LATEST NEWS
City awards next round of cannabis grants
Arriel Williams plans to open 7’s Groceries on Nov. 1 at the location formerly occupied by Save-A-Lot on Clear Lake…
APL seeking new headquarters
Springfield’s Animal Protective League hopes to erect temporary buildings at the site of its headquarters near the Illinois State Fairgrounds…
East-side community garden adjusts to federal funding delays
A community garden on the east side of Springfield continues to deal with the fallout of delays to federal funding…
Illinois state fairs attracted over 1 million visitors for second year in a row
Illinois’ two state fairs drew over 1 million combined visitors for the second year in a row, the governor’s office…
COVER STORY
“Housing is a human right”
Teshia Spencer’s 14-year-old daughter was experiencing shortness of breath. Spencer assumed allergies were the cause until a doctor diagnosed her daughter with asthma. The trigger, according to Spencer, was months of mold exposure in a house they rented in Springfield from January to July of this year. Spencer is one of several tenants who told…
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NEWSLETTER
News
Epitaph and observances: The Chicago Hotel Fire
The Illinois School for the Deaf Alumni Association dedicated a memorial in Jacksonville Sept. 26 honoring students who endured the…
Manufacturing group highlights new UIS degree to support growth in automation
A manufacturing lobbying group made a stop in Springfield to highlight the launch of a new major at University of…
Sheriff’s office releases video of officer striking pedestrian with his vehicle
The Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department released dashcam footage Friday evening of a lieutenant striking a pedestrian with his vehicle as…
Report: New data centers could create more than 120K Illinois jobs, though mostly temporary
A new study predicts data centers expected to be built in Illinois over the next decade would create thousands of…
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Previous Issues
opinion
Paid influencers and political ads
My associate Isabel Miller and I worked on a story last week about paid influencers in campaigns. We decided to look into it after…
Down the gardened path
Imagine pedaling happily along a paved path where murals and stand-alone art works distract you from the shabbiness or outright ugliness of Springfield’s backsides,…
Letters to the editor
BIG WIN Last spring, Jamie Toole (at the time chief storyteller of the Springfield Lucky Horseshoes) came and spoke at an Enos Park neighborhood…
Welch should apologize to Benton’s former staffer
Last month, House Speaker Chris Welch told WGN political editor Tahman Bradley during an interview, “I’m going to apologize for making her feel uncomfortable.”…
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> More Rich Miller
Food and drink
Sweet starch science
In 2022, I worked in the research and development lab at Audrey Restaurant in Nashville. Our owner-chef, Sean Brock, and…
Glorious gratins
A gratin, according to the late chef Julia Child, is simply a preparation in which the top of a sauced…
Beat the frost
Pepper production is reaching its peak at Prairie Fruits Farm and Creamery in Champaign. Our walk-in cooler is filling up…
> More Food and Drink
Music
A Q&A with Avery Kern
Avery Kern is a Nashville-based singer/songwriter. Springfield-based musician Micah Walk sat down with the Pawnee native to…
Rhythm on Route 66 ragtime show at ISM
The public is invited to experience an evening of live ragtime music, food and drinks at Rhythm…
Singing is for everyone
The Springfield Children’s Choir made its debut with an Oct. 1 ribbon cutting ceremony that featured city…
> More Music
ARTS AND CULTURE
Badman lacks subtlety, Hathaway shines in poor Verity
Lack of subtlety hobbles “Badman” A common lament among older moviegoers is that “they don’t make ’em like they used to.” This sentiment is a…
Rabbit class
SSU Professor J. Jackson’s fantasy class spent a crampedevening recently, and in the dark, underneath severaltables pushed together, and draped. The studentscrawled to the warren…
Building engineering in the capital city
Across Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Missouri, engineering technology programs produced 1,102 bachelor’s graduates last year. Employers in those four states had 4,136 openings. That’s about…
> More Arts and Culture
Best of Springfield®
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Best Of Springfield 2025
See the results Every year, we ask our opinionated readers to tell us about their favorite people, places and things in the Springfield area. Over the decades we’ve been doing this, we’ve continued to tweak both the process and the results issue to try to keep things fresh and interesting. While anything food-related typically dominates…
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We are dedicated to giving our readers a source of news and opinions on local politics, communities, culture and the arts. We have the Springfield area’s most comprehensive calendar of events – coverage of movies, dining, music, visual arts and the printed word. We offer stories you won’t find anywhere else on topics ranging from city and state government to marijuana to prison reform to education.
