Doug Knight remembers several years ago when gangs tried to take claim to his business as their turf. He offered them a full refund to never return to Knight’s Action Park in Springfield, where he is general manager and part owner, but Knight says it was the presence of an off-duty Sangamon County Sheriff’s deputy […]
Patrick Yeagle
Posted inNews
Dog fight ends with hall pass
A legal battle over a boy and his dog has ended, allowing an autistic second-grader to bring his service dog to school for good. In a ruling released Aug. 24, the Fourth District Appellate Court of Illinois said the Villa Grove Community Unit School District #302, located south of Champaign-Urbana, could not keep seven-year-old Kaleb […]
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Prison reform advocates lament Randle’s departure
A group of prison reform advocates says the recent resignation of the state’s corrections director is unfortunate, but the reforms he quietly enacted should continue. The unnamed group, which includes state legislators, religious congregations and activists, sent a letter to Gov. Pat Quinn on Sept. 8, calling on Quinn to support the reforms implemented by […]
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Legalized video gambling stalled
A gambling expansion that is supposed to raise $300 million a year and help pay for statewide infrastructure improvements has yet to be implemented, more than a year after it became law. Gene O’Shea, spokesman for the Illinois Gaming Board, which regulates video gaming, says the board has no timeline for implementing the system. The […]
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Guards allegedly beat inmate in Sangamon Juvenile Center
The parents of a juvenile delinquent allegedly beaten by guards in a Sangamon County youth jail are taking their case to court, but official records of the incident remain out of public reach. On July 6, 16-year-old Dalton McDermott of Springfield was allegedly beaten by two guards while an inmate at the Sangamon Juvenile Center, […]
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Group wants local rail jobs
A Springfield-based community group is hoping to make the contentious arrival of high-speed rail into a blessing by making sure 30 percent of the jobs from the project go to local disadvantaged workers. The Faith Coalition for the Common Good hosted a public meeting Aug. 19 at Union Baptist Church to discuss the coming project’s […]
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Springfield health center expanding
Ask Racine Freeman how long she has been a patient at Capital Community Health Center in Springfield, and she chuckles. “A long time…a long time,” she says with fondness in her voice. Freeman says she also became a member of the CCHC board of directors about a year ago because she wanted to give back. […]
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Closed murder case still raises questions
On a mild November night in 1993, three young men went into a below-ground stairwell at Ridgely Elementary Schoolm 2040 N. Eighth St., in Springfield. Two of them left on foot; the third left in a coroner’s body bag with two gunshot wounds to the head. The murder of 14-year-old Harold “H.P.” Page III on […]
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A grand tradition at the Grandstand
It wasn’t too long ago that the popular rock band Hootie and the Blowfish sold out the Grandstand at the Illinois State Fair. In 1995, the year after late author David Foster Wallace wrote about the fair in Harper’s Magazine, more than 13,350 people from around the state packed the venue to see the band […]
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Shakeup in juvenile justice
Three weeks after the director of the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice announced his resignation, two different studies are calling for major changes in the troubled agency’s operations. Kurt Friedenauer announced his resignation as IDJJ director on July 14, having served in that position since the department’s creation in 2006. Friedenauer oversaw IDJJ’s slow separation […]
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This is the village it takes
On a quiet street in Rantoul sits a small neighborhood of 15 nondescript duplex houses, part of a larger subdivision built decades ago to house the families of pilots and workers at the now-closed Chanute Air Force Base. Although it’s impossible to tell just by looking, something remarkable is happening here: adopted kids from troubled […]
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Cohen: ‘Illinois needs honesty, not perfection’
Illinois hasn’t heard the last of Scott Lee Cohen. After winning the Democratic Party’s nomination for lieutenant governor in the February primary election, Cohen bowed out of the race, and he is now running for governor as an independent instead. Last week, he met with the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce as part of his […]
