Podcasts about Illinois, United States

The question of where the Chicago Bears will play, and who pays, reaches this page from both ends. On Capitol Cast: Illinois, Gov. JB Pritzker argues taxpayers should not fund a multibillion-dollar stadium even if the team leaves the state. On Illinois in Focus, Brian Koston warns that House Bill 910 could shift Bears-related property taxes onto homeowners and small businesses. On Shaw Local's Bears Insider Podcast the same story arrives from the football side: Indiana has already made an offer, Illinois has not acted, and George McCaskey tells reporters fans would get used to home games in Indiana. That is the shape of the listening: statehouse reporters and sports reporters working one state from different desks, with smaller, more particular shows around them.

What Illinois is

Illinois is a Midwestern state between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River. Chicago, in the northeast corner, is the third-largest city in the United States and holds most of the state's population; Springfield, near the center, is the capital; Champaign-Urbana is home to the University of Illinois; much of the rest is farmland.

Springfield, from four directions

Capitol Cast: Illinois is the briefing. Its titles follow the session calendar ("Committees clear the decks", "Legislative halftime") and its clips are interviews: Pritzker on the stadium, and Darren Bailey, running for governor, setting the $32 billion budget of 2017 against today's $56 billion, asking what residents gained, then reducing his agenda to affordability, safety and education.

Illinois in Focus is measured and skeptical, with a habit of explaining the mechanism before the consequence: the Local Government Distributive Fund clip walks through why the state ever agreed to hand municipalities a share of its income tax before reaching Brad Cole's call for that share to go back to 10%. One clip leaves Springfield for a six-and-a-half-inch hailstone in Kankakee County.

Sound of the State is the Illinois Senate Democratic Caucus's own feed, so the voices are the senators'. Three of them lay out how systemic racism and provider bias feed Black maternal mortality, and a second clip explains the $50 million safety net hospital grant program meant to keep OB-GYN services open.

Spotlight comes at the same building from the Illinois Family Institute and Illinois Family Action, and it is advocacy rather than reporting: Senator Andrew Chesney on what House Bill 4596 could let officials label misinformation, State Rep. Bill Howder on transgender pediatric surgery.

Illini basketball, three ways

Champaign, not Chicago, supplies the biggest share of the sports talk filed under the state. Three shows follow Brad Underwood's team, overlapping on subject (the Duke loss, the Michigan loss, Keaton Wagler) and sounding nothing alike. Illini Inquirer Podcast has the beat-writer texture: the Oregon rout clip is a rebounding ledger read aloud, Brad Evans calls this Underwood's best Illinois team, and the titles run through transfers, commitments and spring football. Champaign On Ice: An Illinois Basketball Podcast is two fans doing immediate postgame processing, with Kyle calling the Duke game the most embarrassing loss of the Underwood era. Illini Basketball Podcast is the unfiltered one, rapid, profane, mocking and more stat-literate than the tone suggests: after the Michigan loss a host turns on the Illinois fan base for caring who counts them as a rival, and the good nights are as loud, Wagler dropping 46 at Mackey Arena in an 88-82 win without Kyle and Boswell.

The Bears, from Chicago

The football shows are Chicago's, borrowed here. Hoge & Jahns is Adam Hoge and Adam Jahns, and its clips come from the games: an overtime miracle they can only compare to 2001. Shaw Local's Bears Insider Podcast is the more measured pair, and its clips are the offseason: every departure from the secondary was on a one-year deal, and the draft has to be nailed on defense. For more of the Bears, go to Chicago.

High school seasons

Friday Night Drive tracks IHSA football, and its clips are one argument: the IHSA has voted to add 128 teams to the playoffs, hosts Matt and Steve object, Matt says it cuts practice days and creates dangerous matchups, and three- and four-win teams are now guaranteed spots. Mid-Illini Softball Podcast is narrower: titles that are box-score lines (Metamora, Dunlap, East Peoria, Pekin) and bracketology with Adam Duvall, where a postponed Dunlap game could stack three sectional contenders in one subsectional.

Cases, courts and the state police

Most of the crime-and-courts shows are made by the institutions themselves. Somebody Knows Something is the Elgin Police Department's cold case unit, and the cases are Elgin's: Renee Tovar in 1979, a witness who heard a woman scream near her apartment around 1 a.m., a possible link to the Ripper Crew. The Illinois State Police Podcast, hosted by State Police Director Brendan Kelly and narrated by Bill Kurtis, pairs Terri Almanza, whose 18-year-old daughter Sydney died after unknowingly taking fentanyl-laced MDMA, with Wayne Ladd on fentanyl turning up in nearly every drug CPAT has bought undercover. Learning with Laura Youngblut, from the 17th Judicial Circuit Court, explains Winnebago County's domestic-violence response, from the 11-question lethality assessment to Kurt Wisenan on leaving as a process rather than an event. Killinois With Bird and Cam is the two-host case show: Bruce Lindahl's DNA matched to Pamela Maurer at one in 1.8 quadrillion.

Council chambers, farm country, the southern end

City of Champaign is the city's own feed of council meetings, and the clips find the public-comment microphone: Martin Miller setting Champaign rents of $820 to $1,100 against an SSI payment of $994 while asking the council to back Stride Shelter. Best of RFD is the farm show, measured and interview-led, with Illinois Director of Ag Jerry Costello a returning voice: the State Fair grandstand with the Dixie Chicks, Lainey Wilson, Matchbox 20 and Shinedown, and House Bill 3596 on what counts as a wetland. Costello also turns up on Sound of the State, with Senator Doris Turner, on the $130 million fairgrounds upgrade. Isn't It Queer, from Southern Illinois, is Johnny and Heather thinking aloud, with Rosie on a Rocky Horror shadowcast that has helped young people have awakenings about gender and attraction.

Where to start

• For Springfield: Illinois in Focus for the mechanism, Capitol Cast: Illinois for the interviews.
• For the Illini: Illini Inquirer Podcast for names and numbers, Illini Basketball Podcast for the unfiltered version.
• For a case: Somebody Knows Something.
• For the fair and the wetland bill: Best of RFD.

The Illinois feed on this page plays clips from these shows.