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In August of 1619, a ship came to Point Comfort, in the English colony of Virginia. Over 20 enslaved African people, brought from what is now Angola, were on that ship. Once the ship landed, the colonists bought them as their property.

This sale ushered in an era of American slavery whose effects still endure today.

400 years later, the remnants of a once-formal system of racial hierarchy still play a defining role in the U.S.

More than 5 billion classified ads, 24 years, and billions of dollars later, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark is giving his money away.

The entrepreneur was a programmer at IBM for 17 years. He moved to San Francisco to work for Charles Schwab. It was on the west coast where Newmark was first introduced to the internet. He began developing what would become the online marketplace as what he referred to as an “internet commune” where people could share ideas. In 1995, the world was first introduced to Craigslist.

Dr. Kenneth Davis is the president and CEO of the Mount Sinai Health System in New York. Many credit him with its financial turnaround, setting the system on a new path to success.

Davis elaborated on the challenges he faced as the new head of the system in an interview with Advisory Board:

Twenty-seven-year-old Breon Jones has pleaded not guilty in the murder of 38-year-old Marshawn Tolliver.

Jones, of Peoria, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, and unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon. He's accused of shooting 38-year-old Tolliver multiple times on August 6. 

Tolliver died from his wounds Monday, marking the city's 17th homicide of the year. 

Fourteen-year-old Zaveon Marks has pleaded not guilty to the murder of 16-year-old Zarious Fair. 

The Illinois State Police arrested a Peoria woman for drug trafficking after more than 38 pounds of suspected cannabis was found in her vehicle. 

A State Police trooper near Pontiac pulled over Anita Williams, 45, in Livingston County for a traffic violation. The trooper smelled cannabis and arrested Williams on an outstanding warrant. 

She was arrested for cannabis trafficking, delivery of cannabis over 5,000 grams and possession of cannabis over 5,000 grams. 

She faces charges in Livingston County. 

The minimum salary a teacher can be paid in Illinois will soon increase. Governor J.B. Pritzker joined educators and activists to sign a wage increase plan into law Thursday.

Environmentalists are blasting Vistra Energy’s coal-burning power plant closure announcement as a cynical cost-cutting move. 

With Meghna Chakrabarti

The Trump administration moves to end the Flores agreement. They say it’s to keep families together in detention, but now they could be detained indefinitely.

Guests

Molly O’Toole, immigration and security reporter for the Los Angeles Times. (@mollymotoole)

Nearly 2,000 cities, towns and counties across America are currently participating in a massive multidistrict civil lawsuit against the opioid industry for damages related to the abuse of prescription pain medication. The defendants in the suit include drug manufacturers like Mallinckrodt, wholesale distributors McKesson and Cardinal Health, and pharmacy chains CVS and Walgreens.

The Trump administration's proposal to push millions of people out of the federal food stamp program would punish some of the country's neediest, including children, seniors and people with disabilities, according to mayors of 70 American cities who have sent a letter to an administrator for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

A project based at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library seeks out documents written by the 16th president.  Discovering the items is only part of the work being done.  The Papers of Abraham Lincoln is in the process of making all of the finds available online.  We talk with the director.

Also, a new gambling expansion law will allow horse tracks to look more like casinos, with slot machines and other games being offered.  Is it enough to boost the sagging industry? 

That and more on this episode of Statewide.

When Lalita Manrai went to see her doctor for treatment of kidney disease, she noticed that some of the blood test results had different "normal" ranges for African Americans compared with everybody else.

When she asked her doctor which range applied to her — a woman born in India — he said the "everybody else" category was actually based on a study of Europeans, so neither category was right.

Instead, he said, he calculated "normal" for her by averaging the two values.

Ending a summer of speculation, singer Taylor Swift confirmed Thursday that she's planning to re-record her existing catalog in order to regain artistic and financial control of her material after her former record label sold it in a reported $300 million deal.

Swift first spoke publicly about her plans in an interview that will be broadcast on "CBS Sunday Morning" this week.

It takes a few seconds: Palestinians place electronic ID cards on a sensor, stare at the aperture of a small black camera, then walk past panels fanning open to let them through.

Israel is upgrading its West Bank checkpoints with facial recognition technology to verify Palestinians' identities as they cross into Israel. The new system, which began rolling out late last year, eases their passage with shorter wait times — but is drawing criticism about the role the controversial technology plays in Israel's military control over Palestinians.

Updated at 3 p.m. ET

South Korea plans to terminate a military intelligence-sharing agreement with Japan, prompting concerns about security cooperation between Seoul, Tokyo and Washington as North Korea's nuclear and missile threats loom over the Korean Peninsula.

It's the latest breakdown between Seoul and Tokyo: Earlier this month, Japan removed South Korea from its "whitelist" of favored trade partners, prompting a retaliation in kind.

Illinois will soon require insurers to cover EpiPens and similar devices for children 18 and under. But questions remain about whether the law will really lower costs for consumers.

Jason was hallucinating. He was withdrawing from drugs at an addiction treatment center near Indianapolis, and he had hardly slept for several days.

"He was reaching for things, and he was talking to Bill Gates and he was talking to somebody else I'm just certain he hasn't met," his mother, Cheryl, says. She remembers finding Jason lying on the floor of the treatment center in late 2016. "I would just bring him blankets because they didn't have beds or anything."

Updated at 2:42 p.m. ET

Democratic National Committee officials rejected a proposal Thursday to hold a presidential primary debate focused only on climate change.

After the party's resolutions committee voted down the proposal, members of the activist group Sunrise Movement interrupted the meeting by standing on their chairs and singing a version of the song "Which Side Are You On?" They then walked out.

The U.S. women's soccer team is still savoring its victory after capturing the World Cup championship this summer. But off the field, the players continue to battle a gender discrimination case against their employer, the U.S. Soccer Federation.

The women are demanding pay equal to that of their counterparts on the men's national soccer team. U.S. Soccer says it pays women more than men in salaries and game bonuses.