Earlier this month, we posted a story about discipline practices inside Noble Network of Charter Schools , which educates approximately one out of 10…
It was a scheduling mishap that led Kourtnaye Sturgeon to help save someone’s life. About four months ago, Sturgeon drove to downtown Indianapolis for a…
Every Sunday, a group of women meets in the basement of a church in Chicago’s Ravenswood neighborhood to sort and package boxes of books. The boxes are sent to women
Passing a state budget is arguably the most important thing the Illinois General Assembly does every year — or at least should do every year. After last year’s drama — when a two-year standoff ended with a Republican revolt against Governor Bruce Rauner — it’s an open question about how things will go this year. [...]
Updated April 4 to clarify the export percentage — China matters to the U.S. pork industry, as more than a quarter of all hogs raised here are shipped…
There’s a growing consensus among pain specialists that lifestyle changes can be more effective than drugs in managing chronic pain. But the alternative approach requires patient commitment.
The trend toward school choice has educators across the country looking at Chicago’s Noble Charter Schools — an award-winning network of mostly high schools that specializes in helping inner-city kids achieve the kind of SAT scores that propel them into four-year universities. But despite its prestigious reputation, Noble has a peculiarly high teacher turnover rate. [...]
Wearing a heavy smock and rubber boots, Amadedin Eganwa stands over a large conveyor belt that’s carrying unconscious lambs. He faces east, towards Mecca, gently lifts the animal’s head in the same direction and under his breath he quickly says a prayer — bismillahi allahu akbar, or “in God’s name” — before swiftly cutting the [...]
Meant to fund the federal government through early September, the $1.3 trillion bill signed by President Donald Trump last week also includes money and…
Big cities in the Midwest are gaining ground on the rural communities that, for many decades, have thrived on the edges of urban development. Since 1980, the amount of land being farmed or grazed in the U.S. has dropped 13 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Much of it now is covered by [...]
Thousands of students, teachers, parents and victims carried signs and marched across Illinois in the cold, snow and sleet on Saturday as part of the nationwide March for Our Lives against gun violence. The marches were largely led by students, many of them moved to action after last month’s high school shooting in Parkland, Florida. [...]
For more than 30 years, kids with a certain streak of genius have found a home at Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in suburban Chicago. It’s the rarest of gems in the educational landscape: a public, affordable, boarding school. One of just a handful of such schools nationwide, Wired magazine dubbed it “Hogwarts for Hackers.” After [...]
In a refrigerator in the coroner’s office in Marion County, Indiana, rows of vials await testing. They contain blood, urine and vitreous, the fluid collected from inside a human eye. In overdose cases, the fluids may contain clues for investigators. “We send that off to a toxicology lab to be tested for what we call [...]
Illinois primary voters have spoken. This year’s race for governor will be a battle between two of the wealthiest men in the state. But this outcome almost didn’t come to pass. Democrat J.B. Pritzker won easily, but incumbent Republican Governor Bruce Rauner barely escaped a humiliating defeat. Four years ago, political novice Bruce Rauner [...]
U.S. consumers’ hunger for fresh, local and organic foods has fed a marketplace that’s so big, little guys are — once again — having to evolve and specialize. It’s especially true with consumer-supported agriculture programs (CSAs), which had been growing for years, but are starting to wane in the face of the rise of [...]
