The Chicago-based group Queers on the Rocks is building a community of LGBTQ climbers and promoting representation of queer athletes. Reset talked to group organizers Danya Rosen and Daniel Bedoya.
The Covenant School in Nashville is the latest school to be targeted by a mass shooter. What do schools in Illinois do to prepare for a school shooting? And what runs through the minds of educators when they hear about Sandy Hook, Uvalde and now Nashville? Reset spoke to two local education advocates for their perspective: Katherine Buitron-Vera, former school safety consultant and volunteer with March Fourth, and Nate Pietrini, executive director at High Jump and former principal at Hawthorne Scholastic Academy.
Yesterday a 28-year-old shooter killed three 9-year-old children and three staff members — all in their 60s — at an elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee. In a twist of fate, Ashbey Beasley, a survivor of the Highland Park shooting, was in the area during the attack. Reset checks in with Beasley about Monday’s tragic events and her push for gun reform in Washington.
hat were the mayoral hopefuls like as kids? Teens? Young adults? Brandon Johnson is the son of a pastor and one of 10 kids in a family who lived in Elgin. Paul Vallas, the second of four kids, started life in Roseland and as a teen moved to suburban Alsip. Reset heard from WBEZ reporters Mariah Woelfel and Tessa Weinberg to learn more about the candidates’ backstories.
Barbara Gaines has directed more than 60 productions since founding the Chicago Shakespeare Theater in 1986. We talked to the artistic director ahead of her final production of "The Comedy of Errors," which runs through April 23.
All Advocate Health Care locations in the Chicago area are dropping mask requirements and easing visitor limits starting Monday. The policy changes at the health care system will affect patients and care teams at locations in Chicago, the suburbs and Northwest Indiana. Reset hears the details of Advocate’s plans from Chicago Sun-Times reporter David Struett and checked in with University of Chicago infectious disease specialist Dr. Emily Landon.
Back in 2019, a wave of younger, more progressive aldermen joined Chicago’s City Council, some of them self-identified Democratic socialists. This year, they won a second term. Reset is joined by two progressive aldermen — one soon to start his third term in office, the other his second — to hear about their plans for the coming years and how they see themselves working with a Vallas or a Johnson administration. Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 35th Ward joined the council in 2015. Alderman Andre Vasquez, 40th Ward, joined in 2019.
Across the country, drag performances are under attack: Republican lawmakers in states like Arizona, Oklahoma, Idaho and Kansas are moving to regulate when and where drag can take place, and Tennessee has already restricted performances in public. We checked in with ACLU Illinois’s Ed Yohnka after an Illinois bakery announced it’s closing this month after threats last summer for planning a drag event. We also heard from Alex Grelle, Chicago drag theater queen and performer, to hear his thoughts on the state of drag.
In Chicago, you have to take advantage of every warm day you can. Luckily, WBEZ’s got you covered with a guide to the hottest events of the season. We checked in with editor Cassie Walker Burke to get the scoop.
More dramatic testimony in the ComEd trial. Abortion opponents descend on the State Capitol. Meanwhile, endorsements continue to roll in for Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson. Reset goes behind those headlines and more in our Weekly News Recap with Paris Schutz, reporter and anchor, WTTW-TV, A.D. Quig, Cook County and Chicago government reporter for the Chicago Tribune and Jon Seidel, federal courts reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times.