A weekly roundup of news from around the region.

Western Illinois University had some wins and some losses during this spring’s legislative session in Springfield.

Illinois lawmakers just passed a bill creating a “direct admission” program to simplify the college application process. WNIJ’s Peter Medlin spoke with Jose Garcia from the Illinois Board of Higher Education for the details…

The United States government promised the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation about 1,280 acres of Illinois reservation in an 1829 treaty. Instead, the U.S sold all of it illegally to white settlers. The Prairie Band is now the latest tribe in the Midwest and Great Plains to get some of their ancestral home back.

The Trump administration cut off nearly all funding for food and agricultural research at universities across the country as part of the Feed the Future Initiative. While some hope Congress will restore the funding, the global research continues on a much smaller scale, funded by private donors and individual universities.