Pitstick, 65, remembers tending to the crop with a tractor and using a radio to check for weather updates. Today, he plants using a computer-guided machine, and genetically engineered seeds make it possible for Pitstick and other farmers to produce more.

Although the history of his family’s Elburn-area farm goes back generations, Pitstick is focused fully on the future as the need for soy products grows. And he’s not the only one.

Pitstick is one of some 43,000 soybean farmers represented by the Illinois Soybean Association, which is leading an effort to spur the development of soy-based products that are increasingly used as a cleaner and more sustainable replacement for petroleum.

Launched by the association in March, the Soy Innovation Center is intended to serve as a virtual resource for innovators around the globe looking to test out new soy products and bring them to market.

Todd Main, director of marketing development for the association, said the innovation center will not only commercialize new uses of soy, but also create jobs in Illinois.

“Because about 60% of Illinois soybeans go overseas, we have a broader focus than a lot of other states because we have to have a good relationship with buyers all over the world,” Main said.

Products using soy in place of petroleum have proven popular as interest in clean energy climbs. Clean energy and transportation investment in the U.S. surged by nearly 40% in 2023 to $239 billion, according to independent research firm Rhodium Group.

Some examples of soy-based innovations are products that can be used in manufacturing or heavy industry under high pressure and temperature, Main said. A few common uses for soy at smaller scales include foam used to put out fires and printer ink.

“There are hundreds of products that soybean is used in, and the variety of products has grown substantially in the last 10 years,” Main said.

While innovation is limitless, the center is looking for ideas and investments that can scale quickly and use soy in place of petroleum in big ways to have a smaller environmental footprint. Funding available for projects through the innovation center comes from the soy checkoff program, which is made up of a portion Illinois farmers’ sales.

Several projects are under consideration, and the innovation center is currently funding the development of a soy-based lubricant that can be used on farming equipment.

Ohio-based Airable Research Lab, which is working with Illinois and other top soy-producing states to develop new uses for soybeans, is testing the lubricant. The goal is to get a certificate of quality for the lubricant over the summer, Main said, after the testing phase wraps up.

Dylan Karis, lead chemist at Airable, said that in addition to the sustainability aspect, soy-based solutions can also increase workplace safety by reducing the toxicity that workers in manufacturing and processing settings are exposed to.

He added that being able to “constantly innovate” is a dream job.

“What gets us excited is continuously working to get a product super high in bio or soy content, like over 90% is huge,” Karis said. “That’s bigger for us and more important for the bigger picture.”

Airable was also involved in developing Roof Maxx, a soy-based product that’s used to rejuvenate dry, brittle asphalt roofing shingles. The lab continues to help the company, which is also based in Ohio, improve the formulation.

“What we have is an environmentally-friendly, bio-based product using soy,” said Scott James Papendorf, the Orland Park dealer for Roof Maxx.

The idea behind the product is to save people from having to completely replace their roof. “We’re very proud of being able to take a roof and give it another lifetime,” Papendorf said. “That’s one less roof in the landfills, too.”

Illinois produces about 670 million bushels of soybeans each year, making it the largest producer in the U.S. But soybeans are booming beyond Illinois, too. According to the USDA, planted soybean acreage increased by 18% from 2002 to 2022 in the U.S. Yields have also increased by 30%.

Soybeans can be put in the ground up until about mid-June, but Pitstick had already completed his planting for the season by mid-May. The earlier the better, he says, as the crop will yield more if it has more time to mature.

Pitstick has silos on his property which he uses to store his crop as it comes off the fields during harvest season, which starts in mid-September and runs for about six weeks.

The grain harvested from Pitstick’s farm — typically 700 semitruck loads of both soybean and corn — is stored and then parceled out over the next year. Much of Pitstick’s harvest is exported, so his soybeans are delivered via the Illinois River to New Orleans and then put on a ship for any number of final destinations from Mexico to China.

Grain that is not immediately exported will go to a crush facility, which is a place where the soybean is crushed into soybean oil and high-protein meal. A majority of soybeans that are crushed, about 80%, become the meal that predominantly goes toward livestock feed, while the oil is used as commercial vegetable oil or biodiesel.

Farmers are raising more and more soybeans every year — about 10,000 bushels each year — thanks to advancements in technology. The seed is better, he said, having gone through genetic engineering. More than 93% of soybean fields in major U.S. regions were using genetically engineered seed by 2006, according to the USDA.

With more product to move, the Illinois Soybean Association is “always looking for the next new market,” Pitstick said.

“The need for our product is also growing as we are becoming more environmentally conscious,” Pitstick said. “And farms themselves are also transitioning from petroleum-based products to renewable ones that are more sustainable.”

Farmers first entered the renewable resources discourse some 30 years ago and have since grown in influence, Pitstick said, and he is trying to keep the conversation going for future generations. The innovation center is one such platform.

“There’s a lot of smart people out there that know a whole bunch about soybeans and would love to make the world better,” he said. “They want to take something and make it into another thing. We just have to find those people.”

The local brewing arm will move to Petaluma, California, where the company is based and has its original brewhouse, by early August, the company said in a news release. The Chicago taproom inside of the brewery will also close. The company’s Chicago warehouse, adjacent to the brewing facility, will stay open.

The closure will affect 86 employees, the company said. Some will work in remote positions or relocate to California, while others will work through the transition and get “departure packages including support services and job-placement assistance,” the company said.

“We are committed to managing this transition thoughtfully, smoothly and with deep respect for our valued Chicago Lagunitas employees,” Lagunitas spokesperson Sam Kennedy said in a statement.

The company announced a 12% layoff of its workforce in 2018, about 100 employees across the company, because of pressure from the increasingly crowded craft beer market.

Illinois ranks 13th in the U.S. for number of craft breweries with about 300, according to the Brewers Association, a Colorado-based trade group representing craft brewers. The number has leveled off in recent years as several smaller brewers have shut down, including Metropolitan Brewing, which closed in December after filing for bankruptcy amid a dispute with its landlord, and Ørkenoy Brewery announcing its closure in April.

Craft brewer volume sales decreased by 1% in 2023, according to the Brewers Association, while retail dollar sales increased by 3% to $28.9 billion, due in part to price increases. Craft brewer sales make up nearly 25% of the $117 billion U.S. beer market.

According to the Brewers Association, Lagunitas’ production volume has been steadily declining. The company produced 765,000 barrels in 2023, down from 860,000 in 2022 and 900,000 in 2021. The company’s output in 2019 was over 1 million barrels.

Lagunitas’ sales in Chicago took a hit compared with other markets, according to Beer Marketer’s Insights. The company’s dollar sales declined 14% in 2023 in Chicago multi-outlet and convenience retailers. The company’s dollar sales were also down 4% year-to-date through early May, while volume was down 7%.

Lagunitas’ partial move out of Chicago will lead to a “more efficient and flexible supply chain,” according to the company, while also prioritizing innovation and acceleration of more sustainable brewing.

The company said Chicago “remains a priority market for Lagunitas,” and it will continue servicing partner bars, restaurants and stores in and around the city.

Lagunitas Brewing Co. started bottling its craft beer in Chicago in 2014. The company started as a small brewery in 1993 and has since expanded to over 48 countries.

For about three weeks in March, Busy Deeter, 29, said she and her husband, 33, had no luck in their search for a new apartment. As Zillow alerts came to their phones, they would schedule showings for the following weekend, only to find the place was gone before they could see it.

“That’s where I think the frustration started,” she said.

As the spring rental market kicks into high gear, some prospective renters are finding they have to act fast to secure affordable units, as experts say inventory is low and average rent prices in Chicago continue to creep up.

As of early May, the median time rentals remained on the market was about 10 days, said Mike Opyd, a real estate broker in Chicago with RE/MAX Premier, citing data from the Multiple Listing Service.

“Rentals tend to be going pretty quickly,” Opyd said. “There’s definitely options out there for people, but they’re not out there for that long.”

The Deeters’ apartment hunt was particularly long and stressful this time around compared with their last move in 2021, when they relocated from Nashville to Chicago, Busy Deeter said.

They found their roughly 1,000-square-foot loft-style unit in the South Loop “by chance” on Zillow during their last night of a weekend visit to Chicago in July 2021. The couple went to see the place the next day along with two other potential renters. They applied immediately after the showing and were approved.

They moved in about two months later. Their rent was just about $1,600 a month for the top floor of an eight-floor red brick building. They had a balcony as well as in-unit laundry and a two-vanity bathroom, all qualities Busy Deeter said added to the desirability.

After finding out her husband’s job was moving from the West Loop to north suburban Evanston, the couple decided to move north to lighten the commute, Busy Deeter said. It was also a good time to get a bigger place, she said, as the couple was married in October and hopes to grow their family soon.

They were also looking for overall walkability and proximity to the Metra, Busy Deeter said. The couple decided the maximum they’d want to spend on rent was $2,600 because they want to save money for future home buying and retirement. The search was narrowed down to a seven-by-seven block area.

At the start of April, the couple saw a listing on Zillow and reached out to get the earliest showing possible, she said. They went to see it, along with a few other couples, and “fell in love” with the place. After getting approved, the couple was waiting for a move-in date from the landlord to sign the lease. Their South Loop home was listed in the meantime, and it was gone within 24 hours. The next tenant’s move-in date was set for June 1, but the new place’s landlord came back and said the Deeter’s move-in date wouldn’t be until July 31.

“We couldn’t be homeless for two months,” Busy Deeter said. “We went back and forth thinking of ways we could make it work. We finally got a place, but then you’re running into another issue. We decided not to sign that lease and felt defeated because then it was mid-April and we’re having to start the process all over again.”

Some days later, another Zillow alert for a new listing showed up and the couple raced to get in for the first showing. They applied, along with several other people, and after narrowing down the applicants, the landlord asked to FaceTime with each of the final three. Busy Deeter said they talked about themselves, their pets and more about the building.

They’re moving into the three-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment this month. The building has three units total with storage and shared laundry in the basement. For the 1,500-square-foot apartment, the couple is paying $2,100.

“It’s a steal of a place,” Busy Deeter said.

While the current average rent in Chicago varies from source to source, several data sources tracking the housing market report an uptick in rent compared with a year ago. According to Apartment List’s May 2024 Rent Report, the overall median rent in Chicago is $1,683. This average is up 1.6% from April compared with the national month-over-month increase of 0.5%. The current overall median rent in Chicago is also up 1.9% from a year ago, while the average overall rent over the last 12 months across the country has declined slightly.

Chicago’s month-over-month rent growth ranks third among the 100 largest cities in the country, according to Apartment List.

But the rent growth so far this year is still pacing slower than the same time last year, Apartment List said. Rents have gone up by nearly 3% from January to April, while the rent growth during the same four-month time frame in 2023 was nearly 4%.

Kate Terhune, director of brand for Rent, said one issue putting pressure on Chicago’s market is the lag in inventory. Across the country, there are about 50% more available units to rent this year than last spring. In Chicago, that increase sits at just over 11%, not enough to keep up with demand.

“We need to see more units come to the market for rent prices to really fall,” Terhune said. “And then even the house price crisis that’s happening right now where house pricing is really high, APRs, mortgage rates are really high. That also puts pressure on rent prices. More people in the renting market means prices are going to stay high.”

Rent, whose parent company is Redfin, is a network of rental property listing sites that’s based in Atlanta but has listings and clients all around the U.S.

Fluctuation in the market is expected, Terhune said, but the last six months or so have seen “a lot more fluctuation” than normal because of changes in the housing market.

Eric Scholl, owner and president of the Apartment People, said Chicago didn’t get “much of an offseason” as is usually the case for the rental market in the winter. Starting around mid-2023, Scholl said he noticed a shift as people “stepped up their need for an apartment,” likely due to the hurdles to get into the housing market.

According to U.S. Bank, the current 30-year-fixed mortgage rate is about 6.8% in Illinois with roughly 7% APR.

“I don’t think this is the standard for the future,” Scholl said. “Things will level out, but it’s definitely a better time to be a landlord today than it was a year ago.”

Sheila Byrne is the executive vice president of property management for Chicago-based Habitat Co., which has about 16,000 units under management in the Chicago area. The rental need in Chicago remains great, Byrne said, and demand continues to exceed the supply.

Current occupancy levels at the Habitat Co.’s properties are sitting right around 95%.

New development is not only based on availability of physical space but also what kind of demographic would be interested in living in that area. When it comes to building a property out, it’s no longer just about the units themselves.

“Renters today are clearly searching for a lifestyle, not just an apartment, focusing on qualities like top restaurants, entertainment, great amenities all within reach,” she said.

The development of new units is also driven by factors such as high taxes, insurance rates and construction costs, which makes it “hard for developers to develop.”

“There’s going to be less coming out into the market in the next couple of years,” she said. “Real estate is very cyclical like that. You see peaks and valleys.”

Still, a pipeline of new units provides some relief. Doug Ressler, manager of business intelligence with real estate data provider Yardi Matrix, said there’s a “tremendous amount of new supply coming on board” in the city, with over 4,000 units adding to the market this year.

Last year saw about 3,500 new rental units in Chicago, Ressler said. “There’s never too many listings,” he said.

Some more choice in the market, at least this year, also means renters could see more concessions being offered, Ressler said. New properties looking to fill their units are more likely to offer reduced rates or certain freebies, like a month or so without paying for rent or parking.

Shepherd Gill, 25, moved into The Thompson, a new apartment building in the Fulton Market area that opened in December, in mid-April from a roughly 500-square-foot studio apartment in Oak Park.

Gill and his dog, Stevie, a husky-German shepherd mix, are now adjusting to life downtown in the nearly 700-square-foot, convertible-style unit, which he said is like a one-bedroom but without a bedroom door. The rent is around $2,400.

He gave himself a rent budget of around $2,300 and said the building offered a concession of two months off of rent for signing within a certain time frame.

For Gill, the hunt for a new place was smooth. He worked with a leasing agent, which “made all the difference,” he said.

“It took a lot of the stress off of searching for apartments because I found in the past it takes a lot out of you to find places and getting in contact with the people doing tours and trying to ask the right questions,” Gill said.

He knew he wanted a bit more space and a good amount of natural light, and he was primarily interested in the West Loop and Old Town neighborhoods. He also wanted to be close to a dog park, a mix of grocery stores and his office, where he’ll be a few days a week.

Gill said he toured about 10 apartments across a few different buildings. He saw The Thompson at the end of March and signed the lease soon after.

“It felt very easy,” he said. “When I toured the building and saw this unit, it did check a lot of my boxes. I wanted to send them the application immediately.”

Anecdotally, Gill said he recommends starting the search early as he thinks there is less turnover of apartments right now, especially because of high costs in the home buying market.

“The way the housing market is right now, people are kind of staying where they’re at,” he said. “I’ve heard from so many friends that are renewing their leases where they’ve been at for a while because they have a relationship with the landlord and the rent is somewhat stabilized.”

Scholl, who works with landlords across the city through Apartment People, a unit of Compass Realty, has noticed the same thing.

“I’m seeing a lot of lease extensions,” he said.

The company announced the move Thursday, citing the app’s “strong financial performance” in 2023, according to a news release. The new space is under construction, said Joel Keating, senior vice president of engineering. The plan is to move in by Aug. 1.

The new space is half of the top floor of an office building at 230 W. Monroe St., Keating said. With current configuration plans, the space could hold up to 60 employees. There is also room to grow, Keating said, which the team hopes to do.

Keating is the head of the app’s engineering team and based in Chicago. He said the team’s current office at 625 W. Adams St. is part of a WeWork space, which they’ve “effectively outgrown.”

The Chicago office is hiring about a dozen new positions with intentions to add more in the next few years. Roles include data engineering, cloud engineering and engineering management.

The company opened a Chicago office in September 2021. What started as a team of about four grew to some 30 employees working out of the Chicago office.

“We anticipate that Grindr’s expansion will not only bolster our city’s tech sector but also contribute to our ongoing efforts to foster a vibrant and inclusive business environment,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said in the news release.

There are three other offices in California and one in New York, including where the app was started in 2009 in West Hollywood. The other offices are “quite a bit more mixed” in their work, Keating said, handling other branches of the company such as product, sales, finance and more, as well as some engineering.

Grindr’s return-to-office policy has been the center of a dispute with its staff, which is seeking to unionize with the Communication Workers of America. App employees across various departments, including engineering, marketing, design and IT first filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board in July 2023.

Two weeks later, the union said, the company instituted a new return-to-office policy requiring staff to work in-person two days a week at offices in several cities, including Chicago. In an unfair labor practice charge filed with the NLRB, the union alleged the policy was retaliatory. Workers were given two weeks to decide whether they would work in-office — which would require some employees to relocate — or resign, the Grindr union said in a news release at the time. About 80 of nearly 180 staff members resigned, according to the union. NLRB officials are still investigating the union’s allegation that the RTO policy was illegally retaliatory.

In a statement, Grindr said it had planned to implement a return-to-office policy before the union drive.

“It was only after staff knew that the transition to in-office work was underway that employees began signing union cards,” the company said.

In an election held by the NLRB in December, workers voted 19 to 13 to unionize, but 55 ballots were challenged, leaving the results in limbo. In January, labor board officials ordered seven of the challenged ballots counted and tossed out two, but most remain uncounted and dependent upon the investigation of unfair labor practice charges filed against Grindr.

“We respect and support our team members’ rights to make their own decision about union representation through the NLRB’s secret ballot election process,” the company said. “We will continue to work together to make Grindr a great place to work.”

The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange in November 2022. Grindr employed about 130 people total as of the end of March, which is “still far from” what the employment level was early last year, according to a shareholder letter released in early May.

In the first quarter of 2024, total revenue increased by 35% year-over-year to $75 million, with a net loss of $9.4 million. The growth was driven by more paying users, the company said in its shareholder letter.

The company’s revenue grew by about 33% from over $195 million in 2022 to nearly $260 million in 2023.

Average monthly active users of the app were up 7% year-over-year to 13.7 million in the first quarter, while average paying users increased by 17% year-over-year to 1 million, according to the shareholder letter.

Grindr’s engineering team increased by over 50% quarter-over-quarter in the first three months of the year, the letter said.

Keating said the Chicago office is primarily the engineering division for the social networking app. Ultimately, growing the local team is also an effort to make Chicago the “engineering hub.”

“Our plan is to really invest in Chicago because not only does it have a very diverse economy and is a really great place to live and work, but there’s also a really strong pool of engineering talent in Chicago,” Keating said. “Another reason is Chicago’s very thriving and large LGBTQ community, which is very much ingrained in the culture.”

Keating said a Grindr bus is going to make its way from California to New York with a stop in Chicago during Pride Fest weekend in June. In a news release Wednesday, the company announced the “Grindr Ride America” tour to celebrate the app’s 15th birthday.

The Grindr engineering team will also be at Pride Fest, he said, which is a “great opportunity to engage outside of office elements.”

“We want people to know that we’re here and there are jobs here,” Keating said. “It’s a really fun culture and a thriving business.”

“I am struggling, and it’s now getting to me that I need a job ASAP,” Massey said.

Massey said he has a group chat with friends who are also looking for work, and they’ll all get on FaceTime and apply to different jobs together. But no one hears back.

This phenomenon is one closely examined in the Alternative Schools Network’s latest report on youth joblessness, which found that the rates of young people both out of work and not in school in Chicago are mostly slightly higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report, “Uneven Recovery and Sustained Inequality After the COVID-19 Recession: Employment for Chicago’s Youth and Young Adults,” was commissioned by the education nonprofit and looks at youth ages 16 to 24 years old.

Released Wednesday, the report is based on U.S. census data from 2022, the most recent data available from the agency, and looks both at the overall youth unemployment rate and those who are both jobless and out of school.

According to the report, young people in Chicago experienced higher rates of unemployment than those in the suburbs and nationally. The highest rates of joblessness for young people ages 16 to 24 were on the city’s South and West sides.

In Chicago, there were more than 45,000 16- to 24-year-olds who were both out of school and jobless out of over 160,000 across Illinois in 2022. The number of overall jobless 16- to 19-year-olds also increased by about 16,000 between 2021 and 2022, reaching over 100,000.

Chicago has had a “longstanding issue with youth employment,” said Matthew Wilson, one of the report’s authors and associate director for economic and workforce development at the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the research arm behind the report.

“I think there’s a lot of connections with youth unemployment to some of the social conditions that we see across the city both spatially and racially,” he said.

The Great Cities Institute has done a number of reports for Alternative Schools Network, Wilson said, to try to understand broader trends on youth joblessness and how young people are positioned worse in the labor market now compared to historically, more recently looking at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Young people of color are particularly affected by joblessness, according to the report. The percentage of Black people ages 16 to 19 in Chicago who were jobless and out of school went from over 9% in 2021 to over 17% in 2022. In 2019, that rate was 15%.

Older Black youth fared better in 2022, with the percentage of 20- to 24-year-olds jobless and out of school decreasing from 39.2% to 29.6% between 2021 and 2022, returning roughly to pre-pandemic levels.

Despite the employment gains among Black youth in their early 20s, the unemployment rate that year was still higher than those among young people who are white, at nearly 8%, and young people who are Latino, at more than 15%.

Massey said he wants to work full time after graduating and eventually apply to a trade school for engineering; Rodriguez said he wants to work to save up money while he figures out his next move. Both said they’ve sent in about 20 to 30 applications in the last month or so to try to secure employment post-graduation.

“I feel like people keep saying they are looking for someone with experience but at the same time it’s like, how do you expect us to get experience if you don’t offer us that experience,” Rodriguez said.

Alternative Schools Network is pressing lawmakers to provide $300 million in state funding for youth employment programs in Illinois. The Illinois Youth Investment Program, which was established in 2021 to help at-risk youth ages 16 to 24, said in a statement Wednesday the state Department of Human Services plans to invest $50 million per year for the next three years to fund summer jobs, longer-term employment and career development through private organizations and public entities such as schools and local government agencies.

Jack Wuest, executive director of Alternative Schools Network, said initiatives such as the Illinois Youth Investment Program need more funding. The goal is to provide at least 80,000 jobs to young people in the summer and throughout the school year, which also contributes to lower crime rates among the younger generation, he said.

“We want to keep reminding people this is a huge problem,” Wuest said.

Massey said he hopes legislators “see the numbers” and make a change.

“I want to work,” Massey said. “I want to be able to provide for myself and my future family if I end up having one. I don’t want to be just out here on the streets not doing anything with my life.”

Chicago-area locations include a store in the city’s Bucktown neighborhood and suburban locations in Elmhurst, Norridge, Hodgkins and Batavia. The newly outfitted Kohl’s locations will start popping up in August, the company said, and all 200 stores should be ready in time for the holiday season.

The Babies R Us shops will range from 750 to 2,500 square feet of space and be located next to Kohl’s baby and kids’ sections, the company said. Kohls.com will also offer an expanded Babies R Us supply online.

The partnership was first announced in March in an effort to broaden Kohl’s reach with younger customers.

“We see significant opportunity in the baby gear category, and partnering with Babies R Us is another example of how we are finding new ways to optimize our assortment and further establish Kohl’s as the go-to brand for families,” Kohl’s CEO Tom Kingsbury said in a statement at the time.

This is not Kohl’s first foray into the store-within-a-store concept. The Wisconsin-based retailer added Sephora makeup sections to its stores beginning in 2021. That partnership exceeded $1.4 billion in sales last year, the company announced in March.

Projected sales are expected to grow, Kohl’s said, as the company plans to open some 140 more Sephora stores in existing Kohl’s locations in 40 states by the summer, including some in Illinois. This will bring Sephora products to a total of over 1,000 Kohl’s stores, with a full rollout planned by 2025.

Kohl’s partnership with Babies R Us mirrors one Macy’s entered into with affiliate brand Toys R Us in 2022, when the brands announced Toys R Us would open in all Macy’s U.S. locations including its Chicago flagship store on State Street.

The store-within-a-store concept offered Chicago shoppers an opportunity to buy Toys R Us products in person since the company moved primarily to online sales after closing its bricks-and-mortar locations in the wake of its 2017 Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.

The Chapter 11 filing in Delaware on Thursday coincided with an announcement on Instagram that all stores were going out of business along with an “everything must go” sale. All stores will close in the next two months.

The brand has stores at several suburban locations including North Riverside Park Mall, Fox Valley Mall and Chicago Premium Outlets in Aurora, River Oaks Center in Calumet City, Hawthorne Works in Cicero, Chicago Ridge Mall, Lincolnwood Town Center, Joliet Mall, Waukegan Plaza, Gurnee Mills, Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg and Southlake Mall in Merrillville, Indiana.

The business filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after suffering operational losses stemming from “underperforming retail locations, the continued growth of online shopping and industry competition,” among other reasons, according to the bankruptcy filing. It listed between $100 million and $500 million in assets and liabilities.

The retailer also operates an online platform.

According to court documents, the brand tried to find a buyer but ultimately decided to liquidate its assets instead.

Interim CEO Michele Pascoe said in a statement as part of the court filing that the retailer, like many others, was “negatively impacted by challenges stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic and related adverse market trends.”

“While the Debtors continue to generate revenue, their revenue streams — even when combined with extensive cost cutting measures — are insufficient to meet their long-term liquidity needs and working capital requirements,” Pascoe’s statement said.

Nearly 5,000 people are employed by Rue21 around the country, with about 1,500 who are full time and some 3,500 who are part time.

Rue21, headquartered in Pennsylvania and founded in 1976, previously filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2017, according to court documents, and also came out of Chapter 11 proceedings in 2003. Both filings were under the name Pennsylvania Fashions.

Roughly 400 underperforming stores were also closed after the 2017 bankruptcy filing.

The new safety feature means riders using Uber will be verified on the app and have a blue checkmark badge added to their profile for drivers to see, according to a news release. Most accounts will be verified automatically using details already on file, so users won’t have to take any additional steps to become verified.

For accounts that aren’t immediately verified, the user can upload a picture of a government-issued identification card, such as a driver’s license or passport, and verify their account that way. Uploaded documents will be encrypted and not show up on a user’s profile.

Heather Childs, chief trust and security officer for Uber, said in an interview Wednesday the new feature is “something drivers have been asking for” to promote safety on the platform.

“Drivers want to know more about the people who are entering and exiting their vehicle,” Childs said. “We want to know that riders are who they say they are, and we have to send a clear message that if you’re looking to do harm, Uber is not the place to do it.”

Ride-share drivers have long grappled with the potential dangers of the job. In December, a driver was shot and killed on the job in the Austin neighborhood. In February of last year, another driver was fatally shot while a passenger inside the vehicle was injured in the Little Italy neighborhood.

A group of local Uber and Lyft drivers have been advocating for an ordinance in the City Council to protect driver safety and wages that includes a demand for passenger verification. The Chicago Rideshare Living Wage and Safety ordinance is sponsored by Ald. Mike Rodriguez.

David Lavine, who has been working as an Uber driver in the Chicago area for over eight years, said the new rider verification is “not very meaningful” and verification shouldn’t be optional for riders but required.

“Not everyone is going to take the extra step if they have to, so then you still have people who are not verified and calling rides,” Lavine said. “Maybe the honest people who you didn’t have to worry about in the first place. If in a few months we can see that the number of Uber driver-related incidents is down, then that’s great, but I don’t see the benefit as of now.”

Lavine said the Uber feature already in place where riders can opt in to PIN verification should be universal. This gives riders the option to receive a unique four-digit PIN when requesting a ride, and the driver has to input that PIN in the app on their end for the ride to start.

Regardless, Lavine said it’s up to drivers to keep themselves safe on the job.

“The fact of life is that something can happen anywhere at any time,” he said. “Just being out on the road, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, we have to be prepared for anything. We can’t rely on Uber to keep us safe.”

Lenny Sanchez is a full-time organizer and works as the director of the Independent Drivers Guild of Illinois as well as a spokesperson for Justice for App Workers. Although Sanchez is no longer driving, he said he drove for Uber for about five years, half of which was full-time. He said he’s “seen it all,” from former Chicago Bear Brian Urlacher being a passenger in his car to having a gun put to his head while on the job.

While rider verification is a “great first step,” Sanchez said he thinks it’s coming far too late, after a number of drivers have been “shot, murdered, and their families have been devastated.”

Sanchez said drivers have been asking that riders be required to verify themselves when ordering a ride by taking a selfie that would be run through facial recognition software. The software is already built in to the app, Sanchez said, because when drivers log on to start work, they are prompted to confirm their identity by taking a selfie at the start and sometimes again during their shift.

“We know they have this technology,” he said. “All they have to do is flip the switch and have passengers do that as well, and that would be the greatest deterrent to people wanting to use the app to commit crimes. It would probably make them think twice before trying to target an innocent person trying to make a living.”

The selfies aren’t shared with passengers and in turn wouldn’t be shared with drivers, Sanchez said.

Uber has introduced several safety features in the past, including the ability to record an audio file during a ride in the event of a conflict. In 2021, the app rolled out a nationwide verification program for riders using anonymous forms of payment such as prepaid debit cards, gift cards or Venmo.

Uber uses “trusted third-party databases,” Childs said, to verify accounts automatically by checking details on the account such as names and phone numbers. Any changes to rider accounts, such as a new phone number, email address or a change to their name, could mean losing the account’s blue check. Riders can always reverify their account by uploading a photo of their ID.

In a statement, Justice for App Workers Midwest coalition said Uber needed a “much more stringent system,” where riders aren’t allowed to use the app until they’re verified. The group is also calling for deactivation protections and union rights, so drivers can report safety incidents without fear of retaliation and removal from the apps.

“App companies like Uber and Lyft need to sit down with drivers and ask us what we need to be safe on the road, because at the end of the day, we know what we need more than the executives in boardrooms,” the statement said.

Childs said the plan is to monitor the rollout of the rider verification pilot in the initial 12 cities to fix any bugs and get feedback, then ultimately launch nationwide. Other cities piloting the new safety feature beginning Thursday included Detroit and St. Louis.

Co-LLAB launched Thursday at the Ada S. McKinley Community Services building in Englewood with Mendenhall and other community partners and supporters to mark the occasion. The multipurpose space is meant to be used by youths to further their businesses or ideas for endeavors in arts, entertainment and retail.

The incubator is aimed at young people ages 14 to 24. The membership-based program starting at $20 per month opens up access to experts in relevant fields, machinery to print and manufacture products, networking opportunities, career and trade workshops and more.

Co-LLAB is another branch of the Male Mogul Initiative, which was founded by Mendenhall in 2017. The nonprofit seeks to shape young men through leadership, entrepreneurship and workforce development and has helped over 3,000 people since its inception, according to the organization.

Mendenhall, a former NFL running back and teacher who went into entrepreneurship and nonprofit administration, said he wants Co-LLAB to be “an economic catalyst” in Chicago.

“This is the place where people will come to give their visions and businesses birth, and we’ll be creating jobs for young people and helping to solve the violence problem and the joblessness problem,” he said.

A Chicago native, Mendenhall was a member of the Philadelphia Eagles, Indianapolis Colts, Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals between 2009 and 2010. He also played college football for the University of Illinois and Illinois State University, and grew up in Skokie, playing for Niles West High School.

Mendenhall also runs a for-profit space in Bronzeville where young people in the community sell clothing, artwork, books and other accessories they’ve often produced themselves. Called Boxville, the cluster of businesses started in 2017 to help the revitalization of the historic neighborhood.

Imani Cobb is a 24-year-old event planner and cheerleading coach. She started her business because she found event planning to be “the perfect mix of being organized and creative.”

She said Co-LLAB will not only help her with networking opportunities but also provide space to help run her business. She hopes young people see her work in their communities and get inspired to become their own boss, especially as someone who has lived on the South Side of Chicago her whole life.

“I’ve grown up here and you’ve always been told that you have to go far to experience these things,” Cobb said. “It’s extremely important because people think they have to dream small because they don’t see places or opportunities like this where they are.”

“Now, there’s a place close to home, you can see it, you don’t have to go far to dream big,” she said. “You have resources on the South Side that you can get to and see people that look like you.”

Jaurice Winston, 22, is one of the executive directors and operating managers at the incubator. He started with Male Mogul when he was 15, he said, and was a “first-generation student.”

Winston said he grew up on the West Side of Chicago and got his associate degree from Harold Washington College in 2022. He started his clothing business at age 16, got into real estate in 2023 and hopes to continue to grow his brand while overseeing Co-LLAB.

“I want my younger peers to realize the potential they have and maximize the opportunities in front of them as much as they can,” Winston said. “While they’re here, we’re going to provide every resource, every piece of knowledge and anything we can to help and basically develop the next generation of entrepreneurs.”

Co-LLAB received $150,000 in funding for its launch from the Builders Initiative, IFF, KeHe Cares Foundation, MIGMIR and His Fund.

Chicago Public Media CEO Matt Moog and other leadership said in a letter to employees the “difficult decision” to reduce staffing and change programming will help the nonprofit media company “to best serve our community and manage the organization for long-term sustainability.”

The 14 layoffs are in WBEZ’s content development unit, Vocalo’s radio broadcast and the Chicago Sun-Times business operation, the letter said. The staff members being laid off have already been notified.

“These are painful decisions that affect our valued colleagues,” leadership said in the letter, according to an edited version posted on the company’s website. “We are working diligently to minimize the negative impact on each individual and provide them with financial and transitional support. We are so grateful for their many contributions over the years.”

In a statement from SAG-AFTRA’s Chicago unit, union leadership said the layoffs were “deeply” disappointing. The company also announced it will eliminate the podcast department, which includes the shows “Nerdette,” “Making” and “When Magic Happens.”

“These losses are devastating to our listeners and members,” the union said. “The decision also contradicts CPM’s stated commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion — both at WBEZ and to communities of color that we serve.”

Union leaders have been working with members leading up to Wednesday’s announcement and “urged management to reconsider,” the union said.

“Ultimately, our goal is to save the jobs of our very talented colleagues who have much to contribute to WBEZ,” the union statement said.

Chicago Public Media did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

The WBEZ fellowship program will also be phased out in fiscal year 2025, the letter said.

Vocalo has been stagnant since its launch in 2007, the letter said, with an audience of 11,000 listeners weekly. The radio music broadcast has been operating at a “significant financial loss for many years,” the letter said, resulting in the broadcast’s shutdown by May 1. Vocalo’s digital presence will remain, covering local music and culture and collaborating with WBEZ and the Sun-Times.

Vocalo’s arts and culture newsletter, “The Goods,” will also continue, having grown its audience by 67% to over 50,000 subscribers.

While the nonprofit cited financial stability as the reason behind Wednesday’s announcement, the letter included details about the company’s “growing and expanding” digital channels. Chicago Public Media’s weekly audience grew by over 475,000 to 4.5 million listeners and readers over the last year, the letter said. Daily news podcasts are at nearly 100,000 downloads every week, and Vocalo reaches over 100,000 people a week digitally.

The announcement comes on the heels of another major change at WBEZ. Moog said in December he would step down as CEO of Chicago Public Media in early 2024. He went from interim president to permanent CEO in 2021 and oversaw the combining of WBEZ with the Sun-Times.

The nonprofit newspaper and radio station, which merged in January 2022 with $61 million in philanthropic support, operate separate newsrooms but share content and resources under the Chicago Public Media banner. In its latest tax filings, the combined company reported an $8.7 million profit for the 12 months ending June 2023, according to its Form 990 filed with the IRS.

In response to questions from WBEZ, Moog said Wednesday actual operating revenues have been flat despite the information contained in the 990, and that the company had not seen enough audience and revenue growth to cover its expenses after adding staff in each of the newsrooms. He said the board has asked him to stay through August, when a new CEO is expected to be hired, the publication reported.

Moog, whose base salary was $449,193, was awarded $149,592 in bonus compensation for a total compensation of $633,310 in fiscal year 2023, according to the 990. Several other executives were also awarded bonuses last year, according to the filing.