There have been multiple tornado warnings in Illinois Thursday, including at least one confirmed tornado near Dixon.

According to the National Weather Service, that tornado was confirmed by spotters and radar at approximately 6:15 p.m.

The storms that produced the tornado are moving to the northeast at 45 miles per hour.

More tornado warnings were also reported by NWS near the Quad Cities, according to officials.

Those storms are part of a system that is pushing toward the Chicago area, with a tornado watch in effect for McHenry, DeKalb, Kane, LaSalle, Kendall and Grundy counties until 8 p.m.

The entire Chicago area is at an enhanced risk of severe weather, with large hail and gusty winds also possible, officials warn.

We will update this story with more details as they become available.

Carle Illinois College of Medicine’s MD/PhD program is preparing an elite group of Physician Innovators equipped to lead the fight against disease in the research lab and at the bedside. The Medical Scholars Program (MSP) offers unique engineering-informed medical training through CI MED’s MD program, and world-class scientific research experience through the PhD programs at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The program’s earliest trainees are already building solutions to advance how we diagnose and care for patients with heart and kidney disease, neurological injury, and limited access to care.

MD candidates interested in pursuing a dual degree may apply to become MSP candidates any time after their first year of medical school. For the PhD portion of their program, students must be admitted to one of the U. of I.’s more than 70 doctoral programs. After completing their PhD program, students return to CI MED to complete the requirements of the MD program. This includes the major clinical training phase. Starting in 2027, applicants will be able to apply directly to the MD/PhD program during the medical school application process.

“CI MED’s location within a premier research university is a major differentiator: trainees can learn medicine while simultaneously gaining the technical depth to invent what medicine needs next,” said MSP Director Dr. Dan Llano, a Carle Health physician who earned his MD/PhD from the University of Illinois College of Medicine, which ended its operations on the Urbana-Champaign campus in 2022. 

Parallel Preparation

Llano says cross-disciplinary training produces innovative clinicians who are also trained as research scientists. Their unique skillset will equip them to build solutions ranging from new devices and diagnostics to data-driven clinical tools and scalable health innovations.

“Dual-degree trainees gain the ability to identify unmet clinical needs at the bedside and then develop mechanistic or technological solutions to those needs. I expect CI MED’s MSP trainees to become clinicians who are also builders — people who can practice excellent medicine while driving discovery and innovation in parallel,” Llano said.

DOWNERS GROVE, Ill. (WLS) — The success of the University of Illinois Fighting Illini so far in the March Madness NCAA men’s basketball tournament has provided a lot of excitement for people in the Chicago area, but especially for sports bars owned by Illinois alumni, like the Orange and Brew in Downers Grove.

The party was on Saturday night as Illinois fans watched their team secure a spot in the Final Four.

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“Saturday was bedlam,” Orange and Brew owner Eric Schmidt said. “We were absolutely jam-packed two hours before the game.”

The watch party was hosted by Orange and Brew in Downers Grove, owned by Eric and Carrie Schmidt, Illinois alumni who met in school and are now married. In fact, they attended the last time the Illini were in the Final Four in 2005.

They opened their bar eight years ago, catering to some of the more than 50,000 fellow Illini graduates in the Chicago area.

“Illinois has some thing that was very meaningful to my wife and me, and we wanted to make sure we created a space that was welcoming to other Illinois grads,” Schmidt said.

RELATED | Illini merch in demand at Chicago stores as fans prepare for Final Four match

The Chicago Illini Club Is hosting eight different watch parties in the Chicago area for the Final Four on Saturday, including half a dozen city locations as well as the suburbs.

Stefanie Boucher with the Chicago Illini Club graduated in 2007, and now has a daughter in the Marching Illini. She is hosting a watch party at Rep’s Place in Rolling Meadows.

“It has brought in a lot of new business people who didn’t know of Rep’s before the watch parties,” Boucher said.

She says Rep’s was also packed with fans last weekend, and the Final Four party should be even bigger. They expect the same at Orange and Brew.

“Just kind of a slice of Champaign if you will,” Schmidt said. “Someplace Illinois grads and fans can be comfortable.”

At Orange and Brew, they specialize in selling locally crafted beer, but the number one selling beer these days is the I-L-L IPA.

READ MORE | March Madness: Illinois to face UConn in first Final Four in 21 years after teams beat Iowa, Duke