Stateline.org IL News

A group of convicted felons is suing Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, demanding prompt action on pardon requests. Critics say the state takes too long to give applicants a yes or no decision.

NEW YORK -- Rising energy prices are now squeezing consumers from a different direction: their utility bills. Consumers from California to New York are facing rate increases of as much as 30 percent. Average homeowners' electric bills are now heading towards $70 to $80 a month in some states. And low- and middle-income residents are having trouble paying their bills as evidenced by a large increase in disconnect notices.

Three years after the president of Harvard, Lawrence H. Summers, got into trouble for questioning women's "intrinsic aptitude" for science and engineering -- and 16 years after the talking Barbie doll proclaimed that "math class is tough" -- a study paid for by the National Science Foundation has found that girls perform as well as boys on standardized math tests.

Ray McDaniel's 18-year-old daughter was raped 10 days after moving into a nursing home - by a registered sex offender who also lived there.

The fatal collapse of a bridge in Minneapolis a year ago jolted states into better inspections of the nation's 600,000 bridges, but they aren't coming up with the billions of dollars needed to ensure that all of them are sound.

WASHINGTON -- The Great Lakes Compact, a politically painstaking effort to protect lake water from being diverted to distant regions, will be ratified by Congress this year or next, its supporters predicted Wednesday.

Thousands of people will pour into the Quad-City area this weekend, but those using the Interstate 80 bridge that connects LeClaire, Iowa, to Rapids City, Ill., will find the going slower as the bridge is down to one lane each way for an indefinite period.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama released his first Spanish ad in Florida Wednesday with a radio spot that hit markets in the south and central parts of the state.

The time prisoners spend on death row has nearly doubled during the past two decades. Legal experts predict it will rise further as states review execution procedures and prisoners pursue lengthy appeals.

The number of AMBER Alerts, public announcements of a child's abduction, is falling as police use them only for kids in the most danger.

The federal minimum wage increases by 70 cents on Thursday to $6.55 an hour. About one quarter of the people who work for a minimum wage are teenagers, but most are adults like 63-year-old Shirley Golliday.

WASHINGTON -- The House passed legislation that would steer $8 billion to highway projects next year, in a prelude to a broader debate over how much to invest in roads, bridges and other transportation infrastructure.

The House yesterday easily approved legislation that seeks to slow the steepest slide in house prices in a generation, rescue hundreds of thousands of homeowners at risk of foreclosure and reassure global markets that mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will not be allowed to fail.

The stumbling U.S. economy is forcing states to slash spending and cut jobs in order to close a projected $40 billion shortfall in the current fiscal year.

WASHINGTON -- A sprawling bill that reaches deep into the U.S. housing industry is close to becoming law, in what will likely stand as the federal government's most expansive effort to stabilize the mortgage and financial markets.