CAHOKIA HEIGHTS, Illinois — For most people, a glass of water and a rainy day are harmless, even comforting. For Earlie Fuse, they are a haunting reminder. When the forecast calls for storms in southern Illinois, he knows to brace for the possibility that his block will turn into a lake again, cutting him off […]
Illinois
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Politics & Policy, Unsafe Water
This Black Town Has E. Coli in Its Drinking Water, but Feds Just Cut Support
At 76, Patricia Greenwood has given up on trying to name whatever now grows in the yard. It isn’t grass, she said. That died many floods ago and never returned. The water in her kitchen has never run clear in her memory. Even the dog refuses to drink it. She is one of many Cahokia […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
Former Deputy Convicted in Killing of Sonya Massey After 15-Month Wait for Justice
An Illinois jury on Wednesday convicted a former sheriff’s deputy of second-degree murder in the death of Sonya Massey, who was shot inside her apartment last year after moving a pot of hot water into a sink. The 36-year-old mother of two called the police for help. She was shot dead on her kitchen floor. […]
Posted inPartner Content, Policing
Ticketed, Towed, and Traumatized: Driving While Black on Campus
Michael Burton was stopped by Southern Illinois University-Carbondale campus police so many times that he dreads driving anywhere near the college. “Anytime I got behind the wheel, I was getting pulled over,” said the 21-year-old junior from the Austin neighborhood in Chicago. He reached his breaking point in December 2023 while driving with friends — […]
Posted inInfrastructure, Unsafe Water
The Sewage Crisis Drowning America’s Poorest Town
Each time it rains, even if it’s just a light rainfall, the streets of Cahokia Heights, Illinois, flood. But that’s not all. Those floodwaters bring in a nightmarish brown tide, a disgusting slurry that engulfs the area, dragging with it the stench of human excrement and decay. With such constant and high floodwaters, people have […]
Posted inEconomic Development, Transportation
Retirees Want Their Homes. This City Wants a Truck Stop.
Jacquenette Cottrell is scared, drained, and damn near bankrupt. For six years, she helped bankroll a lawsuit to stop construction of a Love’s Travel Stop in the middle of her neighborhood in Joliet, the third-largest city in Illinois. The area in question isn’t in the city limits, but an unincorporated area on the east side […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Incarceration, Partner Content
Michael Johnson Spent 3 Years in Solitary and Was About to Give Up on Life. Then He Got a Letter from his Daughter.
This story was originally reported and published by MindSite News, a nonprofit news outlet that reports on mental health. To read more stories like this, sign up for the MindSite News Daily newsletter. Michael Johnson had all but given up on living when a letter from his 14-year-old daughter, Ja’Kyra, arrived for him at Pontiac Correctional Center in 2015. […]