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A good holiday party needs a solid soundtrack.
Looking to refresh yours? WBEZ sister station Vocalo has added 20 new songs to its popular annual holiday playlist. It spans pop to jazz to hip-hop.
Find the playlist — called “Holiday, the Vocalo Way” — on Vocalo.org or on Spotify.
HOST: GÓMEZ-ALDANA
This holiday season, the Evanston Symphony Orchestra hosted a new kind of concert.
The so-called “barrier-free” performance was designed for people with disabilities and their loved ones.
HOST: LANE
In Chicago, where you live can dictate when you die. The biggest life expectancy gap between neighborhoods is 20 years, from West Garfield Park to the Loop.
One of the solutions to closing this gap is playing out in Garfield Park.
A son’s mission to turn around his mom’s health has become a community wide effort to help everyone live longer.
WBEZ’s Kristen Schorsch takes us on a walk with the Peace Runners 7-7-3.
HOST: LANE
Some cities are known for country music. Others for rap or rock.
But Chicago has always been an eclectic music town.
Artists here borrow from the city’s traditions of blues, jazz and soul.
This year’s best local albums also blend genres and some transcend them.
Here are some staff picks from WBEZ’s list of Best Chicago Albums of 2025.
HOST: LANE
The holiday season is in full swing, which means there’s no time like the present to relax with a warm beverage and a good book.
For a few recommendations, WBEZ’s arts and culture desk asked staff for their favorite books of 20-25.
HOST: LANE
A state panel documenting alleged abuses by federal immigration agents held its first meeting yesterday (THURS).
The Illinois Accountability Commission plans to interview witnesses and review bystander videos on social media.
But those aren’t the only videos that exist.
Last month a judge ordered the release of more than 40 hours of body camera footage the agents themselves recorded.
HOST: LANE
In the U.S., Black men who start college are up against a huge deficit of resources when it comes to finishing, and getting their degree.
You can see that play out in the majority-Black Austin neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side, where just one in four who make it to campus graduate within six years.
That rate is much lower than it is for white college students from across the city.
WBEZ’s Lisa Kurian Philip brings us the story of three generations of Black men with ties to Austin who have helped each other overcome this disparity.
Their shared struggles have brought them close.
HOST: LARA
It is a truth universally acknowledged… that a single fan of the novelist Jane Austen… must be in want of a way to celebrate her 250th birthday.
Well, WBEZ producer Lauren Frost is one of those fans.
She found events celebrating the British author all over the Chicago region this week…
But perhaps the most grand was a Regency ball – complete with a string quartet, historical snacks, and dancers in gowns stitched from YouTube tutorials.
HOST: LANE
If you've been shopping recently, you may have noticed signs posted at registers explaining that stores may no longer provide pennies when giving change.
That's because the U.S. Mint made its final circulating penny last month- marking the end of a 232-year production run of the coin.
HOST: LANE
A southwest side high school has long had a club to support students without legal status and to raise money to help them go to college.
But this year with immigration enforcement tearing families apart, the club has changed course.
HOST: LANE
The “Real Housewives” franchise has been in the ethos of pop culture for nearly two decades.
The lives of wealthy divas from Atlanta to Dubai, have been on display in this reality tv juggernaut.
This winter, a Chicago theater company created its own holiday-inspired version. The Real Housewives of the North Pole.
HOST: LANE
We’ll bring you the sounds from a program at Logan Correctional Center, a women's prison in Lincoln, Illinois, where incarcerated people there train service dogs that will one day assist their new owners with mobility or work in therapy settings.
Our partners at The Marshall Project discuss ways for people in prison to process grief, even in an environment that repels compassion.
We also learn about the stress of managing money inside prison, even if you’re making less than $20 a month.
We also highlight a new Chicago Sun-Times investigation showing the disturbing track record of Illinois’ new private prison health care provider.
The City of Chicago’s director of reentry answers questions from people in prison about how they can work to rebuild their lives once they’re released.
In the first hour of the show, we hear from men incarcerated at Sheridan Correctional Center about how to handle the often stressful holiday season on the inside.
We recently asked people in Illinois prisons this question:
“If you could spend one afternoon on the outside with a family member or friend, where would you go and what would you do?"
It’s part of Prisoncast – our statewide journalism project made with and for people incarcerated in Illinois and their loved ones.
A man named Robert Jernigan wrote us saying he’d take his mother to her church, so he could play music and sing for her.
He’s been locked up for nearly forty years.
And in that time he’s learned how to play piano – but he’s never been able to play for his mom.
So Prisoncast producer and editor Robert Wildeboer packed up a keyboard and drove to Pinckneyville prison – in Southern Illinois.
HOST: DEGMAN
Today is the move-out deadline for the last residents of the Chicago apartment building raided by federal immigration agents in early fall.
A judge ordered the troubled South Shore building vacated, calling it a fire trap.
She also appointed a manager to secure the property and help residents relocate.
But tenants say that “help” was merely a check and a list of phone numbers to call.
HOST: LABUZ
A new exhibit at the Chicago History Museum documents a long tradition of resistance in Chicago's Latino communities.
That includes not just political activism, but also the daily work of maintaining culture.
The exhibit is called Aqui en Chicago. It is a result of a protest organized by local high school students six years ago..
HOST: LANE
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