Many who’ve been through restrictive housing attest to extreme isolation and confinement in small, dark, windowless cells. Phone and tablet use can be restricted. Yard or outside time is limited.

The Illinois Department of Corrections has awarded a new contract to the controversial Wexford Health Sources, the same private health care provider that’s been handling medical care in the state’s prison system since 2011.

So far, three incarcerated men in Illinois — two who had been housed at Stateville prison in Crest Hill and a detainee at the Cook County Jail – have died from complications related to the coronavirus. A pair of court battles are now brewing.

Jay Shefsky visits an upscale consignment shop on the North Shore that has generated nearly half a million dollars for charity by selling designer clothes, accessories and furniture.