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While the push for a ‘7-1’ map appears to be fading, Republicans are still in disagreement over the shape of the 2nd District.

CHEERS, PROST: After 14 years at its helm, the Arts and Education Council reports that Cynthia Prost will be stepping down as the organization’s president and chief executive officer.

SPRINGFIELD - On February 2, 2022, Illinois State Police (ISP) officials investigated three separate traffic crashes involving ISP squad cars. Two Troopers were struck in ISP District 9 – Springfield and one in ISP District 10 – Pesotum. The two crashes in ISP District 9 were both Move Over Law related. On Wednesday, February 2, 2022, at approximately 7:40 a.m., an ISP District 9 Trooper was on the left shoulder of Interstate 72 westbound at milepost 122, near Illiopolis, assisting a stranded motorist who had slid off the roadway due to weather conditions. The squad car was stationary with all of its emergency lights activated. A gray Chevrolet Impala traveling westbound failed to yield to the stationary emergency vehicle, slid on the roadway, and struck the rear end of the ISP squad car. The driver of the Chevrolet, 29-year-old Anthony L. Newman of Springfield, IL, was uninjured. The Trooper was transported to a local hospital for non-life-threatening injuries and has since

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SPRINGFIELD – Higher education leaders across the state applaud Governor Pritzker’s budget announcement today which includes a fiscal year 2023 higher education budget of $2.2 billion, an increase of $208 million compared to current spending levels. Highlights from the budget recommendations include a $122M increase in the state’s need-based student grants through the Monetary Award Program (MAP), a $54.8 million (5%) increase in funding for public universities and a $13.2 million (5%) increase in funding for community colleges starting in the current fiscal year and continuing into fiscal year 2023, $25 million for a new program to expand the health care workforce through the state’s community college system, a $2.8 million increase to support recruitment and retention of nurse professionals, and a $2.8 million increase for scholarships to attract more minority teaching candidates and grow more minority faculty. The budget recommendations also call for eliminating

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Shane Clack of APO, Armed Forces Europe joined the Real Rock Army today

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A woman has died after being rescued from a house fire in High Ridge, Missouri, Wednesday.

Ice accumulation on overhead lines that power MetroLink cars had forced some cancellation or delays in service, officials warned.

Missouri Highway Patrol received some 300 calls for service around the St. Louis area Tuesday.

As many St. Louisans stayed home Wednesday due to the winter weather, one woman had no choice but to brave the storm after going into labor Tuesday.

People came from far and wide around the St. Louis area to have fun in Forest Park, marking the first big snow day of the year.

Medical staff at Mercy, BJC and Saint Louis University Hospital are voluntarily spending the night at work to avoid traveling during the storm.

High Ridge firefighters rescued a woman from a house fire in the 4600 block of West Rock Creek Road just after noon Wednesday, but she later died.

A couple of weeks back we asked the question: is the video game industry experiencing an age of hyper-consolidation? The answer to that increasingly looks to be "yes". That post was built off of a pair of Microsoft acquisitions of Zenimax for $7 billion and then a bonkers acquisition of Activision Blizzard King for roughly $69 billion. Whereas consolidations in industries are a somewhat regular thing, what caused my eyes to narrow was all of the confused communications coming out of Microsoft as to how the company would handle these properties when it came to exclusivity on Microsoft platforms. It all went from vague suggestions that the status quo would be the path forward to, eventually, the announcement that some (many?) titles would in fact be Microsoft exclusives.

So, back to my saying that consolidation does seem to be the order of the day: Sony recently announced it had acquired game studio Bungie for $3.6 billion.

Sony Interactive Entertainment today announced a deal to acquire Bungie for $3.6 billion, the latest in a string of big-ticket consolidation deals in the games industry.

After the deal closes, Bungie will be "an independent subsidiary" of SIE run by a board of directors consisting of current CEO and chairman Pete Parsons and the rest of the studio's current management team.

This is starkly different than the Microsoft acquisitions in a couple of ways. Chief among them is that Bungie will continue to operate with much more independence than those acquired by Microsoft. While Sony obviously wants to recoup its investment in Bungie, the focus there appears to be on continuing to make great games using existing IP, building new IP, and creating content for that IP that expands far beyond just the video game publishing space.

What does not appear to be part of the plan are PlayStation exclusives, as explicitly stated in this interview with both Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan and Bungies' CEO Pete Parsons.

In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan says that Destiny 2 and future Bungie games will continue to be published on other platforms, including rival consoles. The advantages Bungie offers Sony is in its ability to make huge, multiplatform, live-service online games, which is something the wider organisation is eager to learn from.

"The first thing to say unequivocally is that Bungie will stay an independent, multiplatform studio and publisher. Pete [Parsons, CEO] and I have spoken about many things over recent months, and this was one of the first, and actually easiest and most straightforward, conclusions we reached together. Everybody wants the extremely large Destiny 2 community, whatever platform they're on, to be able to continue to enjoy their Destiny 2 experiences. And that approach will apply to future Bungie releases. That is unequivocal."

That's about as firm a stance as you're going to get in this industry. And it is a welcome sign in a few ways. Primarily, Bungie fans will be pleased to know the acquisition doesn't mean they'll lose out on game releases if they don't own a PlayStation. But perhaps just as important is that this demonstrates another route big gaming companies can go with these acquisitions.

As I stated in previous posts on the Microsoft acquisitions: consolidation doesn't have to be a bad thing, but when it results in less customer choice, that's not great. That Sony is doing this differently is a good sign.

Some Missouri drivers were stuck in traffic for more than an hour Wednesday afternoon in snowy conditions.

Snow totals were expected to rise significantly on Thursday; flights were canceled, and businesses, schools and government offices closed again.