This newscast aired at 4:04pm on 5-6-2025 on WGLT.
From the WGLT newsroom, I'm Charlie Schlinker. Democratic Congressman Eric Sorensen says Trump administration plans to zero out home heating and cooling help for very low income people are cruel. Sorensen says it should not be about politics but about making sure people are cared for.
I want people to understand what this administration is doing. They're, they're saying that if you need help to pay your bill to stay warm in the wintertime, screw you. The administration has already laid off all staff for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP.
The mayor of Nor says it's a good question where an encampment of homeless people will go once the town shuts it down at the end of the month. Mayor Chris Goose says the encampment near Sugar Creek in the Main Street corridor must leave so the Bloomington Normal Water Reclamation District can move ahead with sewer expansion and renovation construction. We are looking.
Very hard in cooperation with Home sweet home to see if there's any property in normal, and we frankly can't find it. The mayor says the town will know shortly whether a shelter village project in Bloomington will go forward. He says that project could potentially absorb some of the people now camped in normal. The challenge may be whether that can happen before next winter.
The town of Normal's cultural arts director says the new Illinois Arts station staff was a better fit than the previous job holders as the nonprofit moves under the town's governance. The town received pushback on social media and at a city council meeting about the transition and the decision not to retain.
Previous cultural arts director Beth Whisman says more than 100 people applied for the 3 jobs. As
we were absorbing a property that housed a program that employed people, there was a lot to unpack and to understand how all of that worked and to think about how this is going to fit.
Into the town of normal
Wissman says the nonprofit will be dissolved at the end of the fiscal year. Chicago area Congresswoman Robin Kelly joins Lieutenant Governor Julian Stratton in the Democratic primary for the US Senate to fill the seat being vacated by the retiring Dick Durbin, and a Bloomington firefighter has died in an off-duty scuba diving accident. 31 year old Kyle Walder died Sunday in Kentucky. I'm Charlie.