WGLT's Sound Ideas

Adam Kinzinger’s actions in the wake of the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 insurrection turned him from a rising star in the Republican Party to a pariah. He was censured by his own party even as he was praised as a hero for standing up against President Donald Trump’s baseless accusations of a stolen election.

More than 100 artists descend on Uptown Normal this weekend for the annual Sugar Creek Arts Festival. One of them is Bloomington's Gina LaMonica.

Bloomington's city manager says he should have looped the mayor in sooner about a growing scandal involving former Assistant Police Chief Paul Williams. In an interview for WGLT’s Sound Ideas, Jeff Jurgens said Mayor Dan Brady heard about a June traffic stop that's resulted in a lawsuit before there was a chance to brief him.

The full conversation between former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger and WGLT's Ryan Denham, recorded Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026, at Illinois State University's Braden Auditorium.

Although foreign policy doesn't matter as much as pocketbook issues in this election cycle, the war in Iran does take up some of the oxygen in central Illinois congressional races. WGLT's Charlie Schlenker reports.

Inflation, the rising cost of living, and affordability are huge issues this election season. In this Sound Ideas story, WGLT's Charlie Schlenker reports on how central Illinois Congressional candidates want to address those topics.

The 2026 Citizen of the Year for the Town of Normal is a Route 66 historian who serves as an ambassador for visitors from all over the world. Terri Ryburn was honored by Mayor Chris Koos on Tuesday at the Illinois State University Horticulture Center in recognition of the renovation of Sprague’s Super Service and her work documenting the history of the Mother Road.

McLean County's presumptive next sheriff says county correctional officers are responding positively to the addition of body worn cameras in the jail. Sheriff's Lt. Jon Albee said having an objective record is a valuable tool in reviewing jail incidents.

The major party candidates for Congress in Central Illinois have significantly different views of how to deal with looming financial crises over the federal budget deficit, national debt, and Social Security.

The Bloomington Police Department [BPD] now has a green light to place drone docks on Bloomington-Normal Water Reclamation District [BNWRD] property. Permission came through an intergovernmental agreement passed at BNWRD’s Sept. 14 meeting, with the board approving plans to host two docking stations.

Delays and glitches in a new McLean County Computer Aided Dispatch [CAD] system are frustrating public safety agencies. McLean County is implementing a new suite of software applications to speed up fire and police response in the county. It has not gone well.

One of the most common concerns surrounding the possibility of a data center in any community is how much water one would need. So, how much water would a hypothetical data center need in Bloomington-Normal? No one really knows.

Four weeks after a house explosion on Old Peoria Court west of Bloomington sent eight members of the Hoefer family to the hospital, their pastor says all are expected to recover.

Students and families from Central Catholic High School in Bloomington were among the tens of thousands of Catholics who made the trek to St. Louis to see a native son take a step closer to sainthood.

Illinois State University President Aondover Tarhule highlighted recent achievements and future plans for ISU in his fourth State of the University address Thursday. Tarhule laid out five leadership priorities for ISU, including its reputation and national prestige, student success, academic excellence and relevance, a culture of innovation and agility, and AI readiness.

The Emergency Telephone System Board in McLean County wants to update its unified emergency responder radio system. It will be expensive. The current Starcom system was developed in the years following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Interagency difficulty in communicating during and immediately after that tragedy highlighted a need across the U.S. for a common platform. As implemented in McLean County, though, there have been gaps and dead zones in which radio reception either didn’t work at all or faded inside buildings.

University Galleries’ first solo exhibition of Chicago-based mixed-media artist Selina Trepp has entered its final weeks. The show, called Unprofessional Practices, primarily features two films created using stop-motion animation, plus paintings, handcrafted benches for viewing the films and a takeaway zine of hand drawn diagrams and illustrations describing Trepp’s artistic process.

Politicians and newsmakers don’t always love it when journalists ask them tough, probing questions or point out the contradictions in their position on an issue. But Charlie Schlenker did it in a way that you just couldn’t help but respect. Schlenker will retire Sept. 30 after 42 years in journalism, including the last 29 here at WGLT.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker delivered one of the most high-profile political speeches of his life two years ago at Chicago’s Democratic National Convention. But two years later, Pritzker, 61, said he’s astounded to see photographs and video of that moment. Pritzker is for the first time revealing publicly that he’s lost 80 pounds with the help of a GLP-1 weight loss medication, with plans to lose more. The governor laid bare his previously undisclosed medical history in an hour-long interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, admitting the “food noise” is gone, with daily exercise and the injections fueling weight loss he didn’t think was possible.

McLean County superintendents say revenue from the countywide sales tax is making a difference one year in. The County School Facilities Tax [CSFT] was passed by McLean County voters in April 2025, adding a 1% tax on goods like retail products, fuel and online purchases when it went into effect that July. The revenue from that tax, distributed by the Regional Office of Education, can be used for facilities, in place of property taxes for the purpose of paying off debts, and for school security and mental health needs.

After nearly 30 years at WGLT, award-winning journalist Charlie Schlenker is retiring at the end of the month. To mark the occasion, we turned the tables on one of the best interviewers in the business and asked Charlie to reflect on his career. Charlie tells former WGLT morning host Jon Norton he was surprised by the outpouring of praise when people learned he was retiring.

McLean County government is getting into the heart of its budget season. The proposed $150 million spending plan would be up 4.1% from the current fiscal year — an increase of $5.9 million. County plans indicate rising property values will allow the property tax rate to go down and homeowners whose assessments do not change would see a modest decrease in the county share of their property tax bills.

Illinois State University students are tuning out fire alarm evacuation orders and taping over smoke detectors in campus dorms due to frequent fire alarms, raising concerns about whether students will respond when there is a real emergency.

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, an El Paso native who attended high school in Peoria, is receiving attention from the worldwide Catholic church. Sheen, who was also ordained and served in Peoria, will be beatified at a Mass on Thursday in St. Louis.

The mayor of Bloomington said the city and police department must work to regain public trust in the wake of the abrupt retirement of Assistant Chief Paul Williams. Williams was involved in a questionable traffic stop in June that sparked a lawsuit against Williams and the city.

NCHS is among four Intercity schools fielding a girls flag football team for the first time, joining University High, Normal West and Bloomington. While some schools in Illinois debuted the sport last year, Bloomington-Normal schools hit the field this season.

It’s no secret that the Eastland Mall is in decline. The owner of the mall, CBL Properties, even said so in its 2025 property tax appeal. With CBL apparently unwilling to reinvest in the property, WGLT asked the people of McLean County for their own ideas for revitalizing it. After putting out a request for ideas in July, WGLT received more than 2,000 formal submissions and Facebook comments. WGLT whittled the submissions down to 20 and asked the public to choose its Top 5 ideas, which they did during a voting round in August. WGLT then hired a team of four Illinois State University student illustrators from the Wonsook Kim School of Art and Design to help bring these ideas to life

Bloomington-Normal was home to the longest running underground newspaper in United States history. The paper, called Post Amerikan, ran from 1972-2004 and is now the subject of a feature length documentary film titled Post Amerikan: The Newspaper that Wouldn’t Die. The film is being shown Friday at the Normal Theater.

The Bloomington-Normal Water Reclamation District [BNWRD] will fix the longstanding bad water situation in the Colonial Meadows subdivision on the east side of Bloomington.

Eastland Mall in Bloomington is for sale, and it could soon have a new owner. Global real estate firm CBRE said the 53-acre property at 1615 E. Empire St. was quietly listed on its website about two months ago.

The three wells to be used for carbon sequestration are just inside the eastern border of McLean County and about 5 miles west of Gibson City. Environmental advocates say that's too close to a fresh water source which replenishes the Mahomet Aquifer.

This is a story of families torn apart during war and never reunited. It’s a story of cultural identity and how that first disruption echoes into the present day. The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II is a well-known story. Little known is the deportation of people of Japanese descent from Central and South American countries to U.S. camps. Most of the roughly 2,000 people deported to the U.S. came from Peru. Bridget Nakamura, an Illinois State University graduate student, said her great grandfather, Shiroshi Nakamura, was one of them.

A police officer from Normal says his worst day on the job turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood does not believe actions by the Trump administration to restrict mail-in voting will cause major disruptions ahead of the midterm election.

The NRCS was founded almost a century ago in response to the Dust Bowl. But it lost nearly a quarter of its staff nationally in 2025 after President Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts to the federal workforce, leaving many farmers with less access to environmental conservation practices.

A century-old theater troupe in Bloomington-Normal is committed to keeping things fresh. Community Players Theatre [CPT] opens its 104th season with its first-ever production of Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, part one of a celebrated two-part epic set in New York City at the height of the AIDS epidemic.

Illinois' medical aid in dying law takes effect Saturday. Terminally ill adults across the state will have the legal option to request medication from a physician to end their lives. In McLean County, it might not be that easy.

History teachers at Normal West High School taught the facts and lessons of the 9/11 terrorist attack to students Friday during the 25th anniversary.

Chances are you know lots of people who have September birthdays. Nine of the 10 most common days to have birthdays in the U.S. happen this month. So, for most of our nation’s history, having a Sept. 11 birthday was unremarkable. That changed in 2001.

As the nation marks the 25th anniversary of the attacks on Sept. 11, Bloomington-Normal literary enthusiasts are also marking 25 years of David Foster Wallace's essay The View From Mrs. Thompson's. It's not often that Bloomington, Ill., is the setting for a story in Rolling Stone. But it was in the disorienting weeks following 9/11. The eyes of the world were on New York City and Washington, D.C. But Wallace, an Illinois State University English professor and Bloomington resident, covered 9/11 through the unique lens of the Midwestern prairie. The View From Mrs. Thompson's was later published in his collection, Consider the Lobster.

The new head of the Bloomington-Normal Economic Development Council [EDC] is addressing past concerns and critiques of the organization as he lays out his vision for the future.

The ParkLands Foundation is welcoming a new executive director. Craig Lutes became the first to work in the newly-established role in August. The Normal-based nonprofit aims to protect the watershed in the Upper Mackinaw River Valley. That includes northern McLean County and Woodford County. The foundation owns some property, maintains natural areas along the river, including trails and woodlands and their ecosystems.

More than 120 years after his death, local historians finally feel confident of the burial spot for the first Black man to vote in Illinois. A reddish granite headstone sits in a quiet plot near the back of El Paso’s Evergreen Cemetery. It proudly bears the name David A Strother.

When skies are dark and cloudy, and rain is pouring down, it’s not uncommon to see someone watching the chaos from the comfort of their porch or right next to the window. That’s the case even when warnings are urging people to seek shelter. Joesph Trujillo-Falcón studies weather communication and public risk assessment of weather at University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. He said every time someone receives a weather alert on their phone, or over TV and radio, they make a quick risk assessment. But if they have to make that assessment over and over again, they may be desensitized to the risk.

Illinois was awarded $768 million in a multistate settlement with Meta over child social media addiction. The Illinois Federation of Teachers, which is made up of over 200 local unions, wants that money sent to public schools. IPR's Peter Medlin spoke to the IFT's chief of staff Kurt Hilgendorf about the proposal.

Bloomington-Normal tourism officials say the Route 66 centennial celebrations have increased out-of-town visits to McLean County by 3% compared to year-to-date figures from last year.

The North Danvers Mennonite Church is celebrating its 175th birthday, making it just 20 years younger than the county it stands in. The congregation is rolling out the proverbial red carpet for a full weekend of festivities.

More than a year and a half after a dispute over shared sales tax money began, the City of Bloomington, Town of Normal and McLean County have no resolution and no talks scheduled. Bloomington City Manager Jeff Jurgens said even after a recent audit of the county fund that receives the money, the city and town still think the underlying issue is the county is getting too much sales tax money — more than the city and town thought they would ever pay.

Behind the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the McLean County Drug Court are numerous stories of “lives changed forever,” according to one judge of the program.

It’s been a tumultuous few weeks for Bloomington-Normal media. The owner of The Pantagraph, Davenport, Iowa-based Lee Enterprises, let go of its Central Illinois executive editor Aug. 19 in an apparent cost-cutting move. It’s the latest in a long string of reductions at the Bloomington newspaper.