217 Today: Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2021

By Brian Moline and Farrah Anderson
Oct 12, 2021

Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2021

Today’s headlines:

Democrats who control the General Assembly are already facing legal challenges from Republicans and Latino voting rights groups over new legislative maps the majority party passed earlier this year.
University of Illinois wheelchair athletes Tatyana McFadden and Daniel Romanchuk both finished second yesterday at the Boston Marathon, less than 24 hours after winning the Chicago Marathon on Sunday.
Cherokee citizen and Illinois businessman Andrew Johnson is working to change the fact that Illinois state employees don’t look like the people who live here– especially of the state’s Indigenous peoples.

In today’s deep dive, in one Midwestern elementary school, students take care of chickens, pigs, sheep and goats. As Harvest Public Media’s Katie Peikes reports, they’ve built chicken coops and sheep pens near their playgrounds in ways that seem to pay off in the classroom.

217 Today is produced by Farrah Anderson. Reporting today contributed by Hannah Meisel, Emily Hays and Katie Peikes.

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