creative relationships with Smino and Booker have made it difficult for me to imagine her music outside the context of Zero Fatigue....