DOJ: Ray LaHood Took Undisclosed Foreign Money While Serving in Obama Cabinet
The U.S. Department of Justice says former Congressman and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood took undisclosed foreign money while serving in…
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Campus Safety and the Role of the Police at the University of Illinois
URBANA – At a panel hosted by Illinois Newsroom this week, University of Illinois police, administrators, professors and students discussed the role of the campus police — and why some want the department abolished and their funding invested in other services. The discussion follows an Illinois Newsroom series by education reporter Lee Gaines about the growing…
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Cline Center Designates Capitol Violence As ‘Attempted Coup’
URBANA — The violence at the US Capitol on January 6th was an attempted coup d’état. That’s the conclusion of The Cline Center for Advanced Social Research at the University of Illinois. The Cline Center has been curating data on coups and attempted coups since 2013. Illinois Newsroom’s Brian Moline spoke with The Cline Center’s…
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Finding Common Ground Between Abolitionists And U Of I Campus Police
This is the second installment of a two-part digital series. You can read the first story here. URBANA – On a Friday night in late October of last year, University of Illinois police Officer Kyle Krickovich began his shift at 10 p.m. — it would last until 8 a.m. — patrolling the east side of…
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A Debate Over Defunding The Campus Police Takes Root At The University Of Illinois
This is the first of a two-part digital story series. The second story publishes on Illinois Newsroom tomorrow, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2021. URBANA – Surrounded by dozens of people wearing face masks, carrying pots, pans and handmade protest signs, William Burke stepped up to a microphone outside the University of Illinois Police Department on the…
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Champaign Neighborhood Shaken By Racist Flyers Left In Driveways
CHAMPAIGN – On the morning of January 16, Melanie Keil discovered a rock in the driveway of her home. Attached was a note with several websites under the title “No White Guilt.” Keil, who is white and married to a Black man, believes her mostly-Black Champaign neighborhood was targeted. “I do think this was a…
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Illinois Could Expand Access To Higher Education In Prison Through Pell Grants
WASHINGTON – Federal financial aid to people in prison was quietly restored as part of a COVID-19 stimulus bill passed by Congress last month. The U.S. Department of Education has until 2023 to reinstate Pell Grant access to people in prison — which was previously banned under the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement…
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Q&A: How To Clear Your Cannabis Arrest Record Without Waiting For Automatic Expungement
Nearly half a million cannabis arrest records were expunged in the first year of recreational cannabis legalization in Illinois. Ten counties, including Peoria and Knox, are years ahead of schedule in automatically expunging all eligible records. But for other communities, that process is still ongoing. Tim Shelley spoke with Teri Ross, executive director of Illinois Legal…
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Parkland College Students Bury 2020 Chaos In Time Capsule
CHAMPAIGN – A rainbow flag, Black Lives Matter pins and a roll of toilet paper are among items Parkland College students recently ‘laid to rest’ in a time capsule featuring the events of 2020. Phi Theta Kappa, the Honors Society chapter at Parkland created the time capsule. The students buried the capsuled during a physically…
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Remains Found In 1995 Now Have A Name: Keri Lyn Wyant
URBANA — Champaign County investigators say they have identified the woman whose remains were found near Thomasboro in 1995, and known only as “Jane Doe” for a quarter of a century. Now, they have identified “Jane Doe” as Keri Lyn Wyant. And they’re asking people who knew her to come forward with any information they…
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Student Arrest Records A ‘Disturbing Mess’ At Illinois School Districts
Twenty-one Champaign Unit 4 students were arrested during the 2013-14 school year — 19 of them were Black — according to documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request. During the 2015-16 school year, 17 students were arrested — of which 15 were Black. But the federal government thinks there were no arrests. That’s…
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Kentucky Grand Jury Indicts 1 Of 3 Officers In Breonna Taylor Case
Brett Hankison, who was terminated in June, has been charged with three counts of wanton endangerment. None of the three men faces state charges directly over Taylor’s death.
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Outside Review: Aleyah Lewis Arrest Followed Urbana Police Policy
URBANA – The Urbana City Council will hear a presentation Tuesday night on a report from an outside firm which concludes the police officers who arrested Aleyah Lewis followed the Urbana Police Department’s use of force policy. But the study by the firm Hillard Heintze suggested possible revisions to the policy and how the department…
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Students Demand University Of Illinois Defund And Disarm Campus Police
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign students are calling on the institution to sever ties with the college town’s local police departments and dissolve the university’s own police force. Following the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis and the protests that followed, students at both the U of I’s Urbana and Chicago campuses are…
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Advisory Panel On Police Reform Proposed For Urbana City Council
URBANA – Mayor Diane Marlin says she’ll bring more details to the Urbana City Council next week on setting up an advisory committee to study policing in the city. The mayor proposed the committee at Monday night’s city council meeting. It would be made up of community members, and could investigate everything from racial disparities…
