News Local/State
Termites will be the focus of celebration this weekend at the 36th Annual Insect Fear Film Festival in Urbana. The event kicks off at 6 pm on Saturday at Foellinger Auditorium in Urbana. It’s hosted by entomology researchers at the University of Illinois, including department head May Berenbaum.
News Local/State
Lyric Theatre at Illinois’ production of the Benjamin Britten opera “The Rape of Lucretia” opens Thursday at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Urbana.
News Local/State
Gov. J.B. Pritzker delivered his first budget address at a time of acute fiscal distress for the state of Illinois. It also comes after Democrats have taken total control of the executive and legislative branches of state government, including supermajorities in the Illinois House and Senate.
News Local/State
Health officials say teenagers are using e-cigarettes at epidemic rates. Lawmakers in a number of Midwest states, like Indiana, Illinois and Minnesota, are addressing the problem and so is the FDA. Side Effects Public Media spoke with Mitch Zeller, director of the agency's Center for Tobacco Products, about efforts to curb the use of smokeless tobacco among youth.
News Local/State
Crumbling sidewalks, gas line failures and cracked concrete — the problems at Brookfield Zoo are a metaphor for what’s wrong with public infrastructure throughout Illinois. As lawmakers begin negotiating a statewide spending plan to fix it, the zoo is among a growing list of those coming to Springfield with their paws out.
News Local/State
The University of Illinois System will need an additional $2.5 million in its operating budget to finance the minimum wage increase signed into law Tuesday by Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, according to a spokesperson, and that could mean increased tuition costs across the state’s three campuses in the coming years.
News Local/State
Illinois became the first state in the Midwest Tuesday to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the measure at the Governor’s Mansion in Springfield.
News Local/State
OSF Healthcare is raising the minimum wage it pays its Illinois employees, just as legislation raising the minimum wage in Illinois is becoming law.
News Local/State
Research shows African-Americans are less likely to access treatment for mental illness. Cultural norms and the stigma associated with having a mental illness are partly to blame, according to Shardé Smith, assistant professor of human development and family studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
News Local/State
Republican and Democratic lawmakers representing Champaign County have put forward a package of five bills in the Illinois General Assembly they say will protect the Mahomet Aquifer, the primary source of drinking water for more than 500,000 people in the state.
