Illinois Public Media News

Illinois has made progress on K-12 education in recent years, but there’s still more to be done in early childhood and higher education. We look at one report from the education non-profit Advance Illinois. We also talk about what it takes to help more Latinx community college students get the support they need to earn a degree. Plus, houses of worship have been closing all over the state. Now, there’s a movement of people who want to make sure that these buildings are still being used by their communities.

The University of Illinois has released a 127-page report on faculty sexual misconduct on its Urbana-Champaign campus. The report includes 64 recommendations for policy changes, stemming from incidents involving faculty and staff over the past several years.

The focus of the last two weeks has been President Trump and the congressional impeachment inquiry. But Tuesday night, Democrats running for president will take center stage again.

Charlie Besher and his wife raise cattle in two southeast Missouri counties. They’re among a growing population of producers who say they are losing calves and mother cows to black vultures that target soft tissues, such as the eyeballs and anus, until an animal dies or must be put down. 

Some have blamed the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act for helping fuel America’s opioid epidemic, noting how states that expanded the federal-state health insurance program for low-income people have seen higher rates of opioid overdose deaths. But a new study from the University of Illinois at Chicago casts doubt on this theory.

The mayor of Danville lives near a Big Lots store, where a bus from East Peoria’s Par-A-Dice Casino regularly stops to pick up customers. Mayor Rickey Williams Junior says he hopes a casino planned for his eastern Illinois city will lead to other buses bringing out-of-towners to Danville instead.

Illinois approved six new casino licenses earlier this year and local leaders hope this will bring in more money for their communities. Today, what’s being planned in Rockford, Danville, and southern Illinois. Plus, the Illinois State Museum is part of a project to give Australian indigenous objects back to the first nations communities they came from. And, Anne and Ed Burke have had a lot of power in Illinois for a long time. We’ll talk about how the state Supreme Court justice and the Chicago alderman navigate possible conflicts of interest.

Illinois residents across the state, and across party lines, largely support more gun regulations. That’s according to the results of an NPR Illinois - University of Illinois Springfield survey.

The state firefighter training facility at the University of Illinois will host military veterans on Sunday, October 27, bringing together vets who might become firefighters with some who already are. The daylong program will mark the second year that the Illinois Fire Service Institute has reached out to veterans.

University of Illinois wheelchair athlete Daniel Romanchuk won the Chicago Marathon men’s wheelchair division Sunday for the second year in a row.