GLT News Director Charlie Schlenker grew up in Rock Island, Illinois and graduated from Augustana College. He has spent more than three decades in radio and has won numerous state and national awards for journalism. He lives in Normal with his family.
A year ago, Erik Rankin took over as Chair of the McLean County Democratic Party. In that time, Democrats have added County Board seats, elected city council members that have party values and built party infrastructure.
We are already a water-challenged planet. As global climate change continues, we are likely to become more so, according to Vandana Shiva, a noted environmentalist.
The Friends of the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts has announced a $5 million capital campaign to finish the Creativity Center across the street from the BCPA on Locust Street.
Only five months after she lost an election for the U.S. House, Springfield Democrat Betsy Dirksen Londrigan announced Thursday she is running for Congress again in the 13th District.
A well-known community organizer unseated a five-term incumbent in Tuesday’s election, meaning four new faces will be joining the Bloomington City Council next month.
GLT's Charlie Schlenker recaps the April 2 municipal elections, which unseated two incumbents (R.C. McBride and Karen Schmidt) on Bloomington-Normal city councils. This aired Wednesday on GLT's Sound Ideas.
Mayor Chris Koos struck an optimistic tone Wednesday that the Town Council won’t become too divisive following the election of two new members who beat his preferred candidates.
Two challengers who’ve criticized the direction of Uptown Normal redevelopment knocked off an incumbent Normal Town Council member Tuesday as they emerged as the top vote-getters in a crowded eight-way race.
Two candidates for a seat on the Heartland Community College Board both said they want to be careful to keep property taxes as low as possible, as did a third who is running uncontested.
One of the few women with disabilities to compete in the Miss America pageant said the conversation about people like her is changing in the United States.
An LGBTQI+ poet and scholar looks to indigenous people in North America for broader gender definitions that can help modern society as the current culture struggles over accepting multiple identities.
Growing up in Springfield, African-American violinist Clayton Penrose-Whitmore was one of few people of color around him playing classical music. Penrose-Whitmore has gone on to a career in music, winning prizes in the Sphinx competition and performing with noted groups such as the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
Debate over gasoline tax increases to fund road repairs in Bloomington and Normal is more complex than the question of keeping the amount the same in both cities.
Bloomington aldermen gave little indication Monday whether they are likely to approve a 4-cent per gallon increase in a local gasoline tax during a committee of the whole meeting that included the topic.
A mental health triage center is on pace to open this spring in the building housing the McLean County Health Department on West Front Street in downtown Bloomington.
ISU President Larry Dietz said campus leaders will meet soon with McLean County Clerk Kathy Michael about improving election service for the April municipal contests.
GLT's Charlie Schlenker talks to Dave Bentlin from the Prairie Pride Coalition, a Bloomington-Normal LGBTQ advocacy organization, about this week's United Methodist Church decision on same-sex marriage and gay and lesbian clergy. Listen to the full interview below.
CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti said those who oppose President Trump should not count on a special prosecutor's report or Congress to get rid of the president.
State Police have made what is considered the third largest cocaine bust in McLean County history. Assistant State's Attorney Jeff Horve said troopers pulled over a semi on I-55 Thursday north of Bloomington Normal for inspection.
It is a cruel irony that the first Christian church in what is now the country of Ghana is built in a coastal fort directly over the holding pens for the slave trade.
