217 Today: Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021

The Indy Steelers are a youth football team that has been training at Tarkington Park since 2000. The team feels like family to many of the kids around here. But park renovations left them with a smaller and bumpier area to train on.

Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021

Today’s Headlines:

  • Governor JB Pritzker signed an executive order Monday banning employers with state contracts from paying sub-minimum wage to workers with developmental disabilities.

  • Northern Illinois University administrators say they’ve avoided COVID-19 outbreaks so far, even with the rise of the Delta variant.

  • After two months of slight declines, the Flash Index to the Illinois economy rose in September to 106-point-zero. That’s the sixth straight month of economic growth in the state.

  • Champaign County public health officials say a man in his 70s is the 193rd person in Champaign County to die of COVID-19.

In today’s deep dive, a new study from the Indiana University School of Public Health finds that there is more than a 16-year gap in how long people live in Indianapolis.

217 Today is produced by Farrah Anderson. Reporting today contributed by Hannah Meisel, Peter Medlin, Jim Meadows and Farah Yousry.

Farrah Anderson

Farrah Anderson is a 2024 graduate of the University of Illinois. At Illinois Public Media, Anderson works as a general assignment reporter focusing on police and investigative stories.