Illinois Public Media News

50 years ago, an Illinois engineer named Barbara Crawford Johnson helped land astronauts on the moon. We learn about her life, and what it was like to work on the space program all those years ago. Plus, there are many reasons why people don’t drink alcohol, and those numbers of people continue to grow. We talk about how bars and restaurants are starting to cater cocktails to the sober set. Also, a new study finds that just half of collegiate level sports programs follow the medical model of care for student athletes. 

Efforts to restrict abortions are playing out in state legislatures and courts across the Midwest. But often an important voice is missing from the conversation –- people who have had abortions themselves. 

Jurors received Brendt Christensen’s capital case for a second time about 1:40 P.M. Wednesday. A few weeks earlier, the same jury found Christensen guilty of the 2017 kidnapping and murder of University of Illinois visiting scholar Yingying Zhang. This time, the question is the sentence for Christensen’s crime: life in prison or death by lethal injection.

Betsy Dirksen Londrigan pledged to not take any money from corporate political action committees, or PACs, in her second run for Illinois’ 13th Congressional District.

Springfield-based Land of Lincoln Goodwill is backpedaling on its recent decision to lay off a number of workers with disabilities. The move by CEO Sharon Durbin sparked broad criticism this week.