Editor’s Note

Frank Edwards was the aw shucks alderman, known for the common sense he gathered at his auto body shop and a reputation for integrity he earned as a firefighter. Because of his character, fellow aldermen turned to him to fill in as mayor after Tim Davlin’s death. If he made too much of being mayor […]

Every year the message of Martin Luther King Day is the quest for racial justice, but this year in Springfield speakers honed in on the difficult struggle against systemic racism, a concept still little understood. Though Jesus may be in your heart, “Grandpa is in your bones,” said Sister Rebecca Ann Gemma, prioress general of […]

Mayor Jim Langfelder has released what he calls a proactive budget, particularly with regard to the homeless, proposing local money for a homeless coordinator and using federal funds to pay for a day center. Or maybe an office aimed at helping address health and housing issues. It would be tempting to call the mayor a […]

How about instead of a health and housing center we find apartments for the up to 130 people who would otherwise be staying in a new emergency homeless complex? The troubled souls who can’t manage their own shelter for one reason or another could be found places to live all around town, a few here, […]

When 150 or so impeachment supporters rallied Tuesday evening in front of the Springfield office of Rodney Davis, they didn’t hold out much hope they would change the congressman’s vote. But they reminded everybody that Davis is now a Trumper through and through. Though a month before the 2016 election Davis said he couldn’t vote […]

Chris Richmond, the retired former city fire marshal, was armed with facts, determination and confidence as he led reporters around the hulking ruins of the abandoned Pillsbury plant last Saturday. He’s working with the city to try to untie the “legal knot” involving a $2 million federal lien against the property, which prevents progress on […]

Something’s afoot downtown, as the Springfield Sangamon Growth Alliance is hatching a plan that could put a law school, a so-called innovation center and who knows what else on four blocks stretching from Second to Fourth streets and from Washington to Monroe. Southern Illinois University and the University of Illinois Springfield would bring a long-sought […]

In the Oct. 3, 1863, proclamation setting aside the last Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day, Abraham Lincoln, who signed it, and William H. Seward, who wrote it, found much for which to be thankful even in the midst of a terrible civil war. There was peace with other nations. The war had not stopped […]

It’s good that District 186 teachers pushed for safety and security in the new contract, and good that the administration readily agreed. Figuring out how to deal with students who aren’t interested in learning, and compassionately keeping them from disrupting those who do, is a problem facing educators everywhere. Jobs would help. Volunteers in the […]