Good morning, Chicago.
The Chicago Tribune won the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting yesterday for its coverage of Operation Midway Blitz, the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement mission in the Chicago area last fall.
Awarded by Columbia University, the prize — the country’s top journalism honor — recognizes exceptional coverage of significant issues of local or statewide concern. The judges cited the newsroom’s comprehensive coverage of the blitz, including a story examining the federal government’s raid on a South Shore apartment complex, the shooting of a U.S. citizen in Brighton Park and an investigation into how criminal charges against protesters have not withstood the harsh light of the federal court system.
The Tribune’s capstone piece, “64 days in Chicago: The story of Operation Midway Blitz,” also was included in the winning entry.
The Pulitzer Prize board honored the Tribune “for its powerful coverage of the Trump administration’s militarized immigration sweep of the city that described in vivid, muscular prose how the siege-like incursion of ICE agents unified Chicagoans in resistance,” according to the award.
“I am incredibly proud of the entire newsroom, and most proud of the way that the newsroom banded together to rise to this moment,” Mitch Pugh, executive editor of the Tribune, said.
Read the full story from the Tribune’s Robert Channick.
Here are the top stories you need to know to start your day, including what to expect in today’s Indiana primary election, who the Chicago Bulls choose to lead their front office and a restaurant review of Japanese dining bar Kumiko.
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What to expect in today’s Indiana primary election
Half of Indiana’s 50 state Senate seats and all 100 state House seats are up for election in 2026. Republicans hold supermajorities in both chambers.
Indiana voters will also choose nominees for the U.S. House under the existing boundaries, although none of the state’s nine seats is expected to play a key role in the effort to win control of the chamber in November.
- Early in-person voting for today’s primary soars in Lake, Porter counties
- Election inspectors get credentials, equipment ahead of big day
- What to expect in Michigan’s special election for control of the state Senate
Central and southern Illinois residents could face high electricity rates again this summer
Residents of central and southern Illinois could face another summer of brutally high electricity prices if the region gets hit by another heat wave.
That was the blunt warning last week from Ameren Illinois, which delivers power from LaSalle County in Chicago’s far southwest suburbs all the way to the Ohio River.
DUI trial for Cook County tax Commissioner Samantha Steele begins
One by one, the four Chicago Police Department officers called to testify yesterday in the DUI trial of Cook County Board of Review Commissioner Samantha Steele pointed her out in a drab Richard J. Daley Center courtroom.
Northwest Indiana gambling ring’s alleged leader remains in custody
A federal magistrate judge declined to release one of the ringleaders of what authorities allege is a multi-state gambling and extortion ring run partly out of his family’s two Northwest Indiana restaurants.
Evanston’s prolific horror novelist Daniel Kraus wins Pulitzer for fiction
Daniel Kraus, the prolific Evanston novelist, best known for his many horror novels and high-profile collaborations with filmmakers such as Guillermo del Toro and George Romero, won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, for “Angel Down,” his stylishly audacious World War I novel, a tale of American soldiers trapped on a French battlefield who find an angel caught in barbed wire.
Column: New book takes us back to the night Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone’s vault on live TV
Al Capone has been back in the news recently because April 21 was the 40th anniversary of a live TV special in which Geraldo Rivera stood inside what had once been the Lexington Hotel on 22nd Street and Michigan Avenue and hosted a live two-hour syndicated program titled “The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vaults.”
Most of these recent television features and a couple of radio spots relied heavily, and understandably, on William Elliott Hazelgrove, a prolific author of a couple of dozen books, writes Rick Kogan. The most recent of which is the lively “Capone’s Vault: The Real Story of the Biggest Disaster in Television History” (Bloomsbury Academic).
Chicago Bulls choose Bryson Graham to lead their front office as executive VP of basketball operations
Bryson Graham, who began his career as an intern in the New Orleans Pelicans basketball operations department, now will be in charge of bringing the Bulls back to respectability.
Chicago Sky waive former 1st-round pick Hailey Van Lith and sign veteran Natasha Cloud
The Sky have waived second-year guard Hailey Van Lith and signed veteran guard Natasha Cloud, the team announced yesterday.
Van Lith, 24, was a first-round draft pick (No. 11) last year after a standout college career at Louisville, LSU and TCU. She averaged 3.5 points and 1.6 assists in 29 games as a rookie.
A real WKRP radio comes to Cincinnati, decades after the sitcom about a fictional station
WKRP isn’t dead — as of yesterday, it’s living on the air in Cincinnati.
The call letters from the fictional radio station featured in a CBS sitcom were adopted by a trio of real “adult hits” stations in time for Monday’s morning drive, and co-owner Jeff Ziesmann described listeners as “stoked.”
Restaurant review: Kumiko, the Japanese dining bar with a Renaissance chef reclaiming her culture in Chicago
Kumiko, the award-winning Japanese dining bar in Chicago’s West Loop, reclaims its culture with comfort and conviction under chef Julia Momosé, writes Louisa Kung Liu Chu.
Momosé, the critically acclaimed bartender who opened the business as partner and creative director, has proven herself a visionary Renaissance woman.
