Politics
Democrats in Missouri, like their counterparts nationally, will use 2024 to test a new system for determining the party’s presidential preference now that the public primary for all parties has been abolished. Instead of reverting to a caucus-only system, the process used in most elections prior to 2000, the Missouri Democratic Party is seeking comment on a…
Read Full Article 
A new battery manufacturing plant is set to open in northern Illinois next year after the state offered more than $330 million in tax incentives to make it happen. Gotion, a Chinese battery manufacturing and development company, announced on Friday that it will build a lithium-ion battery manufacturing facility in Manteno, about 50 miles south…
Read Full Article 
A group of businesses filed a complaint with state regulators last week alleging that Chicago electric company Commonwealth Edison improperly raised customer bills this summer. The complaint – centered on a portion of the 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act that allows utilities to recoup carbon mitigation investments – alleges the utility failed to follow the proper…
Read Full Article 
QUINCY — City Treasurer Linda Moore took advantage of the public forum at the beginning of Monday’s Quincy City Council meeting to chastise aldermen for tabling the vote on a resolution to adopt a pledge of civility at their Aug. 28 meeting. “We were elected by the people to lead them as elected officials,” Moore…
Read Full Article 
CHICAGO — As former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan prepares for a federal jury to decide whether he ran “a criminal enterprise” as the state’s most powerful politician, he now faces a team of prosecutors emboldened by their perfect record of convictions in two trials. Madigan, 81, once so dominant that he was known as…
Read Full Article 
Six initiative petitions filed last week seeking to add rape and incest exceptions to Missouri’s abortion ban are facing pushback from both sides of the issue, pilloried as either an anti-abortion wolf in sheep’s clothing or a clandestine push to allow abortion on demand. Filed by Republican political operative Jamie Corley with assistance from Democratic…
Read Full Article 
The Joe Coleman Medical Release Act was expected to have freed hundreds of medically and terminally ill This article was produced by WBEZ, Chicago’s NPR news station, and Injustice Watch, a nonprofit news organization in Chicago focused on issues of equity and justice in the court system. Phillip Merritt’s dementia is so advanced he’s lost the ability…
Read Full Article 
This article is an update to the original story, which was produced by WBEZ, Chicago’s NPR news station, and Injustice Watch, a nonprofit news organization in Chicago focused on issues of equity and justice in the court system. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker defended the number of dying and disabled prisoners released under a landmark law that went into…
Read Full Article 
QUINCY – The Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs (IDVA) has asked for and received the resignation of Troy Culbertson as the administrator of the Illinois Veterans’ Home of Quincy. Culbertson was hired in August 2016 under former governor Bruce Rauner, just as the facility was dealing with an outbreak of Legionnaires Disease that took the…
Read Full Article 
CHICAGO – A coalition of elected officials and business leaders in Illinois is calling on President Joe Biden to ease work restrictions for asylum seekers and other long-term undocumented workers – a move they say is both humane and would help solve ongoing labor shortages. In the year since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and other…
Read Full Article 
$1,000 grants to FFA chapters will be available this fall Farmers and residents of rural communities often face stigma when it comes to mental health challenges, but state leaders hope to change that. Governor JB Pritzker announced Tuesday that chapters of FFA – the group once known as Future Farmers of America – will be…
Read Full Article 
A recent survey found growing displeasure with Missouri schools. A majority of respondents — 56% — rated their local schools as only fair or poor, and 71% said that about public schools generally in the state, according to SLU You/Gov poll results released Tuesday. More of the voters surveyed also said that charter schools — small public…
Read Full Article 
CHICAGO — Tim Mapes, a Hancock County native whose rose to the pinnacle of power in the State of Illinois as the right hand man to Michael J. Madigan when he served as speaker of the Illinois House, has been found guilty on perjury and obstruction of justice charges by a federal jury. Mapes, who…
Read Full Article CHICAGO – After a nearly three-week trial that pulled back the curtain on the inner workings of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s world, the fate of one of Madigan’s most loyal aides is now in the hands of a federal jury. Tim Mapes, who spent more than 25 years as Madigan’s chief of staff,…
Read Full Article 
SPRINGFIELD – Six interagency law enforcement task forces received grant funding this spring to combat car thefts through an initiative of Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias’ office. Giannoulias was in Belleville Tuesday to promote the initiative and highlight a $2.5 million grant to the Metro East Auto Theft Task Force, which brings together law enforcement…
Read Full Article 
CHICAGO – In more than two weeks of his obstruction of justice and perjury trial, one fact about the longtime chief of staff to former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan came up time and again: Tim Mapes was detail-oriented. Mapes not only served as Madigan’s top aide for more than 25 years, but he also…
Read Full Article 
SPRINGFIELD — Illinois Environmental Protection Agency Director John J. Kim announced Tuesday a third funding opportunity of $10 million to assist communities in meeting the requirements outlined in the Lead Service Line Replacement and Notification Act. The Lead Service Line Inventory grant program offers grants to local government units ranging from $20,000 to $50,000 to fund…
Read Full Article 
Communities across Illinois that lack access to nearby stores that sell high quality food may soon see that change. Gov. JB Pritzker on Friday signed a bill that sets up a program to distribute $20 million for grants and technical assistance for grocery stores as well as funding research into food insecurity. The grants will go to…
Read Full Article 
CHICAGO – In the fall of 2018, then-state Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, thought he might have been in line for a big promotion in the Illinois House of Representatives. He’d unexpectedly run into a stumbling block earlier in the year when a woman publicly accused him of sexual harassment, but the allegations had been thin…
Read Full Article CHICAGO – Nearly six months after former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan was forced to fire his longtime chief of staff, those in the speaker’s inner circle were once again realizing just how much they’d come to rely on Tim Mapes. It was late November 2018, and Democrats had just won big in the general…
Read Full Article 
The Missouri State Board of Education unanimously approved an exemption for 19 districts and one charter school to measure student achievement using alternative assessments instead of the state’s prescribed methods. Students in these districts will begin to see changes this fall as districts in the Success Ready Students Network implement their plan. “Progress monitoring during the school…
Read Full Article 
The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the convictions of two single mothers who were charged with violating the state’s compulsory attendance law after their children missed school without a documented illness. Oral arguments in May focused on what “regular attendance” means and whether the state law was too vague. Ellen Flottman, a public defender representing…
Read Full Article 
Gov. JB Pritzker on Wednesday vetoed a measure that would have granted existing utilities in downstate Illinois, notably Ameren Illinois, the “right of first refusal” for transmission line construction. This would have given Ameren, the electric utility that serves much of downstate Illinois, authority to build new transmission lines without going through a competitive bidding…
Read Full Article 
SPRINGFIELD – A gun trade association has filed a federal lawsuit challenging a new Illinois law that restricts how gun dealers and manufacturers market their products. The Connecticut-based National Shooting Sports Foundation filed the suit in the Southern District of Illinois on Monday, just two days after Gov. JB Pritzker signed it into law. “The…
Read Full Article 
SPRINGFIELD – A new law in Illinois restricts the way gun dealers and manufacturers can market and sell their products and subjects them to civil penalties for violations. Gov. JB Pritzker on Saturday signed House Bill 218 into law. Labeled the Firearm Industry Responsibility Act, it took effect immediately. “We hold opioid manufacturers accountable. Vaping companies accountable.…
Read Full Article February 22, 2025
BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT: BEN ROBINSON GUITARS
Current Weather
MON
TUE
WED
THU
FRI