The Prairieland United Way’s annual campaign started off with a huge touchdown over the weekend.

The return of the annual Guns & Hoses Flag Football game raised just short of $3,500 on Saturday, according to Karen Walker, Executive Director of the Prairieland United Way.

The funds will be used to help serve nearly 35,000 people in Morgan, Scott, Cass & Northern Greene Counties. The money will also move closer to the 2021 campaign goal of $460,000.

If you would like to make a contribution to United Way by donating your time and/or money, please call 217-245-4557 or visit us online them www.prairielandunitedway.org.

A local Congressman is blaming the current presidential administration’s policies for exacerbating the international supply chain issues and rising inflation on goods.

By now, everyone in the country has felt some sort of the issues with not being able to get an order for a product or paying higher prices on everyday consumer goods.

13^th District Congressman Rodney Davis says that Biden Administration and the Democratic majority in Washington D.C. Are making those problems worse with their current string of policies and COVID-19 response.

In a letter to President Joe Biden on October 20^th, Davis accuses the current policies of prolonging unemployment, spurring inflation, limiting the international transportation system, and driving up energy costs.

The global supply chain issues and disruptions in manufacturing date back to early last Spring when the globe’s manufacturing communities in Europe and Southeast Asia largely shuttered due to pandemic response. In response, shipping companies cut their schedules in anticipation of a drop in demand for moving goods around the world. A shortage in shipping containers, a demand on different goods, and ships getting stuck in ports have all continued the problem for the past 18 months.

Davis and House Republicans believe that the Biden Administration’s current efforts to pass the massive social spending Build Back Better Plan will cause the inflation on goods currently having trouble finding its way to consumers will be driven even higher. According to logistics reports, shortages and delays are expected to last well beyond this year.

You can read the full letter at the link attached here.

Illinois’ rental assistance programs will return in December.

The Illinois Housing Development Authority’s announced Saturday that it will reopen the Illinois Rental Payment Program on Monday, Dec. 6 instead of today, as originally planned. IDHA says while the date for the program reopening is now delayed, money from this round will still be distributed to approved renters and landlords before the end of the year as originally scheduled.

In the first round of assistance, IDHA reviewed more than 57,000 applications and paid out over a half million dollars n behalf of renters experiencing pandemic-related hardships. Since 2020, the state of Illinois has provided over $776 million in emergency rental assistance to help keep more than 103,100 Illinois residents in their homes.

The vendor handling the application portal is requiring additional testing before it can go online. Applications will now be accepted beginning Monday, Dec. 6 through 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, Jan 9 at illinoishousinghelp.org. The next round of funding is expected to provide a quarter million dollars and assist an estimated 27,000 renters and landlords to prevent evictions.

A bed & breakfast and wedding venue in White Hall is closing.

The Greene Prairie Press reports that the Green Gables Inn is being converted back into a private residence.

Greene Gables had been in operation since the early 2000s, and was purchased by the Mansfield Family in October 2013.

According to the report, recent health reasons in the family run business was the impetus for the sale of the business. In a post to their Facebook page dated October 13th, the Mansfields thanked the community for entrusting them with important events and weddings over the past 8 years.

The home located at 503 North Main Street and White Hall had been named one of the best small bed & breakfasts in Illinois by TripAdvisor and TheKnot wedding and event planning magazine named it a Best of Weddings winner three years in a row.

The Beardstown Marina project has hit a couple of snags over the last few months, but things are starting to turn around.

Mayor Tim Harris says that the campground at the marina is hoping to open this coming May after an amendment to a grant and some repairs are completed on one piece to the site: “We have had to apply for a different addition to a permit down there for the waste facilities from the campgrounds about the disposal site. It was never completed. It’s not a big job but it’s something’s that got to be done and dealt with in the correct way. You have to go through the EPA on that. We’ve got that turned in for an amendment through an engineering firm, and then, we can finish that up. That’s one of the main hold ups on the campground right now. We have had some trouble down there with the handicapped ramp access that we had for the kayak launching, which was part of the program, too. It was eroding really bad. We’ve got the engineers back down there, and we’ve done a fix to that. It looks like right now that it’s going to be alright. It had to have a lot of concrete added to it to prevent erosion. There’s still some fine tuning to do.”

Harris says a big problem currently is high water causing delays to repairs that need to be made, as well as finalizing some pieces of construction. As far as the river access, Harris says that they had a permit open, but an amendment had to be applied for to allow for hydraulic dredging. He says it should make the dredging process cheaper and more efficient than the previous mechanical dredging that’s been completed: “It’s going to be hard to even mechanically dredge where we got left. It goes underneath the railroad bridge, and the railroad people don’t want any mechanical dredging around the bottoms of their bridge pilings. It’s going to be insisted upon that we use hydraulic dredging from their side of it. We definitely have to cooperate with them. That’s also in the works. I just recently signed the application for amendment to that. I think that when it gets to the right place, I’m hoping that it will go through and we’ll go on with the program of getting that channel opened up.”

Harris says that he has been working with the Beardstown Harbor Committee in the meantime to establish campground rules and fees to keep everything moving forward. He says he realizes the importance of the project to the region and is trying to work with as many people as possible to see it through to completion.

Jacksonville School District 117 is still in limbo when it comes to the Health Care Right of Conscience Act exemptions from the statewide Covid-19 vaccination and/or mandatory testing mandates.

Superintendent Steve Ptacek requested action from the Illinois State Board of Education and Governor J.B. Pritzker back in September to lay out if or how the HCRCA could or would be enforced with employees who have filed an exemption under the HCRCA. Ptacek hoped that the General Assembly would clarify the HCRCA so districts around the state could move forward, and possibly avoid large lawsuits, like the one currently in Macoupin County Circuit Court brought by parents and Attorney Thomas DeVore. Back in September, 29 staff and 60 parents asked for a solution on the vaccine and mask mandate from the state and the district, using the HCRCA as the central piece of their argument.

Ptacek says the Illinois General Assembly partially addressed the issue with their amendment to the act during the Veto session last month but it still leaves the district open to massive losses with a lawsuit: “Right now, if we were to enforce the executive order for those claiming exemption under the HCRCA, I and our attorney agrees think that we are more susceptible to a loss in a lawsuit than we were before the General Assembly’s action because by taking that action, they have said as the law currently exists, one can argue that as the law currently exists, the legislature has reinforced that it does currently apply. Since the plaintiff’s attorney could use their action as further evidence that it does apply until June, that means that we are going to currently continue to not enforcing the executive order for those individuals who have made that claim.”

Ptacek says it has not changed any of the day-to-day operations of the district and district-wide Covid numbers remain extremely low. Ptacek says that there hasn’t been any issues with any individuals who signed on to a letter to the School Board in September declaring their exemptions to the mandate under the HCRCA.

Ptacek says he is bringing a recommendation to the board for this month’s meeting when it comes to the district’s mask mandate: “I’m going to be bringing to the board, assuming that our numbers stay low – last year it was Halloween that caused an explosion of numbers – so that I’m assuming by November 17th our numbers stay low – I’m going to be bringing to the board an action item to remove the board’s mandate for masks. That does not mean that the mask mandate will go away because the state’s mandate is still in place. Right now, we kind of have two layers of mandates. We’ve got a board mandate that was passed before the state mandate was issued. Where, based upon our low numbers, I’m asking the board to consider removing that, so that only the state’s mandate on masks stays in play, which means if that mandate were removed, masks would then go away.”

Ptacek says he has not received any direct communications from ISBE or the Governor’s Office about answers to his questions or his letter. Ptacek says he feels that both entities are dealing with the issue statewide and their answers will likely be provided in a court ruling or a statewide-issued press release in the future.

A Beardstown man arrested in July on child pornography and child sex abuse charges pled guilty to one charge in Cass County court on Thursday.

21-year-old Omar Hernandez-Santiago of Beardstown plead guilty to one count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a teenage victim between 13-17 years of age.

The charge stems from an Illinois State Police arrest on July 8^th after an investigation stretching back to March yielded information that a minor victim disclosed a sexual relationship with Hernandez-Santiago. According to the Illinois State Police Zone 4 investigators, through the course of the investigation agents were able to locate evidence that supported the victim’s claim.

Following the investigation, the Cass County State’s Attorney filed 8-count information charging Hernandez-Santiago with three counts of Production of Child Pornography, one count of Dissemination of Child Pornography, one count of Criminal Sexual Assault, and three counts of Aggravated Criminal Sexual Abuse.

Zone 4 agents conducted the investigation with the assistance of the Beardstown Police Department, the Cass County Sheriff’s Office, the Advocacy Network for Children, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, and the Illinois Attorney General’s Office Internet Crimes against Children Task Force.

Cass County Circuit Judge Timothy J. Wessel sentenced Hernandez-Santiago to 48 months probation, a $4,500 county fine, plus fees and court costs. Hernandez-Santiago was given credit for 120 days served in the Schuyler County Jail. Hernandez-Santiago also must register as a sex offender per the plea agreement.

A lawsuit has been filed in a Southern Illinois federal court against Ancestry.com for allegedly disclosing genetic information to an unauthorized third party.

According to the Madison-St. Clair Record, a class action complaint was filed on October 29th in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois against Ancestry.com DNA, LLC, alleging violation of the Illinois Genetic Information Privacy Act. It was filed by a minor, identified as A.K., through his guardian, Kelsi Kingsley.

The plaintiffs are attempting to file the case as a class-action lawsuit for all Illinois residents whose genetic information was disclosed or released by Ancestry.com to Blackstone, Inc., a multinational private equity company that bought Ancestry last year in a $4.7 billion deal.

According to Illinois’ Genetic Information Privacy Act (GIPA), genetic testing and information derived from genetic testing are confidential and may only be released to those specifically authorized. The plaintiff claims that when Blackstone acquired Ancestry.com in late 2020, Ancestry.com also disclosed on its website that users’ genetic information would be released and/or disclosed to Blackstone for its use. In the complaint, the plaintiff claims Ancestry.com failed to let them or any of its users know how they could prevent such information from being shared. Additionally, the plaintiff says Ancestry.com did not get their written consent to share such information, which they say violates GIPA.

The suit further alleges that Blackstone acquired all of the accompanying information gathered by Ancestry.com, including personal information that could be used to identify individual plaintiffs, including first and last names, email addresses, and/or home addresses, including age and gender in some instances.

The plaintiffs seek an order declaring the defendant’s actions as violating GIPA, an injunction requiring the defendant to comply with GIPA, statutory damages of $15,000 for each willful or reckless violation of GIPA, statutory damages of $2,500 for each negligent violation of GIPA, or actual damages — whichever is greater — attorney’s fees, court costs, interest and all other relief the court deems just.

WICS Newschannel 20 reports that Ancestry responded with the following comment on the suit: “Ancestry believes this suit is without merit and will vigorously defend against these baseless claims.”

The case will be heard in court later this month.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved a $1 trillion infrastructure bill on Friday night, with a majority of Democrats and 13 Republicans voting in favor. The bill passed by a narrow 228-206 margin.

The bill, which includes $550 billion in new federal spending and reauthorizes several existing programs. The bill passed by a similar contentious vote in the U.S. Senate nearly three months ago.

18th District Congressman Darin LaHood called the bill irresponsible: “I voted no tonight on the infrastructure bill which enables the Democrats to ram through their reckless tax and spending agenda using reconciliation. Given the reconciliation process initiated by President Biden and Speaker Pelosi at the behest of Senator Sanders and the radical progressive wing of the Democrat party, the reality remains that the infrastructure bill and reconciliation package are linked and cannot be viewed separately. A vote for the infrastructure bill is a vote that paves the way for an extreme reconciliation spending bill that includes crippling tax hikes that will kill American jobs and send them overseas, hammer small businesses as they struggle to recover from COVID-19, and worsen the labor shortage while driving up inflation on working families.

“If Democrats wanted this to be a bipartisan process with robust debate and input from both parties, they would have brought the infrastructure bill forward through regular order when it passed the Senate in August. Instead, they tied the two bills together to accomplish a radical social agenda that will leave future generations of taxpayers footing the bill.

“I have consistently advocated for responsible infrastructure investment in our roads, bridges, inland waterways, and rural broadband. I will continue to advocate for the transportation and infrastructure needs of my district, but I will not take part in helping the Democrats and Speaker Pelosi pass their irresponsible and partisan reconciliation package.”

13th District Congressman Rodney Davis called it typical tax-and-spend style legislation from Democrats: “I’m beyond disappointed that President Biden and Democrats in Congress paired bipartisan infrastructure investment to their reckless, multi-trillion-dollar, tax-and-spending proposal. At a time when inflation is persisting and the prices of goods and services continue to rise, we cannot afford pouring over three-trillion dollars of new government spending into the economy, particularly after the Democrats passed their nearly-two-trillion-dollar spending bill earlier this year. “It’s time for Congress to stop the spending blowout and take action to address the supply chain crisis and get inflation under control. That’s what American families need.”

15th District Congresswoman Mary Miller added to the backlash, calling the 13 Republicans who voted for the bill “spineless” on Twitter: “Only 3 days after voters rejected Biden’s failed policies in deep blue VA & NJ, 13 spineless “Republicans” decided to tag-team with Democrats and helped pass their $5 TRILLION socialist takeover of our country.”

16th District Congressman Adam Kinzinger, who voted with Democrats for the bill, hit back at Miller and Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene equating the bill to communism and socialism: “Infrastructure = communism is a new one. Eisenhower’s interstate system should be torn up or else the commies will be able to conveniently drive! Red Dawn in real life.”

Six House Democrats –Reps. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Jamaal Bowman of New York, Cori Bush of Missouri, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Talib of Michigan–  voted against the bill. According to USA Today, they had sought assurances that moderate Democrats would back Biden’s $1.85 trillion Build Back Better budget bill before voting on the infrastructure bill.

Illinois U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth took on the opposing opinion on the bill, saying it puts the country on the path forward to some major improvements: “No one should have to worry if the water in their home is safe for their family or if the bridge they’re driving over is safe. With this bill, we can put our country on the path toward providing safe water, better roads and much more for our working families. This Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal makes transformative investments to enhance our global competitiveness, economic prosperity and public health and create good-paying jobs and I look forward to President Biden signing this landmark legislation into law.”

Senator Dick Durbin called the bill historic: “Today, a historic deal is making its way to the President’s desk. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal is a once-in-a-generation reinvestment to mend our nation’s crumbling roads and bridges, expand public transit and rail, and provide clean drinking water and broadband to our communities in need. I commend the House on passing the bill yesterday and I look forward to seeing the positive impact of this landmark legislation on communities in Illinois.”

According to Duckworth and Durbin, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Illinois will receive:

• Water Infrastructure: The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal includes Duckworth’s entire Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act, which would help rebuild our nation’s crumbling and dangerous water infrastructure, and also provides five years’ worth of appropriations totaling $1.7 billion to improve drinking and wastewater infrastructure throughout Illinois.
• Roads and bridges: $9.8 billion for federal-aid highway projects and $1.4 billion for bridge replacement and repairs. The state will be eligible for billions more in competitive grant programs.
• Public transportation: Approximately $4 billion over 5 years to improve public transportation options across the state. The state will be eligible for billions more in competitive grant programs.
• Broadband: A minimum allocation of $100 million to help provide broadband coverage across the state, including providing access to the at least 228,000 Illinoisans who currently lack it. 2,926,000 Illinoisans, or 23%, will be eligible for the Affordable Connectivity Benefit, which will help low-income families afford Internet access.
• Airports: Approximately $616 million for airport improvements over 5 years, increasing the Airport Improvement Grant Program and creating a new Airport Terminal Improvement Program.
• Electric vehicles: $149 million over 5 years to support the expansion of an electric vehicle charging network in the state. Illinois is eligible for $2.5 billion in competitive EV charging grants.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes a modified version of Duckworth’s All Stations Accessibility Program (ASAP) Act to help make transit stations more accessible. It also includes a modified version of Durbin’s Protecting Roadside First Responders Act, which requires the implementation of life-saving, crash avoidance safety technologies including automatic emergency braking systems on new vehicles, funds the deployment of digital alert technology for first responders, and increases public awareness of “Move Over” laws.

A Rushville man was sent to an area hospital after two trucks collided in rural Schuyler County yesterday morning.

Illinois State Police District 20 reports that a 1988 Kenworth Straight Truck driven by 52 year old Christopher D. Klitz of Rushville was northbound on Illinois Route 100, just south of Frederick in rural Schuyler County. A 2019 Freightliner Truck Tractor Semi-Trailer driven by 39 year old Kevin J. Searle of East Peoria was traveling directly behind. Klitz slowed his vehicle to turn right into the ADM Grain Elevator. Searle failed to reduce speed and struck the rear of Klitz’s truck. Both units overturned. 

Searle refused medical attention at the scene by EMS. Klitz was transported by ambulance to an area hospital with minor injuries. Searle was cited for Failure to Reduce Speed to Avoid a Crash.