Illinois Public Media News

Rev. Kalie Hargrove was a distance learner at Lincoln Christian University until the school found out she was transgender. She withdrew under pressure and is now part of a lawsuit testing the limits of anti-discrimination laws as they apply to religious institutions. She and a member of the Religious Exemption Accountability Project joined us to talk about her case and how the freedom of religion and anti-discrimination laws intersect and conflict.

In order to get a better understanding of where the conflict in Ukraine stands today and where it came from, we talked with someone who had deep experience in the region: Former ambassador, State Department official, and Russia expert Ian Kelly. He’s currently ambassador-in-residence at Northwestern University.

The Illinois wine industry is pushing to change a prohibition-era law to raise the maximum number of gallons of wine that Illinois wineries could sell themselves directly to restaurants. To talk about it, we were joined by the general manager of an Illinois winery and the executive director of a non-profit for vintners.

A trio of bills in Illinois would increase parental access to what’s being taught in Illinois schools by requiring teachers to do things like post their lesson plans online. This is just one of many rallying cries on the right to exert more control over — or make “transparent” — what’s happening in the classroom. The 21st was joined by a two journalists who've been following the story and a professor of information science.  

Today we talked about why the number of Black farm owners and operators has plummeted in Illinois and around the country since the 1920s. Plus how a warming climate is changing how we farm and the effect of biofuels on the environment.