A new report by the Urban Institute found federal spending on children reached a new high during the pandemic in 2021, but researchers project that level of increased spending won’t last.

There are growing concerns about how COVID-19 has affected children’s social-emotional development and wellbeing as students, parents and teachers have navigated the return to in-person learning.

Last year, the National Kidney Foundation launched Kidney Health for Life, a campaign focused on educating and targeting the high rate of kidney disease among the Black, Asian and Latino populations.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of health care experts, is recommending that adults under 65 get screened for anxiety.

On Saturday, Oct. 8, activists, scholars, artists and journalists are convening at the Logan Center for the Arts in moderated discussions centered on the themes of injustice explored in Richard Wright’s 1940 novel “Native Son.”

The regulation creates a new class of hearing aids that don’t require a medical exam, a prescription and other specialty evaluations, the Food and Drug Administration said. That’s expected to increase competition and eventually lower costs. The devices will be sold online or over-the-counter at pharmacies and other retail stores.

Pockets of Chicago — particularly on the South and West sides — lack convenient access to a local pharmacy. As a result, access to medications and other vital health services becomes more limited.

The findings come days after Democrats hammered out a 725-page climate, health care and tax deal that would extend generous federal subsidies for people who buy private health insurance that are credited with driving down the uninsured rates. Democrats have proposed spending $64 billion to extend those price breaks for three more years.

The $739 billion package package would address health care and climate, raising taxes on high earners and large corporations and reducing federal debt. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer warned his colleagues in the 50-50 Senate that final passage will be hard.

A special session of the Illinois General Assembly called by Gov. J.B. Pritzker after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending constitutional protections for abortion, will be delayed, officials announced Tuesday.

Abortion will remain legal in Illinois, thanks to a law signed by former Gov. Bruce Rauner in 2017 that rolled back a measure that would have automatically banned abortion in Illinois if Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, was overturned. 

The Supreme Court has ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years in a decision by its conservative majority to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

For the first time in decades, life expectancy for Black Chicagoans fell below 70 years old. In 2020, the gap in life expectancy between Black and White residents was 10 years, an increase from 8.8 years in 2017. Overall, life expectancy in Chicago dropped almost two years from 2019 to 2020.

From 2019 to 2020, life expectancy in Chicago dropped almost two years – one of the sharpest single-year decreases on record, according to city officials. Latino and Black Chicagoans experienced the steepest declines, with life expectancy for the latter falling below 70 years for the first time in decades.

Dr. Ngozi Ezike will take over as the new president and CEO of Sinai Chicago on June 13. “I received many calls about various opportunities over the past year, but this is the right choice for me and the right moment. Sinai Chicago is where I want to be,” Ezike said in a statement. 

Six months out from the midterm elections, President Joe Biden’s team is betting that smaller, discrete announcements can break through to voters better than talk of transformational plans that are so far only aspirational.