In the Loop

The Republican National Convention in Cleveland is not the only large convention taking place in Ohio this week.  A couple hundred miles southwest, in Cincinnati, thousands of NAACP members are congregating for the group’s 107th annual convention. This year the theme is “Our Lives Matter, Our Votes Count.”  Morning Shift checks in with Jessyca Dudley from the Joyce Foundation’s Gun Violence Prevention Program.

Beyond his roots in Oak Park, a few war stories and tales of his time in Key West, how much do you really know about Ernest Hemingway the man?  In his new book Hidden Hemingway: Inside the Ernest Hemingway Archives of Oak Park, Robert Elder and his co-authors reveal some of the lesser-known stories and history about Hemingway cobbled together from items in his archives like family photos, teenage diaries, bullfighting tickets love letters and 100-year-old musical compositions from his mother Grace Hall Hemingway.

We’ve all felt lost or unbalanced while navigating through life. In the latest installment of our series Working Shift, we sit down with someone who dedicates herself to helping people “connect the dots” through those personal and career transitions.  Morning Shift talks with life coach Anna Bray, of Jody Michael Associates, about what a coach does and how she navigated her own career change.

At a time when anti-semitism is running amok on social media and creeping into our politics, Phil Johnson’s play A Jewish Joke at Victory Gardens Theatre takes audiences back to the 1950s McCarthy era, when Jewish screenwriters were blacklisted on suspicions that they were Communists.  Johnson plays Bernie Lutz, a screenwriter who finds himself under the thumb of the government and forced to choose between his career and his dignity as a human being.  Morning Shift talks to actor and playwright Phil Johnson and director David Chack about why the play’s message resonates in today’s political climate. The play runs through the end of July.

Maybe you’ve seen them? Droves of millennials wandering around the city holding their smartphones out in front of them and staring intently at the screens.  They’re not watching videos or looking at Instagram. They’re playing Pokémon Go, a new augmented reality game that brings the characters from the 20-year-old video game and television series Pokémon to life.  Since it was introduced on July 6, the game has gone viral, and the craze doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. Morning Shift talks to Allegra Frank from the tech site Polygon about how the game works, why it’s so popular and the world of stories it’s spawned.

Illinois’ congressional delegation won’t have much of a presence at next week’s Republican National Convention, and the members who will be there are already saying they’re not attending in order to support Donald Trump. Some local political players are also dodging it, or going so they can endorse another candidate. This is new territory for the usually celebratory event meant to unify the party. WBEZ politics reporters Tony Arnold and Lauren Chooljian have talked with both sides of the Trump coin, and they tell us what they expect next week at the RNC. They also introduce us to some of the people who may be responsible for getting Donald Trump on the ticket

For the past few months, WBEZ has been reporting on where high levels of lead are showing up in our water here in Chicago. The latest culprit is some Park District water fountains. WBEZ’s Monica Eng used a Freedom of Information Act request to get her hands on documents that show some water fountains in Chicago, including some along the lakefront, are dispensing water with very high levels of lead. Jenn White talks to Monica Eng about what she learned.

The success of the show Inside Amy Schumer relies heavily on the comedic chops of the star. But the writing is the work of a few funny women, including head writer Jessi Klein.  The comedy writer and stand-up comedian’s work on the show was honored with an Emmy in 2015, which was during a time of many other changes in her life. She writes about those, and the other funny anecdotes that fuel her work in the new essay collection You’ll Grow Out of It.  Morning Shift talks to Klein about the book and some of her favorite sketches on the show.

Once upon a time, Chicago was in the running to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. With a $3.8 billion budget and an estimated eight million visitors flooding the area, the city would have undergone a massive change.  Morning Shift talks to Sam Cholke and Tanveer Ali, two reporters from DNAinfo, who created an interactive article showing just ‘What Chicago Would Look Like If We Got The Olympics.’

Water fountains in more than 60 public schools in Chicago have tested positive for elevated levels of lead in the most recent study by CPS. And this week, we learned of elevated lead levels in some Chicago Park District water fountains. But exactly how dangerous is lead in our water, and what can we do about it? Morning Shift talks to Dr. David Jacobs from the National Center for Healthy Housing to find out what Chicago families should know in the face of stories of lead in some of the city’s water.