Can I get a witness?

After witness doesn’t get to testify, city loses case

There are more questions than answers in the wake of an arbitrator’s decision rescinding the termination of a City Water, Light and Power employee who cut down a relative’s tree on city ti

Rats!

Henson-Robinson Zoo gets a fascinating new species. It’s not a panda.

Imagine being impervious to pain, immune to cancer and darn near immortal.Then imagine, as one scribe once put it, looking like a penis with buck teeth.That is the conundrum of the naked mole-rat, the

Not so fast

Chemical dumping at Clinton challenged

A consortium of local governments stretching from Urbana to Bloomington is suing a Peoria-based waste company in hopes of killing a hazardous waste landfill near Clinton in DeWitt County.The plaintiff

Going to pot

Illinois a battleground for medical marijuana

While voters in two states have legalized marijuana for anyone over 21, Illinois legislators may take a key vote on a much stricter measure that would allow for medical use of marijuana in the land of

The Cinema Snob

Bad movies are beautiful to Brad Jones

Brad Jones doesn’t stand out amid 100 or so vendors at HorrorHound Weekend in Indianapolis earlier this month.He is a diminutive, bearded, 30-year-old guy from Springfield in baseball cap and gl

Case closed

Longtime prosecutor retires

It didn’t take long for things to get weird when Jay Magnuson started work as a Sangamon County prosecutor.“ ‘I’ve got a doozy for you,’” Magnuson recalls a Springf

Sounding praise and alarms

Pols make nice after election

It was tough to tell the D from the R last Friday at a joint discussion by U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin and former governor Jim Edgar.The conversation sponsored by the Citizens Club at the Hoogland Center

Answers, please

Federal officials seek information on Carlinville mine

A straight flush

GOP sweeps county races, as usual

What does it take for a Democrat to win countywide office in Sangamon County?Pretty much a miracle, unless your last name is Langfelder and you are running unopposed.On paper, at least, things this ye

Case dismissed

Charges against a physician accused of fraud and conspiracy have been dismissed after federal prosecutors admitted that an FBI agent violated the accused’s constitutional rights by gaining unfet