David Ernesto Munar

President and CEO, AIDS Foundation of Chicago

The AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC) recently made the difficult decision to oppose legislation that creates a state-federal partnership for operating Illinois' health insurance marketplace. We base this decision on the poor consumer protections in the bill.

Michelle Brané

Director of Migrant Rights and Justice, Women’s Refugee Commission

As the bill moves through committee and onto the Senate floor, the rights and well-being of immigrant women will depend on Senators keeping women -- and women's realities -- in mind.

Mark E. Robson, M.D.

Attending Physician, Clinic Director, Clinical Genetics Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

I have been involved in research in this area for 17 years, since shortly after BRCA1 and BRCA2 were discovered, and I have no idea what I would do if I were a woman faced with this decision. The diagnosis of a mutation is just words on paper, but the risks they foreshadow are very real.

Michael Hoevel

Deputy Director, Agriculture for Impact

The challenges are great, but the window of opportunity is greater. Science-based solutions for African agriculture have the potential to achieve synergistic outcomes for a more prosperous and resilient Africa.

Jeanne Bishop

Advocate for gun violence prevention and abolition of the death penalty

It's May now, and the Illinois legislature has already taken up measures to try to fix the concealed carry law. The fix on juvenile life sentences? Still waiting.

Ronald L. Wasserstein

Executive Director, American Statistical Association

Your chance of winning the lottery on a single ticket is one in 175 million. That seems tiny, and it is. In fact, it's so small that it is difficult for us to grasp. Understanding how small this number is provides the key to understanding how likely -- or unlikely -- it is you will become the next big winner of the Powerball jackpot.

Robert Koehler

Syndicated writer

Security is a real need, of course, but know-nothing security flouts that need, often enough both ignoring and aggravating the real dangers we face while, at the same time, inflicting massive inconvenience on people innocently caught in its web.

Dr. Jason Clay

SVP of Market Transformation, World Wildlife Fund

We need to freeze the footprint of food -- find ways to double the productivity of farming, so that we can produce twice as much food and fiber on the same amount of land. This will require many actors working on several strategies simultaneously.

Paul Fehribach and Michelle Parker

Each time we choose to eat an underutilized species instead of an Atlantic salmon or an over-fished cod, swordfish, or bluefin tuna, we give these stressed populations a break and discover anew the possibilities in our oceans and lakes.

John Paul Rollert

Law Lecturer, The University of Chicago Law School

Hollywood adaptations of great novels tend to unnerve devoted readers. The effort seems hubristic and slightly profane, akin to painting a second Sistine Chapel or adding a chorus to King Lear. Perfection, by definition, can't be improved upon, and it seems suspect even to try.

Lisa Lori

President, Lisa Lori Communications

The Italian approach to life has been well-chronicled in bestsellers such as Eat, Pray, Love and Under the Tuscan Sun, but we shouldn't overlook the valuable lessons the Italian approach to food can teach our children.

David Protess

President, Chicago Innocence Project

A 20-year fight for freedom by two Northwest Side Chicago men will culminate tomorrow in a hearing on allegations they were railroaded.

Hulu.com

Watchers of Good TV

The good news: The Office has a legacy as large as its heart (and Dwight's head). It'll never really be gone, because it's changed, well, everything. It's inside us now. That's what she said.

Danielle Hark

Photographer, Mental Health Advocate, Founder of BrokenLightCollective.com

Somehow, my fur-baby can always gets me to smile, no matter how miserable or stressed I feel. I am not alone. It turns out that all pets, not just therapy pets, can help your mind, body, and spirit. Here are a dozen reasons why.

MiniTime

www.minitime.com

Six can't-miss museum sleepovers around the country.

Zach Stafford

Writer, activist and researcher

In the newest play at the Goodman Theatre, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage gives a look into this topic by giving us an intimate look into the fictional life of a black woman in early-Hollywood.

Hermene Hartman

President, Hartman Publishing Group, Inc.; President, N'DIGO Foundation

The genius of Chuck Smith is throughout this production. His passion is loud. It is crafted with love, and the depiction is great as the story unfolds. The set design is masterful as it uses multimedia to realize the story.