CU-CitizenAccess.org (https://www.cu-citizenaccess.org/author/pdempsey/)
Due to a tight budget, Champaign County Veterans Assistance Commission has had to turn away 138 veterans so far this year requesting financial help.
Last year they turned away 151 veterans.
Amid allegations of sexual misconduct on campus, The Daily Illini has filed six requests for documents relating to sexual misconduct claims. All six requests have been denied, even when they were only for an aggregate number of complaints.
From May 1 to Oct. 31, 2018 public health officials temporarily closed or failed 16 restaurants, eateries and cafes, according to a review of inspection records from the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District.
Inspectors failed eight restaurants between Jan. 1, 2018 and April 30, 2018.
U.S. Congressman Danny Davis, Democrat, of District 7 has occupied his seat in the House of Representatives for over 20 years. Davis was re-elected to his seat on earlier this month – defeating his opponent Republican Craig Cameron by more than 80 percent of the votes.
And each year, Davis has one of the lowest campaign spending and contribution amounts of the Illinois representatives, spending anywhere from $300,000 to $600,000 and raising as little as $200,000 and as much as $600,000.
Congressman Brad Schneider (D-IL 10th District) was one of the top campaign spenders among Illinois candidates running for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2016.
For the competitive race in District 10, he reported expenditures of about $5.6 million in the 2015-2016 election cycle. But for this year’s race, he only spent $1.5 million so far, according to federal election records.
A 2018 report from the House Committee on Ethics shows Democratic Representative Bobby Rush is still utilizing the federal campaign finance system to benefit his family despite following a 2016 questioning by the Federal Election Committee.
In 2016, the Federal Election Commission inquired into Rush’s campaign finance report due to vague categories of expenditures. Additionally, watchdog groups have questioned the large amounts of campaign money going to Rush’s family members.
New York City’s 1969 Stonewall Riots were arguably the catalyst for the modern Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Questioning (LGBTQ) rights movement, with drag queens at the forefront. In downtown Champaign on September 15, drag queens helped lead the UP Center of Champaign County’s 8thannual CU Pride Parade. The parade, which bills itself as the largest LGBT Pride celebration in Illinois excluding Chicago, included waves of participants – businesses, politicians and church groups all showing their support for the LGBTQ community all walking the route and interacting with onlookers. As a student journalist, I had the opportunity to cover the event with my camera. On previous photojournalism assignments, there had always been a voice inside my head that made it difficult to really get the shots I wanted. The current political climate makes going up to strangers and asking to photograph them unnerving to me, especially as a student.
Luis Gutierrez, who has been Illinois’ 4th District representative for 25 years, has decided to retire at the end of his current term.
While it will mean the end of his Congressional career, it will also mean the end of a steady salary for his wife.
The wife of a man accused of kidnapping and killing an international student from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign last year has filed for divorce.
The issue of covering rural America adequately and accurately matters because public trust in the media is at an all-time low, according to a January 2018 report on news and public trust from the Knight Foundation. Inaccurate, inadequate reporting could lead to more distrust.