Imagine scrolling through your phone late at night. You pause on a video of a candidate saying something that seems outrageous; your chest tightens, you feel a flicker of anger, and your thumb hovers over the share button. In an age of constant content flowing straight into our pockets, this moment has become a daily ritual. Misinformation is inevitable, not because people are inherently dishonest, but because the systems that deliver information reward speed over accuracy and emotion over reflection. Between rumors of mental insanity, claims taken wildly out of context, and artificial intelligence deepfakes, voters must be cautious about…

On a quiet night in Waukegan, just before midnight on October 20, 2020, Tafara Williams and Marcellis Stinnette were sitting in a parked car outside her home. There was nothing unusual about the scene. The car was near the intersection of Liberty and Oak Streets, in front of the house where Williams lived. Stinnette was 19 years old, with his whole life still ahead of him. Williams was a young woman, a mother, someone who had every reason to expect a normal evening. But the night was shattered when Waukegan Police Officer James Keating pulled up beside them. He did…