Randolph County

Hundreds of Menard Correctional Center employees and their supporters staged a rally alongside a busy street in Chester, highlighting what they described as perilous working conditions at the state’s largest maximum-security prison.

Darkness and awe swept across southern Missouri and Illinois on Monday as the moon passed between Earth and the sun. St. Louis Public Radio's photographers documented the scene.

Total solar eclipses occur every year or two, but it is exceedingly rare for the paths of two of them to intersect only a handful of years apart, as it has in a swath of southern Missouri and Illinois.

This will be the last time in more than 300 years, researchers say, that a total solar eclipse will go over southern Illinois and Missouri. Here’s what you need to know to make the best of the celestial spectacle.

With the passage of Illinois' Climate and Equitable Jobs Act back in 2021, coal mines and plants will slowly close across the state. The state grant program will provide $3.28 million to various Metro East communities whose coal facilities will close.