Author: WBEZ Chicago

Firefighters are an important part of keeping a community safe. Not only do they literally put out fires, they also help clean up hazardous materials and in some cases, make sure our buildings are up to code. And Skokie Citizens Fire Academy teaches interested residents about all that goes into the job, plus some firefighting skills. Reset learns more about the program from Inspector Timothy Taylor and hears from its oldest graduate, Mort Feldberg.

Chicago officials have spent nearly 160 million dollars on the migrant crisis, from shelter and clothing, to food and funding for other services for the 13 thousand migrants in the city today. Reset hears from one migrant who may be subject to the city’s eviction notice for migrants staying in city run shelters on his journey of getting to Chicago and his hopes for the future.

Lil Hardin Armstrong, Mary Lou Williams and Nina Simone are notable singers of their time, but trumpeter, composer and director of the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, Orbert Davis, wanted to highlight their songwriting skills. In a new composition for the Philharmonic, Davis confronts the gender inequalities in jazz. Reset learns more about why Davis wanted to highlight each of the singer-songwriters with his new composition debuting this weekend.

During the pandemic, saxophonist Mai Sugimoto, bassist Joshua Abrams and drummer Isaiah Spencer came together to perform and honor the life and legacy of Chicago saxophonist Fred Anderson. From that moment on, Sugimoto recognized the magic and chemistry of the trio leading to the creation of her latest album “Sunlight Filtering Through Leaves". Reset sits down with the Japanese-born, Chicago-based improvised jazz artist to learn about her journey in music.

A judge rules that an Illinois challenge to former President Donald Trump appearing on the ballot won’t be delayed. Meanwhile, Springfield takes up the so-called “subminimum wage” for tipped workers and Chicago’s elected school board. Reset goes behind those headlines and more in the Weekly News Recap, this week with Simone Alicea, executive producer of City Cast Chicago, Alex Nitkin, reporter with the Illinois Answers Project for the Better Government Association, and Amanda Vinicky, WTTW political correspondent.

The Environmental Protection Agency is strengthening air quality standards on industries like factories, power plants, and vehicles that emit soot. Those fine particulate particles have been found to collect in people's lungs, cause respiratory problems, and have even been linked to cancer. Reset learns more about this change from Chicago Tribune reporter Michael Hawthorne, and how the change could improve our health from Brian Urbaszewski, Director of Environmental Health Programs at the Respiratory Health Association.

Chicago Police have been found to have varied response times to emergency calls across the city, and now the City Council is requiring the department to conduct a workforce study to identify why. The city’s governing body also discussed a recent resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, as well as solutions to the migrant crisis. Reset learns the latest from WBEZ’s city government and politics reporter Mariah Woelfel.

Chicago’s expressways can be traced back to the 1908 Plan of Chicago that envisioned a road system of roads that connected the city center to distant neighborhoods. But in the process of constructing them, thousands of residents were displaced – more than half of whom were Black, despite being only 23% of the city’s total population. And the result was the entrenchment of segregation in Chicago. For a walk through this history, Reset turns to two reporters: Richard Cahan, journalist, author Lost In America: Photographing the Last Days of our Architectural Treasures, and Susy Shultz, freelance editor and journalist, looking into this legacy.