Tagged: Springfield

On July 7, 1865, Mary Surratt became the first woman executed by the federal government when she was hanged for her role in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Surratt owned the boarding house in Washington, D.C. where many of the conspirators lived and met. Her own son John was an active participant in the plot. But the depth of her involvement was as hotly debated then as it is now.

A unique collaboration allowed Illinois residents to be a part of that debate and to rewrite a small part of history, if just for the night.

An appeals court has ordered federal prison officials to temporarily stop forcing anti-psychotic drugs on the suspect in the Tucson shooting rampage.

The brief order from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came late Friday after Jared Lee Loughner's lawyers appealed a ruling allowing him to be medicated.

View Locations of found radiation from Japan in IL in a larger map

The map above depicts the locations highlighted in the following story where trace amounts of radiation from Japan have been found in Illinois - Will County and Springfield, Ill.

Reporting from Illinois Public Radio's Sean Crawford used in this report.

Trace amounts of radiation from Japan have shown up in Illinois. But state officials say there's no reason for concern.

Minute levels of radioactive materials have been detected in both northern and central Illinois.  The state's Emergency Management Agency says radioactive iodine was found in grass clippings in Will County and in an air sample collected at a lab in Springfield.