Elizabeth Donald

The proposed sale of the Granite City steel mill could eliminate at least 1,000 jobs – but not without the union’s consent. Dan Simmons, president of United Steelworkers Local 1899, said that without the union’s approval, the deal to sell the two blast furnaces to SunCoke can't go forward.

But the Mensi Project bags became a target for vandalism once they started appearing in men’s rooms last year. Mensi bags were thrown in the trash or in urinals, defaced or otherwise damaged with the products destroyed. Anti-trans stickers were found on walls in the bathrooms and elsewhere on campus.

Union workers at Vandalia Correctional Center in Illinois will not be facing reduced capacity or layoffs in the near future, following protests from AFSCME and local officials.
AFSCME members had mobilized in recent weeks with petitions and appeals to elected officials after an announcement that the state was considering consolidation of populations within the prison that the union felt would lead to a reduction in employees and possibly closure of the prison in the fut...

The plant, originally owned by AdvancePierre, was acquired by that company’s merger with Tyson in 2017, and currently employs 293 people with an estimated economic impact of $10 million in wages. Starting pay at Tyson is at least $21 an hour, according to the company’s statement.

Ethics is the balancing act every journalist must face on a daily basis, the bargain you make with yourself for how much of your soul you will give up in order to perform our vital public service. It is never a matter of absolutes, nearly always shades of gray, and always on deadline.

Journalists at NPR Illinois are pushing back against a University of Illinois policy that they say is hampering their reporting on cases of sexual harassment at the university, which is also the station’s licensee.
The conflict arose after the Springfield station and ProPublica undertook an investigation of how the university has handled sexual assault cases. #metoo

The transition from high school to college is challenging for any recent graduate, but students with autism have additional obstacles that colleges and universities are trying to help them overcome.
Approximately 50,000 youth with autism leave high school each year, and about one-third choose to go to college, according to a 2015 study by the A.J. Drexel Autism Institute.
But the special education services legally mandated for those students end at high school graduation, and only 58 percent ...

So last week was my anniversary. No, not that one. People often ask me how long I've been a writer. I reply that it's like asking how long I've had brown eyes. This much is true: I was writing tragic Smurf fanfic at the age of seven, ludicrously overwrought poetry in my teens, an awful science-fiction novella at seventeen and plays filled with angst through college...