The Office of Public Works announced that beginning at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Cook Street between Second and Fourth streets will be closed.The closure is for work that is being done on the Third Street railroad trackThe work will continue through 6 p.m. Thursday.Detour signs will be posted ..read more

University of Illinois Springfield Interim Chancellor Karen Whitney’s appointment will be extended by one year pending approval, it was announced Monday.Tim Killeen, president of the University of Illinois System, recommended the move. The board of trustees meets next month.Meanwhile, a national search for a permanent chancellor is expected to begin in late summer or early fall in 2021, Killeen said.Whitney, the former president of Clarion University ..read more

The earliest start date for District 186 students under the hybrid model may be Jan. 12, but the board reaffirmed at its meeting Monday that it is sticking by metrics laid out by the Illinois Department of Public Health.While the board wanted to give families, teachers and students a potential start, it doesn’t appear to budging from four certain guidelines it must meet for two consecutive weeks for students to return in-person.Two of those categories--the ..read more

Sangamon County and Morgan County each reported six COVID-19 related deaths over the last several days.Health officials reported 449 newly-confirmed cases of COVID-19 over Saturday, Sunday and Monday, pushing the overall case total in Sangamon County to over 11,000.None of the deaths were related to long-term care facilities, said county spokesman Jeff Wilhite Monday.Elsewhere, the Morgan County Health Department received confirmation of an outbreak of COVID ..read more

Front-line healthcare workers at Springfield’s HSHS St. John’s Hospital and Memorial Medical Center may receive some of the first doses of COVID-19 vaccine that arrive in Illinois this month even though Sangamon County isn’t among the 50 counties designed as top-priority sites, state officials indicated Monday.The Illinois Department of Public Health announced last week that the 50 Illinois counties with the highest COVID-19 death rates will share in the first ..read more

A Chicago-area resident who has been chairman of the Illinois Republican Party for the past six years is resigning.Tim Schneider, a former Cook County commissioner from Streamwood, told the GOP’s State Central Committee on Saturday that he would begin a transition out of his role and appoint a committee to choose a successor, according to a news release from the party.Schneider, who will remain chairman until the full State Central Committee chooses his successor ..read more

A Taylorville athletic director, coach and student minister was formally charged with two counts of grooming in Christian County court Monday.Zachary C. Crowley, 32, made a first appearance before Circuit Judge Doug Jarman. Crowley was represented by Springfield attorney Daniel Fultz.Crowley paid 10% of his $250,000 bond and was released, Fultz said.Other charges against Crowley were possible, said Christian County state’s attorney Mike Havera ..read more

Sangamon County health officials reported 449 newly-confirmed cases of COVID-19 over Saturday, Sunday and Monday, pushing the overall case county to over 11,000.Those statistics included six new deaths.None were related long-term care facilities, said county spokesman Jeff Wilhite Monday.That goes along with three newly-reported deaths in Logan County over the last four days, officials there said.Cases in Sangamon County now total 11,087 ..read more

A coronavirus outbreak at the veterans home in LaSalle that has killed a quarter of the residents over the span of a few weeks has prompted the chairman of a state House committee to open an investigation into the deaths."I don't know what it is or who's responsible but something is wrong," said Rep. André Thapedi, chairman of the House Judiciary-Civil Committee in a phone interview. "And that's why I consider this to be a legal matter. What occurred — when you have ..read more

Forty years later, Jill Greulich remembers when she first heard "Same Old Lang Syne."To be sure, the song – which has endured as a yuletide staple since its release in late 1980 – holds a dear place in the hearts of all fans of Dan Fogelberg. As they well know, the ballad is an autobiographical and bittersweet recollection of a chance Christmas Eve encounter with an "old lover in the grocery" in his native Peoria.But to Greulich, the songs means ..read more