Cover Story

Teshia Spencer’s 14-year-old daughter was experiencing shortness of breath. Spencer assumed allergies were the cause until a doctor diagnosed her daughter with asthma. The trigger, according to Spencer, was months of mold exposure in a house they rented in Springfield from January to July of this year. Spencer is one of several tenants who told […]

This story was reported and produced by Injustice Watch, a nonprofit newsroom in Chicago that investigates issues of equity and justice in the court system, in collaboration with The Intercept. Minutes after Riverton police officer Brad Herzog ran 31-year-old Daniel Torrez Perez’s name through a law enforcement database one night in April 2025, his phone […]

Who is Sameer Somal, and what has he been doing in Athens? The 43-year-old Pennsylvania resident, entrepreneur and Abraham Lincoln historian has been a frequent presence in the Menard County community in recent months. Somal is on the board of the town’s Abraham Lincoln Long Nine Museum, and he envisions transforming vacant and available property […]

The Illinois Innocence Project at University of Illinois Springfield has freed 34 innocent people who were convicted and imprisoned in Illinois for crimes they did not commit. Collectively, they lost 797 years of freedom. There are innocence organizations in 10 other countries and more than 60 in the U.S., but IIP is the only one […]

This story was produced by Injustice Watch, a nonprofit newsroom in Chicago that investigates issues of equity and justice in the Cook County court system. Curtis Lovelace was walking out of his law office in downtown Quincy, Illinois, when he spotted the stranger waiting by his car. “I recognized him to be a police officer,” […]

Springfield resident David Butt has donated enough blood to completely fill 33 human beings. “After I retired, I made it my personal goal to be a maximum blood donor to the extent that my health would allow me to do that,” said the 71-year-old Butt, the former emergency management director for Springfield and Sangamon County.  […]

For the last 34 years, women’s baseball has been known primarily for one thing: A movie. The 1992 hit film, A League of Their Own, paid homage to the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which played from 1943-54 and briefly had a team in Springfield, the Sallies. There was no baseball boom for women after […]

Through her sobs, the mother of Earl Moore Jr. told a Sangamon County judge how the death of her 35-year-old son at the hands of two ambulance company workers in 2022 has affected their immediate and extended family. “The ripple effect of this loss will be reflected for generations,” Rose Washington told Circuit Court Judge […]

Carrie Farley was released from prison March 4 with a history of addiction and hopes for a better life. But soon, Farley met discouragement. “I have quite a bit of a background, due to my addiction. When I got out of prison, I literally, I had a total of 107 applications I had put in,” […]