Natalie Eilbert

From above, the roads in Walnut, Kansas, intersect into the green and gray geometry typical of so many rural towns in Middle America. Main Street, the major town artery, offers a bar, a bank, the fire department and a post office. In January, the Crawford County Health Department announced on its Facebook page that a mobile COVID-19 testing unit would be parked in front of His and Hers Bar to administer testing between 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. the next day.

Jackie Neiman, 71, called, texted and anxiously watched her computer in the hopes of securing her first COVID-19 vaccine. She’d been at it every day since Jan. 25, the day Cook County expanded to Phase 1B of the vaccination plan, which includes essential workers and residents over 65 years old. Neiman’s physician recommended she download an app, LiveWell, through her health insurance, but she learned that it only worked on an iPad or tablet — neither of which she owns.

Lead and other heavy metals have laced everyday life in Pilsen and Little Village since the Industrial Revolution. Whether detected in the air at quadruple the national standard or enmeshed in the soil, countless missteps and degrees of negligence at the industry level have left these neighborhoods with a big, dangerous mess. When Hilco contractors imploded the shuttered Crawford Station smokestack in April, Pilsen and Little Village residents were blanketed in a cloud of chemical particulates

By Caroline Catherman, Natalie Eilbert, Carlyn Kranking, Emily Little, Grace Rodgers, and Marisa Sloan Medill Reports Following days of uncertainty, former Vice President Joseph Biden was named the projected winner of the presidency on Nov. 7. In the hours following the announcement of Biden’s win, Chicagoans swarmed the streets in celebration. From the Loop to Evanston, honks, cheers and clever signage turned business as usual into a party. Caroline Catherman, Natalie Eilbert, Carlyn Kran

When yet one more industrial facility planned to move operations to the Southeast Side, they likely didn’t think their main opponents would be high schoolers. But the students of George Washington High School weren’t going to back down. After Lincoln Park residents fought for its removal, General Iron, a scrap metal recycling facility responsible for toxic dust and air pollution, plans to move to the Southeast Side of Chicago in early 2021. The new location is only two blocks away from George W

In August, the heavy downpours filled houses with four feet of river water, though this happens every summer now in Peoria. Heat-stressed illnesses drove more people to a local hospital than capacity allowed in Jackson County. This past February, Kendall County collected more than 30 disease-carrying ticks, an unseasonable time for ticks and mosquitoes. Each event marks a new dot on the Illinois climate map. And at this critical point in the climate change discussion, dots need to be connected—

In South Deering on Chicago’s South Side, the foul odors emanating from nearby facilities are so pungent that people waiting at the bus stop at 100th Street and Torrence have nearly passed out. Landfills, recycling centers and facilities have cranked, hauled, emitted and dumped in residential areas for generations, but neighborhoods are fighting back. Throughout the Chicago area, environmental justice organizations like Southeast Side Coalition to Ban Petcoke, Southeast Youth Alliance, Little V

When President Donald Trump stood before Americans and called his bout with COVID-19 this fall a “blessing in disguise,” he touted Regeneron as the new pharmaceutical “cure” the world has been desperate for. His doctors at Walter Reed Hospital expedited the experimental antibody treatment he received and combined the antibody cocktail with the antiviral drug, remdesivir, plus a powerful steroid normally reserved for severe cases of COVID-19. The president has extolled hydroxychloroquine, a pres

For her newest installation, collagist N. Masani Landfair sought to recreate the black mold that festered in her South Side home in Chicago as a result of climate change and that had, throughout her life, affected her and her family’s respiratory systems. When she moved to Georgia, climate change once again pronounced itself as flooding and then mold in her former house, which allowed her to grow the mold featured in the installation. The Third Coast Disrupted exhibition at Columbia College’s G

The first sign of trouble for Blanca Animas was her daughter’s post-surgery infection that kept her hospitalized for 11 days. Then it was being furloughed without pay until she found someone else to care for her severely disabled daughter, Anna. By the time Anna left the hospital, Animas understood she would be her sole caretaker, and it was an unpaid 24/7 gig. Six months into the pandemic, workers like Animas are encountering increasing barriers to staying in the workforce, as child care optio

To the other nations who are not witnesses, who are not subject to the same oppressions, they cannot know. Unfathomable the words, the terminology: enemy, atrocities, conquest, betrayal, invasion, destruction. They exist only in the larger perception of History’s recording, that affirmed, admittedly and unmistakably, one enemy nation has disregarded the humanity of another… To the others, these accounts are about (one more) distant land, like (any other) distant land, without any discernable fea

ENOUGH is a Rumpus series devoted to creating a dedicated space for essays, poetry, fiction, comics, and artwork by women and non-binary people that engage with rape culture, sexual assault, and domestic violence. The series runs every Tuesday afternoon. Each week we will highlight different voices and stories. I was raped in October 2018. It happened in the midst of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s mounting accusations against Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh, which made my ordeal fee