Illinois Public Media News

Champaign-Urbana Ballet’s annual production of “The Nutcracker” opens Thursday at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Urbana.

High school students through the decades have sweated over the college admissions tests, the ACT and the SAT.  Now, more and more schools are not requiring applicants to take the standardized tests.

The Illinois State Board of Education Wednesday amended emergency rules that had banned the use of certain physical restraints in schools.

The Savoy Village Board voted Wednesday night to bar any cannabis-related businesses from opening within their borders.

Chicago-area McDonald’s workers have filed a lawsuit against the company. They’re alleging the fast-food giant failed to protect them from violent incidents in restaurants. Plus this fall, Pope Francis said he would reopen the work of a 2016 commission that studied the issue of women Decaons in the Catholic church. We speak with a religious scholar who was one of 12 people on that commission. And a new proposal by Major League Baseball would cut the leagues affiliations with 42 minor league teams nationwide. 

Prospective undergraduate students applying to the University of Illinois’ three campuses won’t be asked about their criminal histories until after they’ve been admitted. 

Illinois' Department of Agriculture published its bi-annual study that looked at how to improve water quality by cutting down on pollutants that runoff into streams and rivers.

Beginning in January, all Illinois employers will have to start providing sexual harassment training for their employees.

The House Judiciary Committee is taking up public impeachment hearings, starting on Wednesday. The Wednesday hearing is slated to examine the premise of “high crimes and misdemeanors” through testimony from 4 scholars and experts.

For many communities, the only place to buy grocery staples like milk, eggs or baby formula is a corner store, but the safety of these stores can be another barrier to food access. Plus, with the filing deadline past, the field of candidates for Illinois' 2020 state and local elections is set, mostly. We check-in with reporters across the state about who’s running and what we can expect in the coming months. And, new research finds that over the past few decades, cases of head and neck skin cancer in young people have risen more than 50%.