WGLT Newscasts - 4:04pm 6-4-2025

Published Jun 4, 2025, 9:06 PM

This newscast aired at 4:04pm on 6-4-2025 on WGLT.

From the WGLT newsroom, I'm Ben Howell. A central Illinois lawmaker is disappointed that a bill to change higher education funding stalled last week. Democratic state Senator Dave Kaler says an evidence-based formula would have helped Illinois State University.

Instead of just saying across the board, every school is going to get such and such, you take an extra amount of money and you say, OK, over.

Above what you get every year from the from the state of Illinois, we're going to have a special fund that's going to fund universities based on what they need.

The new state budget increases funding for universities by 1%, and State Representative Sharon Chung says she's hopeful that an overhaul to higher education funding will pass next year after failing to do so this spring. The

Democrat says the University of Illinois's opposition to the plan was a barrier. She heard about it from her colleagues. They have constituents who have a hard time even getting into the UI right now, you know, and if it is sort of the crown jewel of our of our state higher education system, um, you know, what does this mean then if they aren't getting their fair share of funding? Chung's district includes Illinois State University.

The Constellation Energy deal with Facebook parent company Meta comes with a commitment to boosting power generation at the Clinton nuclear plant in Dewitt County. Constellation senior vice president of policy, Mason Emnett says the jump will be about 3% or 30 megawatts. And that is essentially done through advanced kind of monitoring and technical procedures which allow us to safely increase the output of the plant. Facebook will buy power generated by the Clinton plant for two decades, starting in a couple of years.

Illinois lawmakers have approved measures to regulate cryptocurrency for the first time. A pair of bills that passed the state legislature would add digital asset companies to the list of items the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation oversees. Republican State Representative Dan Ugasti of Geneva voted no. I believe this is.

Better regulated on national level. The bills would also regulate cryptocurrency ATMs. The Children's Discovery Museum in Normal has received a $5 million gift to help pay for its planned agriculture exhibit. Ag lender Compe Financial of Bloomington is making the donation for the exhibit from the farm to a healthy me. I'm Ben.

WGLT Newscasts

Local newscasts from WGLT, Bloomington-Normal's Public Media, part of the NPR Network. Updated throu 
Social links
Follow podcast
Recent clips
Browse 6,176 clip(s)