features
Cook County Tried to Rid People of Medical Debt, but, for Many, Help Comes Too Late COOK COUNTY — The day before Christmas eve in 2023, Andrew Ciaccio was up all night trying to soothe his stomach pains. When he woke, he could barely sit up. Something was wrong. “It was pretty intense,” he recalled.…
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How a play written in prison became an award-winning exploration of violence in Chicago
Written inside Dixon Correctional Center, The Story of Violence is one of more than 15 original works created by a dozen men who were part of the Dixon Performing Arts program. A play written by men incarcerated in an Illinois prison won a regional Public Media Journalists Association Award for Audience Engagement this week. The…
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Employment and labor
IDOC’s controversial health care provider is out. Will people in IDOC finally receive the care they need?
After decades of protest from activists, change is coming to the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) health care system. A June 23rd memo announced that the IDOC is abandoning contract negotiations with Wexford Health Sources, who had won a ten year, $4 billion dollar contract renewal at the end of 2023. Now as IDOC initiates…
Economic Development
Six years in, has Illinois’ cannabis equity law delivered?
Illinois legalized cannabis with equity at its core in 2020. Six years later, the results are mixed. After nearly 90 years of prohibition, Illinois became the first state to legalize the sale of cannabis through a state legislature in 2019. Touted by the governor’s office as the “most equity-centric” cannabis law in the nation, the…