In the Loop

Have you ever heard of Goalball? That’s one of two sports unique to the Summer Paralympics. With the 2016 Games currently underway, we wanted to take a closer look at the unique activities bringing 4,342 athletes to Rio this year. 

At City Council on Wednesday, the Black Caucus delivered Mayor Emanuel one of the closest votes during his five years in office. Aldermen voted 26-21 on a plan for hiring contract workers at O’Hare. The measure passed but some problems remain. 

From the blues of Muddy Waters to iconic storefront theaters, from the birth of house music to the home of slam poetry, Chicago has always been a city of innovation, creativity and the arts.  But cultivating the arts scene here has been an uphill battle in recent years.

Southside resident Trishaun Coleman knows all too well what it feels like to lose a loved one to gun violence. The 21-year-old became known as a funeral singer after performing for several of her friends’ memorials.  But losing her boyfriend in 2012, and her cousin just this summer, pushed her to make a change. She ditched her dream of becoming a singer to pursue a career as a Chicago police officer.  We talk to Trishaun about the loss she’s endured and what she hopes to bring to the Chicago Police Department and her community

Most Wednesdays, Morning Shift gets a sneak peek into what Ayana Contreras is cooking up for her Thursday night program Reclaimed Soul on Vocalo.  This week, Ayana is gearing up for a live version of Reclaimed at the Promontory Point Field House, and we’ll get a preview of some of the cuts she’ll be busting out.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration says it’s working with aldermen to refine a police-oversight proposal. The final draft might leave out something crucial to many civil-rights groups. WBEZ's Chip Mitchell reports.

Hillary Clinton took a couple of sick days from the campaign trail, and everyone's still talking about it.  Even though she was diagnosed last Friday with pneumonia, the 68-year-old presidential candidate continued to campaign through the weekend, before nearly fainting at a 9/11 memorial. That got us wondering: How sick do you have to be before you tell your boss you’re not going to make it to work? 

Some nuns pray and live a quiet life. Other nuns lobby, fight and push for the types of social justice they deem fit, flying in the face of Catholic orthodoxy or hierarchy.  The new documentary Radical Grace concerns itself with that second group of religious women, who eschew the black and white habit and head out to work directly with the people.  Morning Shift talks with filmmaker Rebecca Parrish about the nuns who have pushed for what they believe in, including restorative justice and health care for all, bishops be damned. 

Getting a college education is expensive.  But for undocumented students, however, a college education can seem like the impossible. While most students in the US just have to choose which college to go to, even an undocumented young adult with dozens of acceptance letters has to face whether or not college is even an option, due to extremely limited financial aid options. Lisseth Perez and the Chicago Reporter’s Melissa Sanchez tell Perez’s story of one young undocumented student’s efforts to get a college education—a story that thousands of people across the country share.

When most of us close your eyes and picture a “classic” summer scene, we see sunlight, kids running through fields of wildflowers, and...butterflies. Unfortunately, we’ve seen fewer and fewer Monarch butterflies in the area recently, despite it being the state insect. Ann Holtrop from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and Monarch expert Dr. Doug Taron of the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum talk about the importance of the butterfly to our ecosystems and what the state can do to try to bring the species’ numbers back up.