The 217 Today Podcast

217 Today: Tuesday September 29, 2020

Brian Moline
 

Screenshot/League of Women Voters of Champaign County

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217 Today for Tuesday September 29, 2020

Today's Headlines

  • U.S. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois says he wants to see another COVID-19 relief bill move through Congress -- that includes a "dramatic investment" in coronavirus testing. He made his comments at a stop on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus.

  • A recent court ruling requires the U.S. Census Bureau to keep to its timeframe proposed last spring -- extending the decennial population count thorugh the end of October. The bureau previously announced plans to end the count a month earlier, but that could affect Illinois' redistricting process.

  • An Illinois Newsroom investigation has found that multiple school districts across the state do not track how many students are arrested or referred to law enforcement in school-related incidents each year, despite the fact that districts are required to report this data to the U.S. Department of Education.

  • The seven-day rolling positivity rate for COVID-19 on the University of Illinois Urbana campus is slowly increasing. After testing data released yesterday, it's up to 0.41%, from a low of 0.31% on September 21. Officials announced 28 new cases of COVID-19 on campus Monday.

And in today's deeper dive, Illinois Newsroom's Jim Meadows looks at the race for Champaign County Treasurer, which was a low-profile office until last year, when a backlog of work led to complaints from both taxpayers and taxing bodies.

Reporting today was contributed by Christine Herman, Mary Hansen, Lee Gaines, and Jim Meadows. Olivia Butts is our producer.