Meating In The Middle: The Challenge of Lowering Greenhouse Gas Emissions On Farms
Cow guts are quite the factory. Grass goes in, microbes help break it down and make hydrogen, then other microbes start converting it to another gas. In…
How Many Patients Should a Nurse Care For?
Several Illinois lawmakers want to improve patient outcomes through legislation that would limit the number of people nurses can care for at any given…
Can Cannabis Help Patients In Pain Avoid Opioids?
Since February, patients in Illinois have been able to swap their opioid prescriptions for marijuana. And many are doing just that.
A Growing Movement Wants To Loosen Laws Around Psilocybin, Treat Mushrooms As Medicine
Douglas rattles around a collection of glass jars in the storage closet of his Denver apartment. They’re filled with a small grain, like barley, and…
The Fight Over What It Means To Be Homeless — And How That Could Affect Illinois
Just because someone has four walls around them every night, that doesn’t mean they’re housed. That’s what Paul Hamann believes. He’s the president and…
One Way To Make Flyover Country More Welcoming To Migrating Birds
As grassland and prairies gave way to farmland in the Midwest, habitats for some native birds disappeared. There’s a relatively new program in central…
Why Getting Mental Health Care Can Be A Struggle For Refugees
Kazito Kalima was 14 at the start of the Rwandan genocide. Over just a few months in 1994 , hundreds of thousands of Tutsi people in his country were…
Ask the Newsroom: What Are Champaign And Urbana Doing To Create More Affordable Housing
Illinois Newsroom has been covering the struggle to find affordable housing around the state. The lack of funding to build housing for people with low-incomes
New Medicaid Coverage for Transgender Illinoians
The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services will soon allow gender confirmation surgery to be covered by Medicaid. That procedure, most…
Is Illinois’ Gas Tax Running On Empty?
While gas prices fluctuate, one charge at the pump has stayed the same since 1990. Illinoisans have paid the same gas tax – the charge per gallon the…
By The Numbers: What The USDA’s Latest Census Tells Us About American Agriculture
It’s been five years since the last ag census. Since 2012, the U.S. has lost about 70,000 farms, saw the average age of farmers go up and prices for…
Schools Can Help Homeless Kids — But Only If They Find Them
Melissa Esparza fled her home in west suburban Chicago two years ago. Then 16, she said her parents became physically violent after years of verbal…
Study: Hepatitis C Not A Barrier To Organ Transplants
For years, transplant surgeons have been reluctant to use organs from people who were infected with hepatitis C, due to fears of spreading the virus….
“There Is Hope”: Series Highlights Stories Of Opioids Addiction
The opioid epidemic has ravaged cities across the United States. And just a couple of years ago, Dayton, Ohio, had one of the nation’s worst overdose…
