Five years ago, a 68-acre stretch of land just south of New Salem, with its unique hills and valleys, had one thing in common with most of the rest of Illinois – it looked nothing like what the state’s first European settlers would have seen 200 years ago. According to the Illinois Department of Natural […]
Rachel Wells
Posted inNews
RFK Jr. outlines energy vision
Speaking just 30 minutes away from where developers plan a major “clean” coal project, one of the nation’s leading environmental lawyers last week bashed the coal industry as dirty, expensive and dying. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the son of assassinated 1968 presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy and a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, […]
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Kudos to the kids
Most of my distinct memories from elementary school have stuck with me purely because I was impressed that someone else didn’t cry – that girl who stapled her finger, the boy who knocked out his two front teeth, or my big sister with a face full of gravel after a misguided jungle gym move. But […]
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Bedbugs are back – in Springfield
Once nearly eradicated, bedbugs are back in full force and not just in cities like New York and Chicago – Springfield’s got ’em too. The flat, brown, oval-shaped critters are about a quarter of an inch long and like to feed on human blood as we sleep. They’ve re-emerged in developed countries after a population […]
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Plugging leaks in MacArthur’s market
MacArthur Boulevard is missing out on about $87.7 million of potential annual retail sales, according to a market analysis performed as part of the corridor’s redevelopment strategy. The figure represents annual sales leakages – the difference between what residents are likely to spend and the total sales that area’s businesses actually capture – for the […]
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Storm over sewers
While relaxing in Florida on a Wednesday in May, Ruth Yu received one of those phone calls – the kind with the potential to destroy even a perfect vacation. On the other end of the line was her dog walker who explained that her Woodland Avenue home had seen serious flooding after a major rain […]
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Report criticizes ‘clean’ coal plant
The Illinois Commerce Commission is neither ‘for’ nor ‘against’ the Taylorville Energy Center – officially. But good luck finding anything project developer Tenaska can boast about in the agency’s 45-page report on the “clean” coal facility’s costs. Lawmakers are expected to use the report in their decision, perhaps as early as this fall, on whether […]
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Why are there so few black farmers?
Urging his fellow lawmakers to release funding for a discrimination lawsuit originally settled more than a decade ago, U.S. Sen. Roland Burris last month pointed to the increasingly homogenous culture that is Illinois farming. The still unreleased funding would go to farmers, or former farmers, who had been affected by systematic racial bias in the […]
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Why Illinois lost the race
After waiting to sign on to Illinois’ application for federal Race to the Top funding until after the state lost out in round one, in part due to inadequate local district and teacher union support, the Springfield Education Association says it’s disappointed the state once again didn’t make the grade. The SEA’s eventual support meant […]
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Farmer sells produce online
Summertime farmers markets have helped Chad Wallace of Oak Tree Organics prove the worth of small-scale, organic farming. But they’ve also taught him that packing up the produce and putting on the sometimes thrice-weekly show takes about as much effort as minding the land, plants and free-range hens that surround his Ashland home. “Everybody’s got […]
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A new type of med school, 40 years young
Forty years ago, the success of the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine was anything but certain. Six years of planning had brought the school to the point of leasing a building for its headquarters and hiring a dean. The person chosen for the job was Dr. Richard Moy. Moy, then 38 years old and […]
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CO2 study group stalled
A commission created in 2009 to study issues related to carbon capture and sequestration has yet to meet, despite being charged with reporting to the Illinois General Assembly by the end of the year. During a hearing held earlier this month by the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC), Illinois Sierra Club regional representative Becki Clayborn noted […]
