The Rundown | Chicago News

Kelley Engelbrecht moved to Chicago in 2020. One day, she and her husband were driving around the city, and an abandoned building caught her eye. Emblazoned on the side of the building were huge block letters spelling out “Mr. Mr. Fungi.”
 
 “We were like ‘What does that even mean?’” she recalled. 
 
 Engelbrecht decided to follow her curiosity about the graffiti tag by reporting on it for Chicago Magazine. In this episode, host Erin Allen talks to Engelbrecht about graffiti, street artists and legacy.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is proposing a new plan to fully fund the state’s pension systems, which have been in significant debt for years. Chicago Public Schools plans to end its contract with the police department this summer, but district officials revealed last week this won’t necessarily save money. Local Ukrainian activists spoke with WBEZ this weekend on the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

A Cook County judge ruled that a referendum that would have allowed a tax increase in Chicago to fund homelessness prevention is invalid. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is trying to permanently get rid of the state’s 1% grocery sales tax. Gov. Pritzker also wants to earmark more money for the state’s Department of Children and Family Services: $2.3 billion over the next fiscal year.

Tonika Lewis Johnson calls her latest project – unBlocked Englewood – “a very unusual art project.”It involves beautifying the 6500 block of South Aberdeen Street in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood – though things like murals, gardens, gazebos and landscaping – that’s not the unusual part.“But,” she said, “if we were to just start doing art right away, it would be an insult to people on that block.”Johnson said the homeowners there, like so many other minority Chicagoans on the South Side, are still suffering from racist housing practices of the 20th century that devalued the land in those neighborhoods and prevented many from becoming homeowners in the first place. So Johnson did something a little different, by applying for grants from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events that would combine public art with home repairs. She got them. And the effects have been transformational, according to some of the residents of 65th and Aberdeen. In this episode, Johnson talked with Rundown podcast host Erin Allen about how she’s pulling it off, and why.“We can be as creative as we want when we’re trying to dismantle these systemic injustices,” Johnson said. “It doesn’t have to be as complicated as we make it.”

Chicago Board of Education votes to tell schools to prepare for no more cops in schools next year. The same board is officially ending private custodial management after years of complaints that schools were filthy. A new initiative in Chicago aims to double youth employment in the city in the next three years.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is asking for a much more modest increase than he did last year to the MAP grant that helps low-income students pay for college. Gov. Pritzker is also under fire from Republicans for his plan that does not raise a popular state tax credit to fully cover the effects of inflation. Metra has unveiled plans to buy zero emission, battery-powered trains.

Last May, the federal government declared the end of the pandemic public health emergency. But COVID-19 is still widely circulating, and Chicago event organizers are taking precautions into their own hands.
 
 Emily Dupree started Clean Air Club after her partner caught COVID while masked at a concert. “If we’re going to meaningfully reduce the disease burden in the country and around the world, we have to target air quality,” she said.
 
 Dupree and some COVID-cautious event organizers see these types of precautions as an issue of accessibility—and we all stand to benefit.
 
 In this episode, Rundown producer Sarah Stark talks to Dupree about COVID-safer events and the case for cleaning the air we breathe.

Governor J.B. Pritzker made education a focal point of the nearly $53 billion state spending plan he laid out yesterday. Dollar Stores in Chicago will be prohibited from opening within a mile of existing locations under an ordinance passed by the City Council. The Chicago Sky are prepping for an active WNBA draft.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker unveiled his nearly $53 billion spending plan during his State of the State address in Springfield. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson introduced a major development plan today that relies on borrowing $1.25 billion to pay for affordable housing units and other projects. The Chicago City Council is adding new restrictions to limit the spread of chain dollar stores.

There’s a new sky show at the Adler Planetarium that asks kids and families to explore big questions – like, are there multiple universes? – through the eyes of a little girl from Chicago named Niyah.“This film, in particular, follows her journey as she explores every piece of her being and what it means to be a young girl trying to find her way in the universe,” said Taylor Witten, who co-wrote “Niyah and the Multiverse” with Chicago author and filmmaker Ytasha Womack.Womack said another big theme is Niyah’s journey through her own Black cultural heritage. “We wanted to establish that Niyah, being a young girl, has a cultural relationship, as we all do, to space and time, and to explore that through this lens of afrofuturism,” Womack said.In this episode, Womack and Witten talk with The Rundown podcast host Erin Allen about tackling these ideas.

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker is delivering his budget address later today, and there’s one line item that Democrats and Republicans are strictly divided on. He also wants to spend more than $20 million dollars next fiscal year to help prevent more pregnant Black women from dying. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is expected to introduce a major development plan today that relies on borrowing more than $1 billion.

Governor JB Pritzker will deliver his budget address tomorrow. The Chicago Board of Education is working on a plan to remove all police assigned to schools by this fall. The Illinois Department of Public Health warns people could still contract respiratory viruses in the coming months.

“My toxic trait is that I’m a ‘what-if’ person,” said Hannah Sellers, one of three co-owners of Lot’sa.
 
 Lot’sa is a new community art space in Chicago’s Irving Park neighborhood, and it has multiple identities: store, gallery, gathering place. Sellers opened Lot’sa with sisters Cheryl and Sarah Hinman. But the three were friends long before they opened a business together.
 
 In this episode, Rundown producer Sarah Stark talks to Sellers about working with friends and fostering an artistic community.

A new Illinois law allows gun owners to keep assault-style weapons if they disclosed them by January 1, but state registration rates are low. Illinois lawmakers are back in Springfield today with some potential fireworks over spending on the horizon. The strange, otherworldly sounds of microtonal music will be heard in Chicago at the annual Frequency Festival.

Early voting is expected to resume Wednesday morning in Chicago and Cook County following a brief shut down. White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf wants $1 billion of public money to help build a new South Loop stadium for the team. The Chicago area will see highs in the 50s as this year’s average February temperature continues to rise.

Joseph Perez is known to many as Sentrock – the muralist and street artist whose work can be experienced on walls, in illustrations, and as action figures across Chicago and the U.S. You’d probably recognize his signature character, a boy with a red bird mask named the Bird City Saint. In this episode, the artist talks with The Rundown podcast host Erin Allen about his childhood and storytelling that inspire his work – and how it manifested into a three-room exhibit at the Elmhurst Art Museum. This episode originally aired on Jan. 20, 2023.

The annual U.S. Hispanic Leadership Institute conference brought together thousands of high schoolers from around the country. A new research center at the University of Chicago aims to reduce disparities in cancer prevention and treatment. A proposed bill in Springfield could make it easier for people who own products from microwaves to video cameras to get those items fixed.

A Chicago woman who was the victim of a wrongful police raid five years ago is demanding the city enact reforms to prevent others from experiencing what she did. Labor unions are targeting two far-right state lawmakers in southern Illinois by funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars toward their primary opponents. A project to help restore the environment for aquatic plants in part of the Illinois River kicked off this week.

Emily and Tyler Nevius celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary in January, but they were too tired to throw a big party. In the past few months, years of hard work have culminated in the opening-slash-reopening of the Ramova Theatre.
 
 The historic movie theater in Bridgeport is now a concert venue, backed by the Neviuses, Chance the Rapper, Jennifer Hudson, Quincy Jones and dozens of other investors.
 
 Rundown podcast producer Justin Bull talks to the Neviuses about the years, tears and beers that went into restoring the Ramova to its former glory.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson isn’t saying whether the city will chip in more money along with the state of Illinois and Cook county to care for migrants. The Illinois comptroller wants the governor to prioritize putting any new, available money towards the state’s rainy-day fund. Incumbent Iris Martinez is facing a tough re-election battle to keep running Cook County’s Circuit Court system.

The Chicago City Council has rejected letting the union for rank-and-file cops bypass the Police Board and contest the most serious discipline in private arbitration. The state of Illinois and Cook County are partnering to spend another $250 million to care for migrants being sent to Chicago. The head of Columbia College Chicago is stepping down July 1.

WBEZ investigative reporter Dan Mihalopoulos broke the story in 2021 about a major internal investigation within the Chicago Park District – one where several current and former supervisors in the aquatics department were accused of regularly committing “sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, workplace violence and other criminal acts.”The fallout from the scandal included resignations, apologies, promises, lawsuits and – effective Jan. 1, 2024 – a new state law that makes it easier for survivors of workplace gender violence to sue their employers successfully, according to the law’s sponsors.In this episode, Mihalopoulos talked with The Rundown podcast host Erin Allen about the origins of the initial story and how the new law aims to financially assist survivors and dissuade future offenders.

The Chicago City Council today is scheduled to take its final vote on who should make decisions in serious police discipline cases. A proposal in Springfield would require any law enforcement agencies encrypting their police scanner transmissions to still make their live activity available to the media. Details on where Chicago residents can cast their ballots early for the March 19th primary starting today.

Some of Lurie Children’s Hospital’s communications are back up, two weeks into a cybersecurity issue. Employees at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago are the latest to work toward unionizing. The National Weather Service has called for a hazardous weather outlook overnight across north central and northeastern Illinois.

Sulyiman Stokes grew up in Auburn Gresham on Chicago’s South Side, and he fell in love with music at a young age. His winding artistic journey has taken him to Los Angeles and back to Chicago, and he has stepped in and out of the music industry. Now, he’s carving out a path as a multidisciplinary musician and photographer.In this episode, Stokes talks about using his art to tell Black narratives.This episode was produced by Ari Mejia for WBEZ’s sister station Vocalo and their Chi Sounds Like series.

Some Chicago anti-violence activists are worried about a city decision to disconnect a gunshot-detection system. A new proposal before Illinois lawmakers would allow terminally ill people to end their own lives with lethal medication. Both Democratic candidates running for Cook County State’s Attorney are pledging to reduce crime if elected.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said he will disconnect the controversial gunshot-detection system called ShotSpotter until later in the year. Flight attendants picketed at O’Hare Airport Tuesday and thousands of ride-share and delivery drivers plan to strike at O’Hare and nine other airports on Wednesday. Blackhawks rookie Connor Bedard will return to action next week following a jaw injury.

Tricia Hersey organizes communal naps through the Nap Ministry. Her New York Times bestselling book “Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto” came out in 2022, and we’re still thinking about it.In this episode, host Erin Allen continues the conversation with Hersey. They talk about rest within the framework of Black liberation—and how resting affects the world around us.This episode originally aired on April 12, 2023.

The longtime chief of staff to ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan has been sentenced to multiple years in prison. Chicago Public Schools might finally be getting rid of the custodial management company that has long been accused of leaving some schools filthy. After the head of Chicago’s Howard Brown Health centers has stepped down, workers say they hope the new leader will prioritize their union contract.

Timothy Mapes, the longtime chief-of-staff to former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, has been sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. The outage at Lurie Children’s Hospital continues – it’s been going on for nearly two weeks. New analysis shows nearly half of renters in Chicago are spending too much of their income on rent and utilities.

If you don’t know Tricia Hersey’s name, you’ve probably seen her work. Hersey founded The Nap Ministry, perhaps best known for its popular Instagram account, with the hope of teaching others how to rest in a society that glorifies grind culture. Hersey’s New York Times bestselling book “Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto” explores her lifelong project of resting under capitalism.In this episode, host Erin Allen talks to Hersey about how rest and community care can be acts of resistance.This episode originally aired on April 10, 2023.

Chicago’s multi-million dollar contract with the company that runs the gunshot detection technology known as ShotSpotter expires on Friday. Black health advocacy groups are calling on the state to properly fund Black-led HIV and AIDS treatment providers. If you watched the Super Bowl last night, you may have seen some Illinois farmers during a commercial break.

Authorities say an overnight fire caused extensive damage to the Palace Grill on Chicago’s Near West Side, an iconic Chicago restaurant known for its breakfasts and filled with decades of memorabilia. Starbucks workers in the southwestern Illinois town of O'Fallon are seeking to unionize. Illinois House Republicans say they want to put money back in your pocket at tax time next year through a measure that would once again tie the state’s standard income tax exemption to inflation.

Black History Month is a time to look back at the big names that changed history, but also the smaller names that are making Black history right now, according to Arionne Nettles, director of Audio Journalism Programming at Northwestern University’s Medill School. 
 
 “The people who are living legends to me are perhaps everyday people,” Nettles said, nodding to the Black teachers, journalists and everyone else who shows up in small ways for their community. “Those are the people that are making such a big impact on your lives. Those are the people you never forget.”
 
 In this episode, Rundown host Erin Allen talks with Nettles about rethinking Black excellence and the Black Chicagoans making history today.

A new Illinois state senate bill would require a lawyer for anyone under age 18 throughout an interrogation in police custody. Illinois Republicans are hoping that they’re not entirely shut out of this year’s state budget process – again. A union that represents 3,800 Illinois Department of Transportation workers has voted to authorize a strike.

Lurie Children's Hospital confirmed its network was accessed by a “known criminal threat actor.” ComEd is trying to entice businesses to buy electric vehicles while the Chicago Auto Show is in town. A downstate Illinois funeral home director had his license revoked last year after a state investigation found he had given dozens of families the wrong cremated ashes.

Rundown host Erin Allen joins a conversation of three generations of Black women to talk about Black History Month – how we celebrate it and learned about it – by looking at the historic "firsts" of the past and those we should honor in the present. Weighing in on the topic are the crew from WBEZ’s sister podcast, When Magic Happens.

Mail ballots for Chicago’s March primary election are starting to be sent to voters today. Three Democratic lawmakers in Springfield are pushing to make fertility services more accessible. A judge is denying former President Donald Trump’s bid to stall an objection to his place on Illinois’ primary election ballot.

A new report says the medical care provided in Illinois prisons is so bad that people are dying. The deadline to file papers to run for seats on Chicago’s Local School Councils has been extended to Feb. 14. New research from Northwestern University says artificial intelligence is improving doctors’ accuracy when they diagnose certain skin diseases.

These days, it feels like there are two options if you want to get out of the house for Valentine’s Day: gooey couple’s outings and anti-Valentine’s singles events. But on The Rundown, we’re always looking for new and interesting ways to spend your time.
 
 Enter Crying at the Shed, a three-day film festival at the Salt Shed that combines film, music and Valentine’s vibes.
 
 In this episode, host Erin Allen talks to festival curator Kris English and Douglas McCombs, one of the musicians in the festival lineup.

Some new intel on the troubled prison healthcare provider that just got a $4 billion contract from the state of Illinois. Progressive lawmakers and activists are trying to make Illinois the eighth state to eliminate the subminimum wage for tipped workers. Staff at two Little Village charter schools continue striking today.

Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago is on its seventh day of dealing with a cybersecurity matter that has crippled communications. Actor Jussie Smollett is asking the Illinois Supreme Court to overturn his disorderly conduct convictions for falsely reporting to police he was the victim of a hate crime. The Chicago area could see record-breaking temperatures in the upper 50s this Thursday and Friday.

Best Spoken Word Poetry Album was a brand new category when Chicago poet J. Ivy won it at the 2023 Grammy Awards. At this year’s Grammys, J. Ivy won the award again, for his poetry album “The Light Inside.” “When I’m creating an album, I don’t listen to anybody else,” the multi-hyphenate artist said on The Rundown back in 2023. “If I found myself sounding like anybody else, I switch that up real quick.” Today, we’re bringing you Erin’s conversation with the writer, narrator and poet – about the differences between rap and spoken word poetry, his influences and inspirations, and about how he produced the tracks on his first Grammy-winning album, “The Poet Who Sat By The Door.”This episode originally aired on March 3, 2023.

The Illinois Emergency Management Agency wants southern Cook County residents to apply for relief funding by the end of the week. A housing advocacy group in the north suburbs has reached a deal in a federal lawsuit against a company that used artificial intelligence to discriminate against renters. After taking a two-week break, Illinois lawmakers are back in Springfield today with some unfinished business to attend to.

Metra has still not been able to fix glitches on the Ventra app that have prevented riders from buying tickets. The editorial board of the student newspaper at Northwestern University is urging its parent company to drop criminal charges against two Black students. The Chicago Red Stars continue to rebuild under new ownership.

Chicago has had a system of “school choice” for decades. That’s where, instead of sending students to schools in their neighborhoods, families can apply to send their kids to magnet, charter, test-in or even other neighborhood schools across the city.
 
 But change may be afoot. The Chicago Board of Education voted to move away from school choice in a resolution passed late last year. Further complicating the matter, the Board is about to pivot from having appointed members to having elected members, which means that voters will have a partial say in the matter this November.
 
 So why do some people want to get rid of school choice and others want to keep it? And which students have more to gain or lose if school choice is phased out? WBEZ education reporter Sarah Karp explains this “very ideologically contentious issue” and what the upcoming election might mean for the future of school choice in Chicago.

Chicago voters will start to receive their mail ballots this week – with one referendum question that is facing a lawsuit to throw it off. A new report on the racial wealth gap outlines steps for corporations and business leaders. The Latino Policy Forum has selected a new cohort of Chicago leaders expected to build bridges between Black and Brown communities.

Lurie Children’s Hospital is working to address a cybersecurity issue. A vigil was held Thursday night in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood to honor the three Senn High School students who were shot this week. U.S. Senator Dick Durbin is promoting federal legislation to crack down on social media companies that allow online abuse and mistreatment of children.

Sufjan Stevens’s 2005 album “Illinois” is the source material for a new musical at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. It’s called “Illinoise,” and it’s the only time you’ll hear us pronouncing the “s” at the end of the state.
 
 “I always felt like there was something to discover in a stage work that derives from this album,” said Justin Peck, the director, choreographer and co-writer behind the show. 
 
 Peck identified the album as part of his own coming-of-age story when it came out in 2005, so it’s fitting that he and playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury adapted the record into a coming-of-age tale for the stage. The story is told entirely through music and movement.
 
 In this episode, host Erin Allen talks to Peck for a peek behind the curtain in developing “Illinoise.”

A succession of recent fatal shootings of high schoolers has some pushing for violence prevention workers to get into Chicago Public Schools – even if those workers have a criminal record. Chicago-based McDonald’s says it’s looking into a report that the fast food giant is connected to prison labor. A Dallas pastor has succeeded Reverend Jesse Jackson as head of the Chicago-based Rainbow PUSH Coalition.