Over the past few months, Chicago has been dealing with waves of migrants from Central and South American countries, many of them bused in by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. The African-American backlash to the  proposal to set up shelters in majority-Black Woodlawn and, more recently, majority-Black South Shore has been covered extensively on the news, ( Read more... )

I ended up doing this article because, back in November, a week before Thanksgiving, I was taking the bus past the intersection of Chicago and Laramie avenues and noticed a large, bright mural on the building at the northeast corner intersection that definitely wasn’t there back in June. I noticed the name of the artist - the iconic Chicago ( Read more... )

I am a member of the several writing groups. One of them is Write About It, a writing group based in the Austin community area's North Austin branch library. I originally attended their very first meeting to do an article about it. And, originally, I was going to attend every once in a while, when my work required me to be in that part of Austin ( Read more... )

Loretto Hospital has been part of the Austin community area since 1923. Even as the population of Austin and the surrounding neighborhoods/suburbs, it continued to act as a "safety met" hospital, with the lion's share of the patients having no insurance or some kind of Medicare/Medicaid coverage. Suffice to say, a large number of patients are ( Read more... )

For the most part, Illinois is till currently in Phase 1B of the vaccination program. In order to get inoculated, you have to be 65 or older, or (with a few exceptions) an essential worker, or a teacher, or (in most parts of the state) be an adult with some kind of a long-term health issue. This means that most adults and none of the kids still can ( Read more... )

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On December 15, five medical professionals became the first five Chicagoans to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

The vaccines were administered in Loretto Hospital, which is located in the majority-black part of the Austin community area and primarily serves black and Hispanic West Siders. With COVID-19 hitting those communities especially hard, and ( Read more... )

In Chicago, as in many parts of United States, the protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death drew renewed attention to police misconduct, and some of the more controversial aspects of Chicago Police Department operations. One of those is the School Resource Officers program. Basically, police officers are assigned to schools to provide security ( Read more... )

Back in April 13, I covered a panel that tackled how the COVID-19 pandemic affected majority-black communities. This was around the time that the broader Chicago was starting to catch on to the fact that African-Americans were getting sick and dying at larger rates. As someone who’s written at length about issues with access to healthcare on ( Read more... )

As a journalist, I get my article ideas from all kinds of places - press releases, newsletters, Facebook event listings, tweets, meeting agendas, even old-fashioned tips. But, every once in a while, I find out about something newsworthy simply because I happened to be at the right place and the right time.

( It carries rewards - but it is also a risk )