CDC highlights lifetime risks for contracting HIV
By Kierra Gray One in two black men, one in four Latino men and one in 11 white men who are gay or bisexual have a risk of contracting HIV in their lifetimes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released these latest statistics recently. [vimeo 158651535 w=474] The AIDS Foundation of Chicago helped host […]
How the Chicago protest movement helped Kim Foxx win the State’s Attorney nomination
By Kierra Gray On Primary Election night in Chicago, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez conceded to Democratic rival Kim Foxx. Alvarez faced intense criticism after her office waited 400 days to release a police dash cam footage showing the shooting death of Laquan McDonald by former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke. When the video was released last […]
Sanders and Clinton battle for donations in Chicago
By Kierra Gray While they battle for votes in advance of tomorrow’s primary election, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are also battling for donations in Chicago. Using publicly available data of contributions, DNAInfo recently compiled a neighborhood map of Chicago categorizing the donations received by the two Democratic candidates. The results by zip code show […]
On International Women’s Day, workers rally for better treatment
By Kierra Gray Women workers rallied Tuesday outside the so-called “Rock N Roll” McDonald’s in River North to fight for a 15-dollar minimum wage and an end to workplace discrimination. In honor of International Women’s Day, workers from fast food restaurants presented a petition to the manager at the McDonald’s. The protesters said gender, race and age […]
Black women activists focus on prison pipeline, joining the fight for social justice
By Branden Hampton Eighty percent of prison inmates report that they were in foster care as youth, and the foster care-to-prison pipeline must be dismantled, according to social justice activist Charity Tolliver. “When we look at the boom of the prison system in the ’80s, one of the systems that also exploded at the same […]
Coalition calls for special prosecutor in Jason Van Dyke murder case
By Aryn Braun and Misha Euceph Video by Kierra Gray In a petition filed this morning, 27 interested parties called for a special prosecutor in the trial of police officer Jason Van Dyke, citing Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez’s close ties to the Fraternal Order of Police as a “conflict of interest.” The petitioners, […]
New legal action in Laquan McDonald case
By Kierra Gray A coalition of lawyers, community activists and leaders filed a petition Tuesday requesting that the Circuit Court of Cook County remove State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez from the Laquan McDonald case. In October 2014, Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke shot 17-year-old McDonald 16 times, leading to his death. The city, and Alvarez, delayed the release […]
Local activists trying to energize millennial voters
By Kierra Gray Robert Moses thinks millennials can have a big say in the outcome of the upcoming presidential election. The 23-year-old University of Illinois at Chicago student is an organizer for the non-profit Chicago Votes. Its goal is to register new voters and makes complex political issues easy for young people to understand. “I feel like they’re [millennials] engaged by doing […]
The name is the least of the controversy for Chi-Raq
By Kierra Gray In Spike Lee’s new film Chi-Raq, he explores gang violence and the use of sex strikes as a tactic to combat violence. This modern-day adaptation of Aristophanes’ ancient Greek satire “Lysistrata” is set on the South Side of Chicago. After a stray bullet kills a young child in a gang war, our […]
FDA asks you what natural should mean on food labels
By Kierra Gray “If taken in literal terms, very few products offered in a grocery store are ‘natural.’ Most products are highly processed, packages, and sterilized to a degree that is unrepresentative of nature,” one anonymous skeptic told the FDA. “Labeling a product as ‘natural’ can be misleading to the layperson and should not be […]
