News

Jack McCullough is serving a life sentence for the kidnapping and murder of Maria Ridulph in 1957. It was one the nation's oldest cold cases. A recently filed appellate brief calls into question evidence presented at McCullough's 2012 trial in DeKalb County.

Assistant Deputy Defender Paul Glaser submitted that prosecutors used unreliable evidence, which included personal memories from decades ago, inmate witnesses, and a statement from McCullough's mother just before her death while on painkillers.

The brief says "the law demands more than nostalgia."

Hundreds of Northern Illinois University students took part in the fifth annual Undergraduate Research and Artistry Day (URAD).

The event was held Tuesday, April 22, in the Duke Ellington Ballroom of the Holmes Student Center.

Open to the public, URAD highlights original student research projects and exhibits. 

The window is closing on the "controlled burn" season for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. In northern Illinois, crews are being forced to race against the clock.

The identity of a woman whose body was pulled from the Kishwaukee River in Rockford yesterday has been released. 

The conductor of the Rockford Symphony's Youth Orchestra has a new job. According to an email release, Daniel Black was named Assistant Conductor of the Fort Worth (Texas) Symphony Orchestra. Black's final performance with the RSYO is May 4th. He will join the Fort Worth orchestra in August.

Black joined the RSYO in 2009. He also conducted the University of Illinois – Chicago String Orchestra and the summertime Hamilton Wings SCORE youth opera project.

It'll take until mid-May -- as the legislative session is drawing to a close -- to learn which schools will win, and which will lose, under a proposed new way to fund education in Illinois.

The effort to change how Illinois decides how much state money it gives each district is rooted in the belief that the current formula is outdated, and that it helps perpetuate disparities between schools in wealthy areas and poor ones.

The proposed new method would make funding determinations based on need.

The University of Illinois Board of Trustees have told President Robert Easter to work with other state schools and lawmakers to prevent a wave of retirements brought on by Illinois’ pension reform law.

Administrators say as many as 4,000 employees in the U of I system could lose hundreds of dollars a month in retirement benefits if they don’t retire by July 1st.

This week is the 10th anniversary of a deadly tornado in Utica, Illinois. Eight people died when the Milestone Tap building collapsed from damage. The National Weather Service reported the storm was an F-3 and one of dozens that struck the Midwest the night of April 20th, 2004. The village will hold a ceremony near the tavern Monday night at 6:00.

CHICAGO (AP) — Despite recommended limits on codeine use in children, the potent painkiller is prescribed for children in at least half a million emergency room visits each year, a study suggests.

Use of the drug in that setting is hardly rampant — just 3 percent of kids' ER visits resulted in a codeine prescription in 2010, the 10-year study found. But with more than 25 million ER visits by children each year, the authors say far too many kids are getting the drug when better options are available.

THE CONCERNS

Northern Illinois University officials plan to demolish one of its oldest residence halls within the coming months as part of campus renewal.

Matthew Hanson will be one of the final students to live in Douglas Hall, which was built in 1963. He says he appreciates its traditional feel.

"You see a lot of these new buildings on campus that are all, like, I don't know, just perfect," Hanson said, "and this one's got its flaws, but it's charming. It's got, I believe they said, musty charm."