Record number of millennials sign up to run for local office in 2018 midterms
By Elizabeth Beyer Medill Reports Grassroots organizations launched since the last national election to train young first-time candidates received thousands of requests for assistance. First time candidates under the age of 35 are taking on entrenched incumbents in midterm races across the country. Many of them cited the outcome of the 2016 presidential election and lack […]
Candidates canvass for votes for open seat in Illinois 4th District House race
By Xinyi (Ethel) Jiang Medill Reports On a chilly Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, Delia Ramirez trudges through the snow, knocking on doors. She is introducing herself to voters in the Illinois 4th state house district in Chicago. The Illinois 4th is a heavily Latino district, stretching from West Town through Humboldt Park in Chicago. […]
Marchers rally for women candidates and immigrants at March to the Polls
By Elizabeth Beyer The 300,000-strong show of force to get-out-the-vote for women and progressive candidates energized marchers gathered in downtown Chicago on Saturday for the Women’s March to the Polls. Organizers estimated that attendance was up 50,000 compared to last year’s march, as participants joined the call for high voter turnout in upcoming local and […]
Chicago Community Catalyst Fund Still Waiting to Make First Investments
By Brian Baker Medill Reports More than a year after it was first announced, the Chicago Community Catalyst Fund has not yet hired investment managers who will be charged with finding investment opportunities–mainly loans to existing small businesses–in underserved Chicago neighborhoods. Even then the rollout will be slow. The fund will deploy its first capital […]
Energy experts: future of clean power lies in changing incentives
By Hannah Levitt The future of clean power depends on state and local governments implementing policies that expand the market for renewable energy development, according to energy policy experts at a seminar hosted by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago Thursday. Energy policy and economics expert Susan Tierney and New York State […]
Obama’s supporters at famed barbershop say farewell
By Pat Nabong More than eight years after President Obama gave his first victory speech in Grant Park, Chicagoans in Hyde Park bid farewell to the president who used to live in their neighborhood. In Hyde Park Hair Salon, where President Obama has been getting his hair cut for more than 20 years, talk of […]
In Waukesha, small businesses wonder whether Democrats or Republicans can change their lives
By David Jordan and Nona Tepper On Main Street in downtown Waukesha, a sleepy Milwaukee suburb, the perspective is decidedly local. Most shops close at three on Saturdays on a street devoid of national chains, except a Subway. Business owners advertise for one another in their windows and stop to talk about the challenges they […]
Rogers Park restaurant has put politics front and center for 40 years
By Max Greenwood It was a Thursday night in mid-April, and Kathleen Dillon dragged tables around the Heartland Café, carefully arranging them to give a good view of a projector screen. It was less than an hour before the New York Democratic presidential debate between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, and Dillon frantically prepared the […]
Obama brings fight for Supreme Court nominee to Chicago
By Max Greenwood President Barack Obama returned to his old constitutional bastion of the University of Chicago Law School on Thursday to pitch his case for his Supreme Court nominee Judge Merrick Garland. “Merrick Garland is an extraordinary jurist who is indisputably qualified to serve on the highest court in the land, and no one […]
#WHERESTHEJUSTICE: Muslim students talk about social justice from an Islamic perspective
By Jasmine M. Ellis Students at Loyola University Chicago are learning more about the Muslim community through Islam Appreciation Week. Hosted by the Muslim Student Association, the organization is focusing on social justice from an Islamic perspective. Using #WHERESTHEJUSTICE students are contributing to the conversation by sharing what social justice issues matter most to them. […]