Illinois Public Media News

A new report suggests Illinois state and local governments would take in a combined $525 million in new tax revenue if the state legalizes recreational marijuana.

On The 21st: Who’s in charge of telling you when your tap water isn’t safe? We talk to experts about an incident in Champaign last week. Plus we discuss how one Chicago cinema troupe is using puppets, music and overhead projectors to tell the story of poet Gwendolyn Brooks’s life. Plus, as World AIDS day approaches, we learn about a new film that gets its Illinois premiere this weekend.

A year before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, he made a visit to Springfield where he stumped for congressional candidates.   It appeared everything went as planned. But recently, unclassified documents were made available explaining an incident that seemed to foreshadow what took place in Dallas.  

The Ohio Reformatory for Women’s Achieving Baby Care Success program, or ABC, lets women who are pregnant when they’re incarcerated keep their babies in prison – giving them the opportunity to do things like breastfeed and bond with their newborn, which studies show improve children’s long-term health and well-being.

The age to buy cigarettes and other tobacco products in Illinois remains at 18, for now. The Illinois House of Representatives failed to override Republican Governor Bruce Rauner’s veto on Wednesday with a vote of 62-45.