Illinois Public Media News

A new policy requiring criminal background checks for all new University of Illinois employees will not be implemented on the Urbana campus until November 1st, following a request from the Academic Senate.

Illinois will be among the first states to implement a savings program for the lifelong care of people with disabilities. The financial planning tool is being promoted at a time when many state-funded services for those with disabilities are not being paid.

Attorneys for the former U.S. House Speaker from Illinois say a possible plea deal has been reached in his hush-money case.  A May indictment said Hastert agreed to pay someone identified as "Individual A" to keep them from identifying past misconduct.

Illinois is about to enter its fourth month without a budget. One of the state's top Democrats says the problem could be resolved within days, if the governor moved off his insistence that other laws pass first.

On Sunday night, a total lunar eclipse will coincide with a super moon and a blood moon for the first time in over three decades. When a super moon occurs the moon is at its closest point to the earth and can appear up to fourteen percent larger. The red tint of a blood moon is a side effect of the lunar eclipse where the moon passes into its own shadow. This combination won’t happen again until 2033.