Local Headlines

CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois’ child welfare agency is so intent on keeping children with their parents even when they have strong evidence of abuse that it has sometimes left those children in grave danger, a study released Wednesday found. Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker ordered the study of

CHICAGO (AP) — A Chicago woman who sold baby clothes to a pregnant woman and lured her back to her house with an offer of more clothing has been charged with murder after allegedly strangling the woman with a cord and cutting the infant from her womb, police said Thursday. Clarisa Figueroa, 46,

  SPRING VALLEY – Spring Valley city workers are finding more trash in sewer lines allegedly near a nursing home. According to assistant public works superintendent Chris Insco, the city experienced a sewer back up due to a grease blockage. Workers are certain where the garbage is coming

CHICAGO – Three people have been arrested in connection with the death of a pregnant Chicago woman, who was strangled before her baby was cut from her womb. Chicago police took the three into custody shortly before the body of Marlen Ochoa-Lopez was discovered Wednesday behind a home on

DEPUE – A 68-year-old IDOT worker suffered minor injuries after a vehicle failed to yield to the stop sign he was holding during road construction Thursday in DePue. According Illinois State Police Dist. 17, just before 9 a.m., a van driven by a Tiskilwa woman who was traveling eastbound on

PRINCETON, W.Va. (AP) — A judge has overturned the conviction of an Illinois truck driver in a crash that killed a North Carolina family in southern West Virginia.  The Bluefield Daily Telegraph reports Mercer County Circuit Court Judge William Sadler dismissed the case against 41-year-old

CHICAGO (AP) — Several inmates have sued the Illinois Department of Corrections over the suspension of a Stateville Correctional Center debate class. The lawsuit filed Wednesday in Cook County Circuit Court contends the inmates’ First Amendment rights to free speech were violated with the

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Illinois agriculture officials are encouraging farmers and agrichemical facilities to save empty chemical containers for recycling late this summer. Agriculture Department Director John Sullivan announced Wednesday that the state will collect empty pesticide other

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Illinois’s child welfare agency has reviewed 1,100 of its ongoing abuse and neglect cases as part of a stepped-up effort to right a department that’s facing criticism for failing to prevent the deaths of three children under its watch since January, the

CHICAGO (AP) — A federal judge has ruled that suburban Chicago police violated constitutional protections against unreasonable searches by accessing weeks of GPS data indicating a suspect’s car had been outside a jewelry store when it was robbed. The Chicago Daily Law Bulletin reported