Mental health struggles, community violence, and chronic absenteeism are the biggest challenges facing young people in Chicago today, according to a new report from the nonprofit A Better Chicago. But the youth remain hopeful for their future. Reset hears from Beth Swanson, CEO of A Better Chicago, and artist Diana Gomez to learn how we can best support Chicago youth.
For a full archive of Reset interviews, head over to wbez.org/reset.
Mental health struggles, community violence, and chronic absenteeism are the biggest challenges facing young people in Chicago today, according to a new report from the nonprofit A Better Chicago. But the youth remain hopeful for their future. Reset hears from Beth Swanson, CEO of A Better Chicago, and artist Diana Gomez to learn how we can best support Chicago youth.
For a full archive of Reset interviews, head over to wbez.org/reset.
Introducing the newest thing in higher (and we really mean higher — like look UP) education: The Flying Pig Academy. A dream of The Village Square (with support from Florida Humanities) for many years, it’s finally aloft. The division in American society is big and seems impossible at times to address.
The bigger, gnarlier and more all-encompassing a conflict grows, the more we naturally rush right to its epicenter to try to break it up. It demands so much attention it’s hard to look away. But we’re going to give you our hottest tip for handling the most difficult conflicts — do it indirectly. Named by our very own Bill Mattox (this episode's guest), who may or may not know a lot about a carom shot in billiards (hitting a ball to hit another ball into the pocket), but he certainly knows a lot about human beings.
The Village Square is a proud member of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.
Featured in this episode: A reference to the Heineken Worlds Apart ad, which is well worth a watch.
Funding for this podcast was provided through a grant from Florida Humanities with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of Florida Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.
President Trump is feuding with Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell. This all comes as Americans are feeling gloomier about the economy. Also, a judge found probable cause to find the government in criminal contempt, ruling that the Trump administration willfully disregarded an order to turn back airplanes carrying deported migrants to El Salvador, and President Trump says he is looking into whether the U.S. can detain citizens who commit crimes in overseas prisons.
Today's episode of Up First was edited by Gerry Holmes, Eric Westervelt, Rafael Nam, Janaya Williams and Mohamad ElBardicy. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis. And our technical director is David Greenburg.
David Young spent many years in California, but lives in Colorado Springs now. He mentioned that things outside of work are very important to him, as they are the soil from which he brings fruit to bear in his work. He's married and loving living in the Rockies. He and his wife love to ski hike and camp - but most interesting, they are both endurance athletes. They run marathons, bike rides, and triathlons - in fact, David himself has run 10, which includes a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, then a marathon - all in succession. All in one day.
David noticed that that problem with SaaS today is that it's expensive, and adds up as you compile solutions. Right alongside that, open source software is free - but requires more setup and maintenance to keep it up and running. He decided that there must be a better way to purchase software, while getting the best price on a bundle of solutions.
Governor Gavin Newsom has filed a lawsuit challenging the scope of President Trump’s authority to impose tariffs, citing potential economic impacts on California’s trade partnerships. Meta is in the midst of a high-profile federal trial that could lead to the divestiture of Instagram and WhatsApp. Tech stocks fell sharply after Nvidia projected a $5.5 billion loss due to new U.S. export controls on AI chips. And in San Luis Obispo, a man who had been living on the streets won $1 million from a California Lottery scratcher.
A lot of things in the South Bay, specifically around Cupertino and Mountain View, are named after somebody called Stevens. There’s Stevens Creek Boulevard, the Stevens Creek watershed, and Stevens Creek Reservoir, to name a few. Our question asker, Pete Smoot, wants to know: Who exactly was Stevens? Turns out we should really be asking: "Who was Stephens?" with a P-H! We've been misspelling the name of Elisha Stephens for decades. In this episode we learn more about the man behind the name, and his adventurous pioneer life in early California.
This story was reported by Rachael Myrow. Bay Curious is made by Katrina Schwartz, Olivia Allen-Price and Christopher Beale. Additional support from Gabriela Glueck, Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Alana Walker, Holly Kernan and everyone on Team KQED.
Folk music surged in popularity across America in the late 1950s through the ‘70s, including here in the Chicago area. Last episode, we looked at how a few area coffeehouses catered to many patrons in their teens and early twenties. These were alcohol-free spaces where people could listen to live music and hangout for hours.
Curious City host Erin Allen looks at one of those beloved coffeeshops of the 1970s: AmazinGrace, which was born out of Vietnam War protests on the campus of Northwestern University and later moved to the heart of downtown Evanston. She was joined by a panel of AmazinGrace founders, performers and patrons at last year’s Evanston Folk Festival.
WBEZ is a programming partner of the Evanston Folk Festival, which is taking place this year Sept. 6-7, 2025. A pre-sale is happening now through April 22. Enter the code EFFWBEZ to access the sale.
