500 episodes listed below
Chicago headlines, brought back to street level.
In the Loop with Sasha-Ann Simons tracks Chicago news through interviews, reporter roundtables, and recurring mayoral questions. It connects City Council fights, schools, health care, civil rights, gambling law, housing, transit, and culture to the decisions residents actually feel.
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In the Loop with Sasha-Ann Simons is built for the daily churn of Chicago, but it does not treat that churn as background noise. It starts with the immediate question, then keeps asking what changes for residents. The show’s range is broad. Recent episodes move from Mayor Brandon Johnson’s veto on tipped-worker raises to taxi fare hikes, police ties to extremist groups, renter junk fees, and Springfield debates over property-tax relief. The weekly recap format brings reporters around the table to sort out competing claims and consequences. Those conversations can be brisk and occasionally dry, especially when City Council procedure meets real-world frustration. The interview episodes have a different shape. They bring in educators, doctors, doulas, historians, local residents, and civic leaders, then press the topic toward practical meaning. A segment on AI in Chicago-area schools does not stop at novelty; it asks what happens when core subjects are compressed into software-led blocks and traditional teachers disappear from the model. A Black Maternal Health Week episode puts Illinois disparities beside hospital practice, doula access, and whether patients are believed when they report pain. An episode on women living with HIV and AIDS reframes a history often centered on men, using an online exhibition and a Chicago participant’s experience as the doorway. The show also follows institutions in transition. Yusuf Jackson’s leadership at Rainbow Push becomes a way to ask how a civil rights mission carries forward after Reverend Jesse Jackson. Prediction markets become more than a gambling curiosity. They open into a federal-versus-state regulation fight, court rulings, Illinois gaming law, and the strange incentives created when people can bet on almost anything. Ask the Mayor gives the show a recurring accountability lane, with Mayor Brandon Johnson answering questions in front of WBEZ and, in one episode, a live audience. The tone stays accessible. Acronyms, agencies, and legal mechanics are translated back into city life. It is not personality-first banter. It is Chicago news with enough patience to connect a headline to a school, a household, a clinic, a driver, a young person, or a neighborhood block.
Made for: For Chicago-area listeners who want local news, policy, and culture explained through interviews and reporter context. It also fits anyone tracking how city and state decisions affect schools, transit, health care, labor, housing, and public safety.
What sets it apart: The show pairs newsroom recap energy with interview-driven civic accountability, often moving from a headline to the institution and then to the resident-level effect. Its strongest mode is local translation: federal rules, City Council votes, and public-health data are made concrete through Chicago examples.
We’re unpacking the headlines and making the news make sense. Get connected with local experts, your neighbors and the stories shaping Chicago.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
It turns Chicago headlines into clear conversations about power, institutions, and the people living with their consequences.
Sasha Ann Simons moves from a Chicago question to the institutions and people behind it, giving each conversation room to develop. In the Loop with Sasha-Ann Simons pairs issue-led interviews with local news rundowns: prediction-market regulation becomes a federal-versus-state…
Chicago's teen curfew gets the safety question and the scapegoating question, if you want both.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A brisk Chicago news hour that threads hospital closures, teen curfews, and city hall into one tight roundup.
WBEZ’s Chicago news hour keeps a steady pace as it moves from the Oak Park closure of West Suburban Hospital to Laura Fine’s proposal that hospitals file shutdown plans with the state, then into the city’s debate over teen takeovers and snap curfews.
A Chicago conversation centers women's HIV and AIDS histories through testimony, public history, and an exhibition built for listening and teaching.
A June 1981 CDC report on five young, previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles opens a conversation about the stories that fall out of view when women living with HIV and AIDS are pushed to the margins of epidemic history.
Kalshi and prediction markets frame an Illinois fight over who regulates wagers.
Sasha Ann Simons uses Kalshi and prediction markets to widen the frame on an Illinois fight over who gets to regulate wagers that now stretch from sports to religious events.
A national census shift gains local force through Chicago household patterns and Illinois protections that work unevenly in practice.
The national frame lands best when it narrows to the local picture. Sasha Ann Simons talks with Alison Bethel of the Fair Housing Legal Clinic at the University of Illinois Chicago Law School and Christine Procheski of Northwestern's Institute of Policy Research about what…
A grounded look at how Illinois' March Madness run fed pride, money, and momentum beyond the scoreboard.
Illinois men's basketball run turns into a useful lens on what college sports can stir up beyond the final score. The episode moves from statewide watch parties and social media chatter into school pride, local spending, applications, donations, and the short lift that winning…
A Chicago news recap keeps hospital closures, teen curfews, and housing redevelopment tied to local stakes.
WBEZ's In The Loop gives Chicago's civic agenda a broad but grounded pass, moving from hospital closures and human composting to mayoral appointments, teen takeovers, data centers, and the Lathrop Homes redevelopment.
A Chicago-based review of how women’s voices reshape HIV history and its unfinished present.
This single-episode review centers women in HIV-AIDS history by anchoring the subject in Chicago. Sasha Ann Simons speaks with Jennifer Breyer, a UIC professor and founder of the I'm Still Surviving exhibition, and Marta Santiago, a Chicagoan who took part in the project and was…
WBEZ's weekly news recap covers sudden hospital closures in Oak Park and Uptown, owned by the same private equity-linked CEO.
This episode examines the fallout from Operation Midway Blitz, where many protesters faced federal charges that were later dropped, exploring the personal and legal impacts on defendants like Jocelyn Robledo.
This episode of In the Loop focuses on the often-overlooked impact of HIV/AIDS on women, featuring an interview with Jennifer Breyer, founder of the I'm Still Surviving online exhibition, and Marta Santiago, a Chicagoan living with HIV since the late 1980s.
Sarah Karp reports that Ilario Dominguez, Jessica Biggs and Victor Henderson, the three remaining candidates for school board president, hold different positions on raising property taxes, a lever worth about $300 million this year.
This weekly news recap covers Chicago politics, including the tipped minimum wage controversy, taxi fare increases, legislation on junk fees and police ties, and reactions to the Pope's comments on the Trump administration.
Mayor Brandon Johnson discusses recent city council decisions, including a 20% taxi fare increase, and upcoming topics like school board elections and public safety plans in a live interview with WBEZ.
Yusef Jackson discusses his new role as president and CEO of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, his vision for continuing his father's civil rights legacy, and the challenges of leadership in a divided time.
A panel of education experts discusses the controversial AI-powered Alpha School in Chicago, which replaces traditional teaching with software and adult guides.
This episode explores why Black women in Illinois face significantly higher rates of pregnancy-related deaths, examining systemic issues, healthcare gaps, and solutions like doula access.
Patrick Smith fills in for Sasha Ann Simons.
Sasha-Ann Simons opens In The Loop with the CDC's June 1981 report on five young gay men in Los Angeles and uses it to frame how women disappeared from HIV/AIDS history.
Sasha Ann Simons opens with Kalshi and the strange shape of prediction markets.
Sasha Ann Simons opens with new census figures showing that same-sex couple households in the United States nearly doubled between 2005 and 2024.
The Illini's historic March Madness run gives the conversation its spark.
This episode features a phone interview with Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi as he makes his final pitch for the Senate seat ahead of the Illinois primary.
This episode features an interview with Illinois Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton, a Democratic frontrunner for the U.S.
This episode examines the fallout from Operation Midway Blitz, where many protesters faced dropped charges but still suffered severe personal and financial consequences, featuring insights from a reporter and a defendant.
This episode reflects on Reverend Jesse Jackson's death and his profound impact on U.S.