School districts across the state are trying to cope with tightening budgets as a result of the slowing economy. In many cases that could mean getting rid of the art or music classes because they aren’t required by state legislation.

A 5-year-old Roscoe girl has hit the two-year milestone surgery mark after having half of her brain removed in 2006 to treat epilepsy.

The routine usually goes like this: Jacob Nimtz enters a center and places his bowling balls on the rack. The other bowlers look him over and someone asks one of his teammates, “Who is this little kid?”  Nimtz often doesn’t say much, but his teammates respond. “He’s the kid that is going to kick your butt.”

Talk to Dr. Robert Harner for more than a few minutes and you’re likely to hear the word “doof” mentioned in more than one context when it comes to heart health.

It’s the semi-finals of the “A” bracket of the Sangamon Table Tennis Club’s fall tournament, and a couple of heavyweights have the attention of most everyone in the gym at Douglas Avenue United Methodist Church.

November is National Adoption Month, designed to raise awareness about adoption. Each year, millions of children are adopted domestically and abroad, and millions more families are on adoption wait lists.

If Chicago wins its bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, Rockford businesses will be actively vying for what could be millions in tourism and economic development dollars.

Tired of all the news about mounting losses, layoffs and the general gloom and doom surrounding the auto industry these days?

The latest fleet vehicle at the Association of Illinois Electric Cooperatives in Springfield gets 100-plus miles per gallon, as long as the trip is only 40 miles or so.
 

A small plane piloted by a man police say was under the influence or drugs or alcohol crashed late Saturday night in a subdivision in unincorporated Downers Grove.

Thanks to a Lincoln Land Community College instructor, students, employees and visitors will be able to watch birds from two new viewing blinds on campus.

No matter how much information we deer hunters have at our fingertips, when we pull on our orange vests, most of us will use the same tactics we did last year — especially if they worked.

While setting up two bird-feeding stations at Lincoln Land Community College in Illinois on Wednesday, Wade Kammin put on a mini clinic for the 10 students, staff and faculty assembled. Nearly all of the bird-feeding tips Kammin shared would be useful to anyone interested in feeding birds in the back yard this winter.

Build it up, take it down. That's the name of the game in sport stacking, an activity where competitors build and disassemble stacks of plastic cups with mind-numbing speed. It takes nimble fingers, taut concentration and a whole lot of practice. Kids and adults got plenty of practice Thursday evening, when Common Place in Peoria hosted an event to help set a new world record.

Back in the mid-1980s, Robert Morris College was looking to expand, but not necessarily at its campus in Carthage, where the school was chartered in Illinois in 1965. That expansion would put Robert Morris’ first branch campus in Springfield, where RMC began offering classes in a newly constructed building in July 1988. The college celebrated its 20th anniversary in Springfield Friday.