Emily Badger

Crime scene tape is placed over a warning sign at a business near the scene of a multiple shooting in the 7100 block of South Woodlawn Avenue Thursday, July 4, 2024, in Chicago. Two women and three children were shot at a home on the block, and the women were pronounced dead. The children are listed in critical condition, according to police. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)

Murders surged in the pandemic. Now in many cities that surge is gone.

November 2, 2024 at 6:40 p.m.

Murders declined at a remarkable rate in America in 2023, with official statistics showing the largest one-year drop in more than half a century, and this year looks on track...

Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky speaks during an announcement in San Francisco, Tuesday, April 19, 2016.

Airbnb announces ‘comprehensive review’ after complaints of bias

June 12, 2018 at 3:15 a.m.

The home-sharing company Airbnb, facing increasing complaints of racial bias, says it is planning a "comprehensive review" of how discrimination may arise on a platform that gives private citizens the...

Why a housing scheme founded in racism is making a resurgence today

June 10, 2018 at 8:10 p.m.

Beryl Satter knew something like this was bound to happen. Or, rather, to happen again. The Rutgers historian wrote the book on an obscure form of predatory lending from the...

Poor people are less likely to buy items in bulk, thus spending more in household items like toilet paper, a new study has found.

Why the poor pay more for toilet paper — and just about everything else

June 9, 2018 at 5:49 a.m.

There are several ways to save money on, say, a roll of toilet paper. You can reach for the cheaper version: the store brand, or the single-ply TP, or the...

Complaints from taxi passengers in New York and Chicago have declined with the expansion of ride companies such as Uber and Lyft.

As Uber, Lyft usages rises, taxi complaints fall

June 12, 2018 at 8:01 a.m.

Taxi drivers are hamstrung in their ability to compete with Uber. They don't control the major lever of competition, the ability to lower their fares. They aren't allowed to surge...

If the earliest homes available on Airbnb were more akin to a bed & breakfast, corporate-style studios and apartments would look a lot more like hotels.

It may soon be easier to sneak your Airbnb guests past the doorman

June 16, 2018 at 1:50 p.m.

Large corporately run apartment buildings offer a certain kind of appeal. The units are standardized and the service predictable, which is reassuring in that same way that a latte from...

A Belgian army vehicle is parked on the almost deserted square in front of the main train station in the center of Brussels on Nov. 22, 2015.

Brussels put on high alert as officials warn of ‘imminent’ threat of attack

June 21, 2019 at 3:21 p.m.

The government abruptly shut down the city's subway system, canceled sporting events and warned residents to avoid crowded places as Belgium placed the capital on maximum alert early on Saturday,...

A look at the Yelp office located at Merchandise Mart in Chicago on Oct. 16, 2015.

Yelp plans to highlight restaurants with poor safety ratings

June 16, 2018 at 6:18 p.m.

Yelp, the popular website that lets consumers review everything from bistros, to body shops to yoga studios, quietly began running an experiment in San Francisco over the past week. The...

More people are renting instead of buying homes

June 15, 2018 at 7:47 p.m.

The majority of American households still own their homes, a fact that will remain true as far into the future as demographers and economists can see. But the balance of...

Both poor and rich kids reap the same benefits from stable communities.

What’s good for poor kids isn’t bad for rich ones

August 19, 2019 at 12:29 a.m.

Much of the discussion around last week's big new social mobility study focused on the fates of poor kids. We now know, thanks to the work of Harvard economists Raj...

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