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What made two rich young intellectuals murder a neighbor boy in cold blood? Clarence Darrow had an answer.

Jon Ronson is one of those writers who embodies what creative nonfiction is all about by demonstrating just how strange and wonderful the world can be.

Is it sad that we can so easily overlook the fact that the RedEye truncated coverage the last four neighborhoods, deciding that mention of them was all but expendable?

Forbes recently listed Chicago as their fourth most miserable city, behind Detroit, Flint and Rockford—meaning that the states of Illinois and Michigan were having bad days overall. In part of their clearly objective calculus, they listed our high crime rate and weather as signs of our happiness deficit—because math said so.

A bored trophy wife's affair ends in murder. The scandal that rocked 1907 Chicago.

It's hard to track down Ameena Matthews. She's constantly on call, always ready to keep conflicts in the city's most dangerous neighborhoods from escalating to homicide. But she wasn't always the one breaking up the fights and trying to keep the peace — Matthews will tell you herself, she didn't think she'd live to see 25, as most of her youth was wrapped up in life on the streets. 

A visit to the "Bloody Maxwell" police district, where even the cops travel in pairs.