Annual Christie Clinic Illinois Race Weekend underway
More than 200 people took part in the Green Street Mile last night, the first race of the Christie Clinic Illinois Race Weekend. Easton Rosen was the top male finisher with a time of 4:25. The top female elite finisher was Laura Krasa with a time of 5:03.
Friday at 7:30 p.m., the Illinois 5-K race will begin on Oak Street. It continues south on St. Mary’s Road, runs through the University of Illinois campus and finishes at Memorial Stadium.
Saturday at 7:30 a-m, the Marathon and Half Marathon begins. A reminder there may be road closures throughout Champaign and Urbana as the runners make their way to Memorial Stadium.
Click here for the course. – Reginald Hardwick/IPM News
Fighting Illini’s Domask declares for the NBA draft
URBANA – Fighting Illini men’s basketball senior forward Marcus Domask has declared for the NBA draft. After pursuing a legal team to attempt to play another year of college basketball, Domask has decided to declare for the NBA draft.
Domask joins Terrence Shannon Jr. and Coleman Hawkins who have also declared for the draft. Many experts expect Terrence Shannon Jr. to be selected in the first round within the first 30 picks. The three seniors led the Illini to the Elite 8 this past season, all earning All-Big Ten Honors. – Colin Hislope/IPM News
Sunday’s Spring Jam concert moved indoors
CHAMPAIGN – The annual ‘Spring Jam’ is being moved indoors because of the possibility of storms on Sunday. The University of Illinois says it will move the free concert featuring rapper NLE Choppa into the State Farm Center. The National Weather Service in Central Illinois predicts a chance of thunderstorms before 7 p-m on Sunday with rain and high wind gusts. – Reginald Hardwick/IPM News
Shots fired and police chase in Urbana
URBANA – Police are trying to find the person who fired shots near a school and apartment complex around noon on Thursday. Officers say gunfire struck a window at an apartment office along Brookstone Court, but no one was injured. And it’s not clear the motive behind the incident. The shots were fired near Booker T. Washington STEM academy. But police say there’s no evidence to indicate that the school or students were targets.
In an unrelated incident, Urbana police arrested three juveniles after a chase after 7 o’clock Thursday night. It started after a driver refused to pull over after driving erratically. After a police chase, the car ran off the road. Police arrested three juveniles who fled the car and took them to the Champaign County Youth Detention Center. None of the people in the car were injured. But Urbana police said an officer was hurt by one of the suspects. The department did not detail the officer’s condition. – Reginald Hardwick/IPM News
State unveils report on racial disparities among homeless populations
Tackling homelessness requires addressing racial injustice, according to a new report commissioned by the state’s Office to Prevent and End Homelessness.
The report found that Black people are eight times more likely to experience homelessness than white people. Remedying this disparity, according to the report, would require “long-term strategies that dismantle systemic barriers contributing to racial inequities in homelessness such as ending the mass incarceration of Black people.”
“When we think about the harms of racial segregation and red lining, we can draw a line to the realities of homelessness,” Christine Haley, the state’s chief homelessness officer, said in a news release.
The report, produced by the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy at the University of Illinois Chicago, forms the basis of a new “action plan” from the governor, whose “Home Illinois” plan aimed at ending homelessness launched in 2022.
In his budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year 2025, Pritzker proposed $250 million for the state’s homelessness prevention initiatives, a $50 million increase over the current fiscal year.
The additional money would be used to provide housing assistance, legal aid and to initiate pilot programs aimed at addressing racial disparities within the homeless population.
The “unified, whole of government approach” is set to embed state officials responsible for helping homeless individuals in at least five state departments, including the Department of Corrections and the Department of Children and Family Services.
“Homelessness is not an issue of personal failing, but of historical discrimination and structural barriers that have driven inequality for Black families across the nation and of course right here in Illinois,” Pritzker said.
Illinois had about 9,000 people experiencing homelessness on a given night in 2022, according to the latest data from the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Rates of homelessness are highest in the Chicago area and around Springfield.
Homelessness in the state has fallen by 41 percent since 2007, according to NAEH data. Most homeless people in Illinois, about 79 percent, were in shelters or other temporary accommodations in 2022. – Andrew Adams/Capitol News Illinois
Lung Association gives mixed review of state’s air quality
Illinois’ air quality received mixed grades from the American Lung Association’s annual “State of the Air” report released this week.
While some counties in central and southern Illinois had low levels of pollution, areas in Chicagoland are some of the most polluted in the nation. The Chicago metropolitan area, according to the report, has the 17th highest level of ozone pollution of all cities in the nation.
Ozone is a product of vehicle exhaust and industrial pollution, and the pollutant can aggravate lung disease, increase the frequency of asthma attacks and make breathing difficult, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
The Chicago area was also ranked the 22nd most polluted city for year-round particle pollution, which results from construction, industrial waste, car exhaust and other sources.
“In the 25 years that the American Lung Association has been doing our ‘State of the Air’ report, we have seen incredible improvement in our nation’s air quality.” Kristina Hamilton, advocacy director at the ALA, said in a news release. “Unfortunately, more than 131 million people still live in places with unhealthy levels of air pollution, and Chicago is listed as one of the worst places for ozone and particle pollution, which disproportionately impacts low-income communities and communities of color.”
Downstate communities had generally cleaner air. While data on ozone pollution is only available for 23 Illinois counties, Adams, Effingham and Jo Daviess counties all received an “A” grade from the lung group for having zero days last year with high ozone pollution levels. For the 17 counties with data on particle pollution, seven received an “A” grade, including DuPage and McHenry counties in Chicagoland.
The Springfield area’s air quality worsened this year compared to last year, when Sangamon County was ranked among the cleanest in the nation. It fell to a “C” grade for ozone and “B” grade for particle pollution, based on the number of days with high levels of each pollutant in the air. – Andrew Adams/Capitol News Illinois