Illinois Public Media News

Fifty years ago this week, the first man walked on the moon. A new book tells the story of an airplane engineer from Illinois some consider to be an unsung hero in making that happen.

The Land of Lincoln Goodwill, which runs 15 locations throughout Illinois, decided to lay off dozens of disabled workers. Plus, Gov. Pritzker wants local communities to report flood damage so Illinois can qualify for federal aid. Also, we'll talk about how marine biologists in Illinois are helping to care for the increasing number of sea lion pups that are washing up on California shores. And, emoji have become a common form of communication on keyboards around the world, but are these little symbols as diverse as the people who use them?

Illinois — and the rest of the country — could soon start seeing more days of extreme heat. That’s according to a report released Tuesday, “Killer Heat in the United States: Climate Choices and the Future of Dangerously Hot Days”— authored by the Union of Concerned Scientists. 

The Women's Med Center is the only health clinic for miles around that provides abortions. Now, it’s embroiled in a legal battle with the state that could lead to its closure – the clinic couldn’t obtain transfer agreements from local hospitals, as required under Ohio law.

The sentencing phase of Brendt Christensen’s federal death penalty trial will go to the jury Wednesday. There’s only one question the jury at the federal courthouse in Peoria needs to answer, and that’s whether Christensen will receive the death penalty or life in prison, for the 2017 kidnapping murder of University of Illinois visiting scholar Yingying Zhang.