What happened, and what it means here
Real reporting from wire services and nonprofit newsrooms — Capitol News Illinois, NPR Illinois, the AP — sorted by how long it takes to read, labeled with what you will hit before you click, summarized so you do not have to open it, and finished with one thing you can actually do about it. New stories every week.
Minutes is how long the story takes to read. Free means you can just open it. Wants your email means it will stop you and ask before it lets you finish. Paywalled means you cannot read it without paying. We check every label by hand before this page goes up.
Every story ends with one real thing to do — a legislator's own contact form, a volunteer crew taking sign-ups, a free alert service. Real links only. We do not print email addresses we cannot verify.
Why we write our own version
We encourage you to check out these websites; however, our summaries offer a free, digestible version of the articles, allowing them to reach more audiences.
Updated every week
Five or six new stories go up each week, and every link gets clicked before it is published. The summaries here are ours and are free to repost — in your school paper, on a hallway poster, in a group chat. The original reporting belongs to the newsroom that did it, so the link goes to them.