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Northwestern ended its encampment without cops or violence. Why is Congress upset?
When pro-Palestinian protesters and Northwestern administrators sat down to negotiate last month over the encampment that had taken over Deering Meadow, neither side was much in the mood for compromise. “The first day we went, we were like, ‘Oh, hell no … we’re not moving — at all — unless...
Why has Mayor Brandon Johnson resisted demands to fire CTA President Dorval Carter Jr.?
On May 5, 2015, then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel used the CTA’s 74th Street garage as the backdrop to announce a change in CTA leadership. Dorval Carter Jr., a 16-year veteran of the CTA-turned-federal bureaucrat, was coming home to lead Chicago’s mass transit agency. “I now have an ally who...
Planned Parenthood offers abortion pills via app to expand access in Illinois
Looking to expand access to medication abortion even further in Illinois, Planned Parenthood is allowing people to request access to the drugs without seeing a doctor. Patients who are up to 10 weeks pregnant can fill out screening questions on the Planned Parenthood Direct app any time of the day and provide an Illinois address where their medication abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol would be mailed if they qualify. That could be a house, or a hotel. Some Planned Parenthood affiliates already mail pills to patients, but require at least a virtual visit with a medical provider first.
Accountants pulled into dispute between investors in popular Chicago steakhouse
One of the country’s largest accounting firms has become entangled in the long-running legal battle between investors in a popular restaurant in Chicago, court documents show. Estranged stakeholders in Maple & Ash — a Gold Coast steakhouse that’s the highest-grossing restaurant in the city — are asking a Cook...
How companies get DEI wrong – and why it’s time to get it right
It seems like DEI is under attack. Criticism of diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the country is on the rise in state legislatures, colleges and universities, and at some private companies. While DEI is intended to correct inequities within an organization, opponents of DEI programs argue it instead promotes division.
Driving isn’t freedom, but an ‘enormous prison,’ writes author of ‘Carmageddon’
Daniel Knowles lives in Chicago, where he rides his bike almost everywhere and the transit system almost everywhere else. Originally from the United Kingdom, Knowles has traveled the world as a reporter, so he’s seen how people across the globe get around town. His main takeaway: We need to...
A Chicago woman who helps migrants fights for a chance to stay in the United States
Most mornings, Luisette Kraal directs volunteers via walkie talkie. She makes sure newly arrived migrants line up and wait their turn to receive pants and jackets from the free clothing store she co-founded with her husband in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. Other times, Kraal is on her phone arranging furniture...
Chicagoans are torn over school choice, a new poll shows
Frustrated with the lack of programs at the public school down her block, Candace Lampkin could be a prime candidate for sending her children to a magnet or charter school. Instead, the Chicago mom questions why there are so many options and wishes all the resources could be funneled into her neighborhood school.
Chicagoans give CPS a ‘C,’ say students are not learning enough
Despite years of trying to convince Chicagoans that public school students here are making remarkable academic progress, most residents give the schools a grade of C and say students are not learning enough. That’s according to a poll released Tuesday by Public Agenda, a nonpartisan research organization. WBEZ and the...
‘Paint is not protection’: Why Chicago cyclists want protected infrastructure
May 12 through May 18 is National Transportation Week, so we’re revisiting our favorite transit and infrastructure conversations—and sparking some new ones. When WBEZ’s Roy Howard fellow Jessica Alvarado Gamez moved to Chicago last year, she drove around to get her bearings. She couldn’t help noticing how close she came to cyclists.
Ransomware attack forces Ascension hospitals to turn away some ambulances
A ransomware attack has forced hospital group Ascension’s computer systems offline and diverted ambulances away from some of its emergency departments, including one in the Chicago area. The hospital group that operates Ascension Resurrection in Chicago, St. Alexius in Hoffman Estates and Alexian Brothers in Elk Grove Village said...
New Chicago-based company Global Tetrahedron wants to make The Onion great again
A tech CEO, a disinformation reporter and two social media experts enter a Zoom call. It might sound like the start of a joke, but that’s how four near-strangers bought the Chicago-based satire website The Onion. The owners formed a new Chicago-based company called Global Tetrahedron and bought The...
On Mother’s Day, moms of missing refuse to give up searching and hoping
If Karen Phillips could say something to her missing daughter, Kierra Coles, it’s that she’ll “never give up as long as there’s breath in my body” in her yearslong search. On Sunday afternoon, Phillips and La Shann Walker, mother of Diamond Bynum and grandma to...
Bicycling in Chicago doubled in five years, but bikers still worry about safety
Rosie Nolan began biking regularly when she moved to Chicago in 2021 because public transit was too inconvenient from her home in Ukrainian Village on the Near Northwest Side. “It was just a little too out of the way from the Blue Line and buses,” she said. So she took up a friend’s recommendation to try the city’s Divvy bike-share program and hasn’t turned back since.
Chicago Sky coach Teresa Weatherspoon is always a player at heart
The court at Wintrust Arena was dark Wednesday — the lighting purposefully dimmed, save for a few spotlights and the lowered scoreboard displaying “Chicago Sky,” which illuminated players on an elevated stage as fog surrounded them. It was Sky media day, and the retooled roster, aside from...
Their first baby came with medical debt. These Illinois parents won’t have another.
JACKSONVILLE, Ill. — Heather Crivilare was a month from her due date when she was rushed to an operating room for an emergency cesarean section. The first-time mother, a high school teacher in rural Illinois, had developed high blood pressure, a sometimes life-threatening condition in pregnancy that prompted doctors to hospitalize her. Then Crivilare’s blood pressure spiked, and the baby’s heart rate dropped. “It was terrifying,” Crivilare said.
Chicago Sun-Times, WBEZ awarded 18 top honors from Chicago Headline Club
Lisagor Awards for Exemplary Journalism. One of those awards recognized a Sun-Times collaboration with colleagues at WBEZ Chicago, which notched six of its own honors, bringing a total of 18 Lisagors to the Chicago Public Media newsrooms. The Headline Club, an affiliate of the national Society of Professional Journalists, presented...
Pick a card, any card: The history of Chicago-style magic
WBEZ brings you fact-based news and information. Sign up for our newsletters to stay up to date on the stories that matter. Walking around Chicago in the 1940s, you’d see the Wrigley Building and the Chicago Board of Trade dominating the skyline. Prohibition was over, and taverns boomed. Jazz clubs, theaters and dance halls were places people went to enjoy themselves.
Endeavor Health launches study to target C-section rates, disparities in Black birthing patients
Endeavor Health plans to launch a $7 million study to help pregnant patients, especially Black women, be more seen and heard during labor. The goal of the study, called I’M SPEAKING, is to make sure patients have more of a say in what happens during their deliveries, and to ultimately reduce unnecessary C-sections and health disparities at hospitals around Illinois.
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