{"id":308649,"date":"2026-03-02T00:17:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T00:17:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/308649\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T00:17:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T00:17:27","slug":"video-gambling-doesnt-belong-in-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/308649\/","title":{"rendered":"Video gambling doesn’t belong in Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) is convinced the Johnson administration may be working to repeal<\/a> video gambling? Good.<\/p>\n

Video gambling is called the \u201ccrack cocaine of gambling\u201d<\/a> for a reason: The machines are scientifically designed to be maximally addictive. They suck up a person\u2019s beer money, followed by their rent money, followed by their grocery money.<\/p>\n

Sure, the city could get a cut of that, but the rest of it will be gone from the Illinois economy, and the city will be left dealing with the fallout: more people homeless, more children hungry, more theft, more bankruptcies.<\/p>\n

Video gaming machines will make our city poorer. Let\u2019s keep them out of Chicago.<\/p>\n

Tom McDougal, South Kenwood<\/p>\n

Civil discourse<\/p>\n

Witnessing relatively civil U.S. Senate candidates\u2019 debates has been reassuring. \u201cRelatively\u201d is the key word, but despite a few well-practiced barbs, contentiousness has been muted. That\u2019s good for Democrats.<\/p>\n

All three leading hopefuls <\/a>want to curb U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. So do most Americans. Democrats even received an unexpected, and probably unintended, boost from former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. On a recent X post<\/a>, Greene stated, \u201cLegally carrying a firearm is not the same as brandishing a firearm. … You are all being incited into a civil war, yet none of it solves any of the real problems that we all face, and tragically people are dying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Political campaigns can turn normally decent people surly in no time. Primary debates bring out the worst in candidates from both parties. We saw this during the Toni Preckwinkle-Lori Lightfoot<\/a> Chicago mayoral race in 2019. Both have been overall thoughtful public servants.<\/p>\n

Democrats should be poised for success this November \u2014 assuming we still have free elections. Well-meaning Democrats have, however, been known to shoot themselves in the foot at the worst times. But if Democrats can buck that trend in Illinois this fall, maybe it\u2019ll catch on in other states.<\/p>\n

Jim Newton, Itasca<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s cuts antithetical to American values<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump is executing an assault against areas averse to MAGA ideologies, including Illinois, by targeting their state\u2019s funding and access to aid.<\/p>\n

Trump, who has repeatedly criticized Gov. JB Pritzker and the city of Chicago over the last year, denied disaster aid to thousands of Chicago residents even though his own administration documented extraordinary damage from two major storms that hit the city last summer, according to records obtained by Politico\u2019s E&E News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese numbers indicate to me that Illinois and Pritzker are being penalized for standing up against the Trump administration,\u201d a former official with the Federal Emergency Management Agency told the news outlet.<\/p>\n

The October shutdown followed. Two days in, the administration cut $583 million<\/a> in federal funding for Chicago.<\/p>\n

This administration has continuously tried<\/a> to disrupt the status quo since Trump entered the Oval Office. Earlier in the year, the Department of Government Efficiency set a goal<\/a> in Illinois \u201cto shut down half of the properties that the government owns and cancel half the leases with private property owners.\u201d This included the Metcalfe Federal Building, which holds the Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s Region 5 office and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.<\/p>\n

Federal actions under the Trump administration have also led to cuts in science program<\/a>s at colleges, cancellations of clean energy projects statewide and targeted terminations of Department of Energy programs affecting institutions like the University of Illinois and Northwestern University.<\/p>\n

Additional national reporting proves the canceled clean energy cuts that persist today, after the shutdown, are concentrated in states<\/a> that did not vote for Trump during the election.<\/p>\n

Students in Illinois deserve a president who sees Chicago as an American city and Illinois as an American state. It shouldn\u2019t matter whether you\u2019re in a red or blue area; instead, aid should be based on your needs.<\/p>\n

Regardless of your vote, because America is defined by its diversity, federal funding in case of emergency should be guaranteed. Simply put, the president shouldn\u2019t be using his power to further political agendas. Such actions are antithetical to the true American democratic spirit.<\/p>\n

Jayden Lawrence, junior, North Central College<\/p>\n

Milking nondairy options for children<\/p>\n

The move to expand access to nondairy milk in school lunch programs<\/a> is a long-overdue step toward healthier, more inclusive nutrition. Millions of students are lactose intolerant, allergic to dairy or come from families that avoid animal products for ethical or cultural reasons.<\/p>\n

Offering plant-based milk isn\u2019t radical \u2014 it\u2019s practical. These options provide essential nutrients without the saturated fat and cholesterol found in dairy, and they come with a much smaller environmental footprint.<\/p>\n

School meals shape lifelong habits. When we normalize plant-based choices early, we teach children that compassion, health and sustainability can coexist on the same tray.<\/p>\n

In a time when childhood health concerns and climate anxiety are rising, modernizing school nutrition just makes sense. Giving students plant-based options empowers families, respects differences and quietly models a kinder way forward one lunch at a time.<\/p>\n

Claude Prescott, West Town<\/p>\n

Warm thoughts<\/p>\n

The temperatures are rising, and the Cubs and Sox have started playing spring baseball, but it\u2019s hard to take any of this seriously when we couldn\u2019t even get above freezing recently.<\/p>\n

Besides, didn\u2019t that shaggy varmint in Pennsylvania predict six more weeks of winter? But then optimism always reigns supreme this time of year, and more often than not, it\u2019s the only thing that keeps us going when venturing outside takes a true act of heroism. However, as sons and daughters of hearty pioneer stock, would we really prefer it any other way? Hey, don\u2019t answer that.<\/p>\n

Bob Ory, Elgin <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So, Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) is convinced the Johnson administration may be working to repeal video gambling? Good.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[134,554,555,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-308649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}