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ALTON - The Hayner Public Library District has a wide variety of programs available over the next few weeks. Mary Cordes, executive director at Hayner, noted that the library is consistently planning fun new activities and events for people to enjoy. “We have a lot coming up for the fall,” Cordes said. “We’ve got some really fun programs coming up. We’ve got some really interesting programs coming up. We’ve got some programs that we’ve not done before.” The Cookbook Club meets at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025, at the Alton Square Mall Hayner location. This month’s theme is centered around involving kids in the cooking process. Families can choose a recipe from either “The Cookbook for Kids,” “BHG New Junior Cook Book,” and “Rachel Ray Yum-O!: The Family Cookbook” to make and then share at the meeting on Aug. 26. On Friday, Aug. 29, 2025, local teens can check out Teen Expressive

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Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker indeed made it clear he wasn’t inviting Trump to send the National Guard to Chicago

SLMPD says an employee asked the alleged suspect to remove his mask, and when he didn't comply, the worker refused service.

GRANITE CITY - An electric contractor struck a gas line in Granite City on Monday morning, Aug. 25, 2025, leading to a service interruption for one customer but no explosion, Ameren Illinois said. The incident occurred around 9:15 a.m. on Aug. 25 in the 200 block of Ralph Street, according to Brian Bretsch, a spokesperson for Ameren Illinois. A gas crew responded promptly, arriving on the scene at 9:39 a.m. and working to shut off the gas and make repairs. The gas was fully shut off by noon and repaired by 2 p.m. Monday, Bretsch said. Only one customer was affected by the outage. Bretsch clarified that the gas line hit in Granite City did not cause the loud boom. He noted that the sounds heard in Florissant, Mo., and were unrelated to the incident in Granite City.

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BETHALTO - The Bethalto Police Chief Jason Lamb and Deputy Fire Chief Dan Bartels reported that a single driver sustained minor injuries after striking a power box near the QuikTrip in Bethalto early Monday morning, Aug. 25, 2025. The QuikTrip is located at 605 W. Bethalto Drive in Bethalto. The incident occurred around 7 a.m., Monday, when the police chief said a driver coming from Arby's experienced a medical issue and collided with a QuikTrip power box. QuikTrip was closed for a period of time after the incident, but a manager said it was reopened this afternoon. The impact caused a temporary power outage in the area, but power has since been restored. Emergency responders cleared the scene by approximately 9 a.m.

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FLORISSANT, Mo. - At least three individuals were rescued and transported to Mercy Hospital’s burn unit, with additional injuries reported, the Black Jack Fire Protection District said on Monday, Aug. 25, 2025. Despite the severity of the explosion, fire officials confirmed that all residents are accounted for. Florissant Police announced that U.S. Route 67 was closed in both directions between New Halls Ferry and Mondoubleau roads due to the emergency response. The nearby Walmart store was also closed as a precaution. Firefighters responded to a devastating house explosion in the 13800 block of Evan Aire Drive around 9:15 a.m. Monday, resulting in multiple homes engulfed in flames and several injuries, authorities said. Black Jack Fire officials found five homes fully involved in fire, with “not much left of them there.” The incident was rapidly escalated to a three-alarm fire, prompting the deployment of an EMS strike team and Urban Search and Rescue Task Force

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A man was found dead in a flipped car after being shot to death Friday afternoon.

CHICAGO – Attorney General Kwame Raoul today co-led a bipartisan coalition of 44 attorneys general warning major artificial intelligence (AI) companies to stop hurting kids. The letter , sent to Anthropic, Apple, Chai AI, Google, Luka Inc., Meta, Microsoft, Nomi AI, Open AI, Perplexity AI, Replika and xAI addresses alarming reports of AI chatbots engaging in sexually inappropriate conversations with kids. Internal Meta documents reveal that the company authorized its AI assistants to “flirt and engage in romantic roleplay with children” as young as 8 years old. Raoul and the coalition’s letter also cites cases where other chatbots have allegedly encouraged harmful behavior in teenagers, including suicide and murder. “American children and teenagers are already in the grip of a devastating mental health crisis in part due to addictive features on social media platforms that contribute to depression, anxiety and thoughts of self-harm,” Raoul said.

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The Justice Department has said it wants the state’s complete voter registration database so it can determine whether the state is complying with the 1993 National Voter Registration Act.

TOKYO, JAPAN – U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) last week led a Congressional Delegation to South Korea and Japan to meet with high-level business leaders and government officials to continue her successful efforts promoting Illinois abroad. Duckworth, along with representatives from Intersect Illinois, met with businesses and convened leaders in quantum, manufacturing and technology to reassure the international leaders Illinois’s economy is still strong, well-positioned and ready for greater investment. “There’s a lot of uncertainty abroad about investing in America’s economy right now, but I’m proud to lead this Congressional Delegation to South Korea and Japan to help provide another perspective,” Duckworth said. “With our existing investments and strong leadership at the state level, Illinois is stronger than ever and primed for more investment and international business expansion from our partners in Asia. I had great meetings

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This executive order plans to prevent regulatory challenges.

According to documents filed Saturday, Darnell D. Westmoreland, 28, of the 4300 block of Strodtman Place in College Hill, was identified as one of the two men involved with a fatal shooting at Elite Supermarket at the 8300 block of…

The rushed integration of half-cooked automation into the already broken U.S. journalism industry simply isn’t going very well. There’s been just countless examples where affluent media owners rushed to embrace automation and LLMs (usually to cut corners and undermine labor) with disastrous impact, resulting in lots of plagiarism, completely false headlines, and a giant, completely […]

GRANITE CITY – A sex offender from Granite City remains in custody after allegedly soliciting a 15-year-old via text and falsely registering as homeless earlier this year. Matthew L. Dodd, 45, of the 3000 block of Washington Ave. in Granite City, was charged on Aug. 15, 2025 with a Class 2 felony count of indecent solicitation of a child. On Aug. 1, 2025, Dodd allegedly solicited a 15-year-old child via text to engage in a sex act. The Madison County State’s Attorney’s Office filed a petition to deny Dodd’s pretrial release from custody in this case. According to the petition, Dodd was previously convicted of indecent solicitation of a child in 2021. Dodd was additionally charged with two Class 2 felony counts for his second subsequent offenses of unlawful failure to register as a sex offender. On Jan. 1, 2025, he allegedly failed to register his Granite City address within three days with the Madison County Sheriff’s Office, instead providing

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President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday directing state National Guard units to be ready to assist local, state and federal law enforcement, a potential step toward a dramatic expansion of Trump’s use of military personnel for domestic policing. The order calls for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to ensure troops in the National Guard of […]