WGLT Newscasts - 1:04pm 6-18-2025

Published Jun 18, 2025, 6:06 PM

This newscast aired at 1:04pm on 6-18-2025 on WGLT.

From the WTLT Newsroom, I'm John Norton. National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch for much of central Illinois, including McLean County, through 4 o'clock this afternoon. The Bloomington Fire Department is studying where a new fire station could improve emergency response times. Fire Chief Corey Matheny told the Bloomington City Council a new fire station has been needed on the northeast side for a long time, but there are other parts of the city where response times could improve.

be able to build a station everywhere at the same time to cover those, those needs, but um I know that's not fiscally possible. So we're looking at how can we get the biggest impact on um the first one. The fire department saw an increase in calls for service last year.

Any big transformational project is complex, and the more complicated, the more room there is for differences of opinion, vision, and resource gaps. Former Bloomington Mayor Mboa Malau says you should not count on a project to be straightforward.

It can happen in a zigzag way and.

Doesn't necessarily happen right away in the way that people want

it. For example, Molawe says the final version of the Bloomington Public Library expansion emerged only after several other ideas failed to gain support, including a branch library, a partnership with Connect Transit, and a bigger expansion.

The #2 administrator at Heartland Community College retires this month. Rick Pierce spent more than a decade at the college, including 6 years as provost and vice president of academic affairs. Heartland president Keith Cornell says one of Pierce's signature accomplishments was advancing technical education, adding more than 40 new programs to Heartland's academic portfolio.

And OSF Saint Joseph Medical Center in Bloomington has a new and improved ICU unit with more beds, bigger spaces, and fresh technology. Director of inpatient services Courtney Beer says the pandemic revealed a need for helping critically ill patients. We are becoming a regional transfer center and so we're not only getting patients from within the Bloomington Normal community but really throughout the entire state of Illinois. OSF recently announced plans to hub cardiovascular care for East Central Illinois at Saint Joe's.

I'm John Norton, WGLT News.

WGLT Newscasts

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