The House voted 111-1 today for House Bill 5818, which would strip state pension benefits from any statewide constitutional officer impeached and removed from office.

For Sally Schierer, baking is no different than sewing a purse, by hand, from scrap material, growing a lemon tree from seed or stroking paint on a canvas. "I'm a creative person. I like to take something and make something else out of it," she says. "I do it all through the house, the garden and the yard."

A Springfield man was arrested Monday night for allegedly attacking a senior citizen with a tree branch and stealing her purse.

Caterpillar Inc. announced Monday that the engines that power its generator sets will meet Tier 4 interim emissions regulations.

It's official at last. The Republican nominee for governor in Illinois is state Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington, who edged out colleague Kirk Dillard by just 193 votes from some 767,000 cast. Congratulations to Brady, and let the race against Democrat Pat Quinn begin.

Gov. Pat Quinn is set to give his budget speech to a joint session of the General Assembly on Wednesday. If there is to be any hope of starting to extract Illinois from its financial troubles, Quinn’s address needs to be focused and solution-oriented.

Chris Britt's editorial cartoon on Illinois lawmakers' acting abilities.

A Pekin man who crawled through the window of a 14-year-old girl’s room to have sex with her is nearing the end of his sentence, but that doesn’t mean he will go free.

The Illinois Department on Aging plans to move from two state-owned locations in Springfield where it pays no rent into a private office building where it will lease space for more than $530,000 a year. The department said the move was in the works before the state's financial problems hit and that it will enable all department employees to be in one location.

It's crunch time in America's too-often-forgotten war in Afghanistan. Midway through the surge of 30,000 troops championed by President Barack Obama and orchestrated by commanding Gen. Stanley McChrystal, it remains unclear the extent to which the effort to dislodge the entrenched Taliban and al-Qaida fighters who threaten to restore the country to its pre-2001 status as a chaotic terrorist haven is working out.

Illinois communities have endured them, survived them and even glorified them by way of school mascots and stories passed down through generations. Tornadoes are a dangerous reality, yet one that can fortunately be diminished with proper preparation.

Well, as usual, my attempt to avoid coveting a sleek and impractical object produced by the nerd-leprechauns at Apple has lasted until the exact moment they showed a commercial for it on the TV. Thanks, Oscars.

According to national statistics, an annual average of 58 fatalities has been caused by lightning in the United States over the past 30 years. This average is one greater than the annual number of deaths due to tornadoes. Yet, ask residents of Illinois which types of storm are most deadly, and tornadoes would likely top thunderstorms on their lists.

When the Illinois State Museum closes one exhibit and stages another, like the recent switch to the "North to Alaska" exhibit, a great deal of care and planning goes into the handling of exhibits. Go behind the scenes at the museum to learn more.

Chris Britt's editorial cartoon on the FAA and kids.